Credit Cards and Oliver Lee

I wanted to pull out another section of the previous blog post - another same shit, different day issue... This article was written in 1884. The author is talking about buying things on credit. Our modern day credit cards which allow a consumer to spread their liability around, rather than in this circumstance when one knew the proprietor of the general store.

About that time there was a large amount of lumber from the south east towns of this county and from portions of Cattaraugus County being hauled here for a market. There were several parties here paying cash for lumber most of which went to New England. Many of the parties who came here with lumber left half or three-forths [sic] of their receipts for it with the merchants for goods. At that time we had no rail road connection with Buffalo so that every woman that was in need of a calico dress or two or three spools of thread and a paper of pins could not very conveniently go to Buffalo to shop. Then four or five general stores were better supported and had a larger trade than one or two now have. Hence the system of doing business at that period was quite different from the present. Then every farmer and every man of any business who was regarded as any responsible was allowed to run a bill at the stores. It is a well known fact that many people are prone to purchase articles they do not require or could get along without when they can be bought on time. They do not appear to appreciate that a pay day is coming at some future period and may come when they are least prepared for it.

[Emphasis mine.]

This Oliver Lee was a shrewd businessman, wasn't he? As I was reading this account all I cold think of was the HBO show "Deadwood" and the guy who owns the tavern/bordello, Al Swearengen. From the television show's website, they describe him thusly:

The proprietor of The Gem Saloon was six months ahead of everyone else in Deadwood, and he runs the town like a corrupt riverboat captain. He knows every move that every person in town makes, anticipates problems and eliminates them. His girls aren't exactly the class of the town, but he controls the most successful bar and whorehouse in all of Deadwood—bringing in $5,000 a day in 1876—and anybody that threatens his sources of income may well end up fed to Mr. Wu's pigs.

How would we view Oliver Lee? I mean one hopes he was a kind and generous man who helped everyone, but what if he were more like Al Swearengen? History is written by the victors... could this article, being written 50 years after the circumstances, be written by a beneficiary of Oliver Lee's legacy? Man, do I have a pernicious mind? To think ill of people... maybe I should imagine that everyone is sweetness and light... A cheery attitude makes for a much rosier picture.

I mean, at what interest rate? Did Mr. Lee have thugs to break the legs of those people who couldn't pay when the bill came due? (Ok, I have to confess, I am writing this blog as I read the article. I see that perhaps I hit the nail on the head... wouldn't you say that there is a bit of a defense going on in this next paragraph? This just makes me laugh out loud!)

Mr. Lee was always liberal in giving credit to his customers. He generally gave them to understand that at the end of six months or at least once a year that their account must be settled up, and then if they were unable to pay and the party was responsible, a note on interest was taken. When customers paid no attention to the notice that their accounts must be settled, the accounts were generally placed in the hands of a collector. From this fact some of this class endeavored to create the impression that Mr. Lee was severe on those who were not in condition to pay, when in fact all he required was for them to live up to their agreement or the conditions under which they obtained credit. It is a fact that cannot be denied that it would be far better for all parties if the system of credit was entirely wiped out and all parties were compelled to pay for what they purchase on the receipt of the goods.

Hahahaha! Collector - that's a polite term, right? Severe? Hahahaha, he was probably a cruel brute! Live up to their agreement! Yes, the law is on his side. I reemphasize: Same shit, different day!

Follow Up to Mr Lee's story

I pulled these paragraphs from the article from August 15th. Man, same shit, different day... They were not Syrian or Iraqi in 1835, but groups of migrants moving from one location/country to another for a better life... getting charged all sorts of fees so they can get on transport.

There are but a few people of today who realize [sic] the great revolution railroads have created in travel and traffic, but even fifty years ago travel by lake steamers, especially in the spring, was immense. At that period there was no railroad running west of Utica in this state. The canal was the great artery through which the travel passed up through the state to Buffalo. There it was changed to lake steamers. Whenever steamers were prevented by ice from leaving Buffalo until after the opening of the canal, that city soon became full to overflowing with strangers, all anxiously waiting to proceed on their journey westward.

There were three or four spring seasons between 1835 and 1840 when Buffalo bay became packed with ice so that it completely blockaded that harbor until long after the opening of the canal. At each of these periods boats from western ports came as far as this place where they remained, two or three days or long enough to pick up a number of passengers for their trip west. As soon as it was known in Buffalo that there were boats here waiting for passengers the crowd would start. Animals that could hardly travel and vehicles of every description were brought into requisition for the purpose of conveying passengers and baggage from Buffalo here.

All prices were charged, from three dollars to ten dollars a person, in accordance with style of conveyance and the person’s amount of ready cash. Some individuals who had remained in Buffalo until their funds were nearly exhausted were compelled to make the distance on foot and often those who had paid a high price for conveyance were compelled to walk a large portion of the way or be left alongside the road. They were compelled to be content with having their baggage brought through safely. As soon as one crowd got away from Buffalo their places were usually taken by newcomers. This tide of excitement and travel was kept up for two or three weeks. During the time it made business lively here at this end of the route.

All italics and bold lettering are mine. It just seems to parallel some experiences going on in the world today - though on a much smaller scale. I should imagine the anxiety and frustration and fear are all the same.

200th Anniversary of the Year Without a Summer: How did you ancestors survive endless winter?

A cousin kindly sent me this article (which can be found here, from a blog called Findmypast.) I have a document, found amongst my great aunt papers, dated from 1815 from the Hebron, NY area. Didn't Joseph Smith come from around there? There is a man's name on the document, but I am afraid I do not recognize it as a member of my family.... So, the oldest document I have in my possession is a total mystery to me.

I will have to start thinking about this in the context of my family...


Historical anniversaries give us a chance to look back on some of the remarkable events in history and reflect on their impact today.

They're intriguing when thinking about our own family history and the world our ancestors lived in. Oftentimes we can determine motivations for their footsteps that we've so carefully traced through time.

1816: A global climate catastrophe

200 years ago, our ancestors experienced what historians call "the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world" - food in both America and Europe became scarce, resulting in widespread famine and economic crises in many areas.

Agriculture struggled because the normally stable summer temperatures of New England, Central Canada and Western Europe were highly abnormal in 1816. Overall, global temperatures fell significantly and the aforementioned areas experienced frost, snow and cold temperatures during the prime crop-growing months of the years.

The world was already in a long period of global cooling since the 1300's, known by climate historians as "The Little Ice Age." This larger period in history was already causing agricultural trouble for humans and in 1816 the issues were exacerbated to an extreme degree.

Mysterious red fog plagues America

In the spring and summer of 1816, many throughout the eastern United States observed a strange "dry fog" that persistently hung around. The fog dimmed sunlight and bathed everything in a strangely red light - it wasn't moist, and couldn't be dispersed by rainfall or wind.

All throughout New England, temperatures dropped below freezing in May, June, July and August. The grounds froze and the fields were as barren as they were in winter. Towns located at high elevations - where farming was difficult even in good conditions - suffered the most.

Corn was hardly worth harvesting, and many wheat crops were devastated, making bread-products very scarce. This resulted in sky-high prices for food and many from the lower classes risked starvation. For instance, a bushel of oats cost the equivalent of $1.55 today in 1815 but increased to the equivalent of $12.83 today in 1816. That's an increase of over 700%!

While the western United States did not suffer, transporting food at this point was very difficult - the country had yet to be linked together by reliable rail transport, forcing most communities to rely on local production for food supplies.

How Joseph Smith and your ancestors were affected

The struggles in New England caused a mass emigration from the area and greatly sped up Westward expansion in the United States. If your family migrated west around this time, it's very possible that they moved due to these agricultural struggles or food shortages.

Western New York and the Northwest Territory (now the Great Lakes region) were very popular destinations for families with ruined land. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people emigrated from Vermont, including the family of a young Joseph Smith.

The Smith family moved to Palmyra, New York, to join other members of their family. It was here that Smith began his path to founding the Latter Day Saint church - in a strange way, this climate disaster played an indirect role in initiating Joseph's journey.

Beautiful sunsets and Frankenstein: Cultural positives

Interestingly, in the same way high levels of air-born pollution today can produce some marvelous sunsets, the mysterious dry fog that covered the land did the same thing. English landscape artist J.M.W. Turner likely drew inspiration for some of his work from the sunsets of this year and elevated landscape painting to prominence through his brilliant paintings, paving the way for Americans like Thomas Cole and the Hudson River School.

The amazing sunsets and sunrises of 1816 likely inspired some of Turners most famous paintings, like this one:

J.M.W. TURNER, THE 'FIGHTING TEMERAIRE' TUGGED TO HER LAST BERTH TO BE BROKEN UP 1838-39

Elsewhere in Europe, the dreadful weather resulted in the creation of an iconic literary monster. Mary Shelley and her future husband Percy Brysshe Shelley were visiting Lord Byron in Switzerland in the summer of 1816, and the constant rain and cold precipitated a chain of events that led to Shelley writing an initial draft of Frankenstein.

What caused the climate change

Climate historians and climatologists hypothesize that this change was brought on by a massive volcanic eruption in 1815 in the Dutch East Indies (modern day Indonesia). The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora was the biggest the world had seen for 1,300 years and resulted in between 70,000 and 100,000 deaths in the South Pacific due to the immediate effects.

This enormous eruption brought on a volcanic winter (a reduction in global temperatures due to volcanic ash and sulfuric acid in the atmosphere obscuring sunlight) that resulted in the disaster of 1816. In addition, global weather patterns were affected, ushering in wildly different seasonal temperatures:

In tracing your family's journey through time, don't overlook major events like the Year Without a Summer when constructing their story. Understanding this climate phenomenon may give you some explanation for the migration of your ancestors.

OMG - so much to research now....

I was researching a branch of the tree and I came across this article in the Troy Times Record - The Times Record, 7 Dec 1959, Mon, Pages 18 & 37 - on Newspapers.com.

How unbelievable to get a glimpse in to the history of my family as told by a cousin. Now I just need to find the article which she read which compelled her to write in to the Times Record in 1959.

And I have a lot of leads here which might help me understand. I mean, this might be a female line, but to know when the family arrived in Troy? How wonderful.

Llamas at the Festival!

I probably spent an hour talking with the owners of the llamas. These were the same llamas as last year... and of course I did not catch the llamas' names. Nor did I catch the last name of the owners, Steve and Denise. They have 8 llamas, four males and four females. And of course they both have day jobs; this is a hobby.

Me and the admiring children all wanted to pet the llamas, but the llamas would have none of it. Steve told me that they will put up with it some times, but mostly the animals were dodging our hands as we reached in to lovingly touch them. Finally after I had been with them for the better part of an hour Steve gave a child some pellets to feed them. I was like - 'WHAT! How come you didn't offer me any pellets to feed the llamas?' He had two responses, the first I don't recall, and the second was that I wasn't six. Hmmmm. I should probably learn from that.

Redoubled Energy (Back with Herb in France)

It's interesting to think about Herb's comment about keeping the war effort going at top speed at home. I am certain he is not referencing what is going through my head... What I think about is food production. I read that the reason we have so many food companies was because during WW2 we had to ship a lot of food to our soldiers and the food had to survive the trip - hence preservatives. And also, once those companies existed, they needed to continue after the war for the jobs they created, so rather than to make women's lives easier with Rice-a-Roni, the reason we have all these manufactured-food companies was to keep the jobs and the assets at work. Scary thought, isn't it? I mean, one can see the logic of the reasoning, but crap, at the expense of our health and family life.

Which of course leads to the next subject which I will not discuss here, but all the technological advances because of war and military.

Anyway... on to different subjects:
Here is the front page of the New York Times as Herb is writing this letter home:



I'm afraid I don't know who Miss McElwee is. The quickest of searches in Ancestry.com didn't find anything.

Chas is Herb's cousin.

Herb's maternal aunt lives in Huntingdon, NY - it's actually Chas' mother who Nellie Jane is going to visit.

August 25 (1918)

Dear Mother,
I had Dad’s letter of July 28 as well as yours yesterday – the first in a week or so.

We’re still taking things easy – though I expect our time is getting pretty short now. We’ve been in rest billets now almost two weeks. The past week has been very hot and close up till yesterday when a good hard rain cooled things off a bit. However it’s been good harvesting weather and the farm people – they’re old men, boys, women and men not fit for service over here – are very busy from early morning till dark getting in grain.

The war news grows steadily better as you know. I’ve seen accounts of wild celebrating in the States over the American’s victory on the Marne. I think people might better save their breath to keep war work at top speed myself. There is no doubt that the Allied machine is steadily growing and will before long be irresistible but the proper time to shout is after the crossing of the Rhine. This is the time or the folks at home to put their shoulders to the wheel with redoubled energy. The wheel has started, right enough, but it’s going to take lots of more pushing to keep increasing its speed.

I was much interested to hear that Miss McElwee had been working at 14 Wall. Are you sure it wasn’t before I left. I was in and out of there quite often and it would seem as if I should have seen at some time or other.

I wish to Pete Chas would write to me, I haven’t had a letter from him in a couple of months or so.

I expect that by now or in a few days at least you will be in Huntingdon. I’d like to be with you. The Sound is such a wonderful place these days.

The last drafts must have taken a good many of the boys around town. It may be that Stan Kling is over here now. I’ve known cases where things moved as fast as that. Wends must be rather deserted these days.

We’re still with the same Division of French. Of course I can’t name it but I can tell you that it’s rather famous and is largely composed of Chasseurs – those smallish chaps in dark blue uniforms and as good as fighting men as there are anywhere. I couldn’t tell you at the time but I think I can now that we were in the thick of it when the Germans advanced across the Marne. It was a very uncomfortable week because we were all running around like mad all over and had the Germans always on our heels. It took about a week to locate all the men and cars and get them together. They were scattered all over the salient (?). Well, the Germans went back faster than they came in so we were revenged, though I should have liked to have been there to see it.

The hot weather made me a bit sick to my stomach for a day or two but that’s over with and I’m feeling very fit.

A few nights ago we celebrated our vacation with a big dinner – quite a nice dinner, too – and a sort of party afterwards. Everyone seemed to enjoy himself.

Your affectionate son,
Herb

What Katrina Couldn't Take Away

This was a powerful quilt hung at the rest stop just inside Mississippi. We think of New Orleans when we think of Katrina, but of course all around was pretty well devastated.

I wish the photograph were better so we could see more clearly what the kids indicated. This quilt makes me think of the quilt I saw at the NY State Military Museum.