The Executive or Governor’s Council of Massachusetts is another asset the Party of Lincoln needs to examine and set its sights on.
A little known organization it is a popularly elected group to assist the Governor in a variety of decisions in the Commonwealth. One of the National Lancers made an attempt at it a few years back but ran as an Independent.
This group has long been ignored, and that should change.
On Cavalry Rd in Carlisle, PA is a Sherman Tank with a plaque on it. I decided to stop and look at it real quick during lunch and discovered it was from Pennsylvania’s Governor’s Troop as well as the Gobin Guards.
I did not know that the Philidelphia Troop was not the Governors Escort, but I guess it does not really matter.
I talked briefly to a soldier preparing a cook out at the monument and found out what the Gobin Guards are. It is a veterans group for former members of the 108th Field Artillery.
Peake said there may be opportunities to lease out vacant land and buildings at the four Massachusetts campuses for housing, assisted-living facilities, and retirement communities for veterans.
This was in the Boston Globe today in reference to the decision not to close any of the 4 campuses of the VA in the Greater Boston area. This is a good starting point, but there is still much work to be done.
I was at Carlilse Barrack’s Military History Institute at lunchtime and decided to take the trail with the Army History Exhibits. My favorite is the World War One Trench.
While there I got the phone call I have gotten too often. It always starts with “its a funny story …”
I know when I hear this the next sentence has restraining order in it. And it did.
It was from a childhood friend who still lives in Boston. We are well into mid life here and this nonsense still continues in the Bay State at an alarming pace. There comes a time when the judicial system needs to tell people to act like adults and solve their own problems.
I’ve never been to interested in reading up on the Plymouth Colony mostly because the true history is all to often shrouded in myth. Stories of Plymouth Rock, the first Thanksgiving, religious freedom, and the start of American overshadow the truth. The latter is especially true since even before I lived near Jamestown for several years I was aware that it and several other Virginia settlements preceded Plymouth (not to mention St. Augustine, FL and the California missions). The other thing that bugs me about popular history of the colonial era - for both Plymouth and Jamestown - is that the story seems to cover the 1620’s and then jump 150 years ahead to the Revolution. If we’re lucky they might pick up the story in the 1690’s with the Salem Witch Trials. What happened to the colony during the time when the second and third generations of English settlers (and those born here) were making their mark on New England?
Despite it’s title, Mayflower (2006) by Nathaniel Philbrick tells the story of the Plymouth colony from its origins among the English Separatists living in Leiden, Holland to King Phillip’s War in the 1670’s. While not comprehensive, this is a thorough history of the Plymouth Colony’s first half-century. Along the way the truths of some of the myths are put in context, but the real story is much more interesting. Plymouth survived through complex and changing alliances among the Piligrims and various native tribes in New England. Old histories generally characterize the Indians as savages, newer histories shift the blame to imperialist Europeans, but Mayflower refreshingly characterizes both English and Indian as humans, flawed but making the best of things in uneasy times. Also interesting is the often overlooked story of the Plymouth Pilgrims relations with other colonies including the rowdy merrymakers of Merrymount, the larger and more prosperous Massachusetts Bay Colony, and even the Dutch in New Netherland.
The real heart of the story comes in the chapters about King Phillip’s War. If there’s a major fault in this book it is that Philbrick really seems to have wanted to write just about the war and all the chapters preceding it, while good, feel almost like a long preamble. The war is a complex conflict with alliances forming that pit Indian versus Indian, English hostilities against non-combatant tribes inadvertently forcing those tribes into the war, and noble deeds and atrocities performed by each side. The war had a considerable cost both in lives (the death rate considerable higher than later American wars) and psychologically as the English and Indians never were able to live together again in New England. Central to the story of King Phillip’s War is Benjamin Church, whom Philbrick characterizes as the first frontiersman - someone who fought Indians, yes, but respected them and adopted their practices along the way. In Church, Philbrick sees the creation of an American identity for the next two centuries.
Mayflower is a good popular history and an easy read. I learned a lot and recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about the time period.
My commitment to the Horse Show for Veterans is still as strong as ever. My research has lead me to one conclusion, there needs to be a womens only veterans shelter set up somewhere in the greater Boston area.
The current veterans shelters in state in Boston, Worcester and Leeds do not have any womens only facilities. This needs to change due to the nature of the conflict we have been in during the last seven years women have played a larger part than ever.
Women veterans have different needs than male veterans. It is time we recognize this fact.
As for the other facilities expansion is possible on all of them and is an issue that would be addressed after the womens facility has been debated and realized.
Since Dover is Norfolk County they have a different State Senator James Timilty who happens to be a Democrat. He has not raised as much money over the years as Scott Brown but holds a very similar seat as far as demagraphics go.
I have written about Massachusetts State Senator Scott Brown before but on my last trip his name came up on several occasions. He seems to be one of the last hopes for the two party system checks and balances so desperately needed in the Commonwealth.
My question is what are his future ambitions and is he someone that could reach the top office in the Commonwealth?
There needs to be a major push this next election for Governor to restore the Party of Lincoln to Beacon Hill.
The award winning author Nathaniel Philbrick has produced an epic tale of the Pilgrims perilous journey to North America, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. It was all about religious freedom, a voyage on a tiny ship that ended at Plymouth Rock, and the support of friendly Indians—right? Wrong—Philbrick destroys those myths with his first few pages. His search for the “full truth” paints a story that is far more complex and morally ambiguous than the popular mythology Americans have come to embrace. Yes, there is a kernel of truth in many of the myths that historians and poets have perpetuated in the three centuries since the Mayflower landed, but Philbrick’s reality quickly redefines the essence of such tales. He does celebrate the courage and resourcefulness of these early settlers, spending a good deal of ink on the relationship between Pilgrims and the Indian tribes that populated New England. The author also highlights such events as the signing of the Mayflower Compact, penned during the crossing of the Atlantic; a document that would later provide the underpinning for America’s democratic system. Philbrick paints a picture of the Pilgrims as religious fundamentalists, in search of a form of Christianity unscathed by centuries of abuse. Pilgrims possessed by a religious fervor capable of suppressing any and all dissent and perpetrating unbelievable acts of violence against the Indian population. Perhaps, the most enlightening of Philbrick’s revelations are his descriptions of a war most Americans know nothing about, King Philip’s War. As settlements appeared ever further to the West, the Indians quickly realized the gravity of their situation. The result was the burning of Springfield in 1675, the spark that ignited this dreadful little war. Over eight percent of the males in Plymouth Colony would perish in the war. By way of comparison, less than one percent of America’s male population perished in World War II. If the reader wishes to maintain those cherished images of nattily-clad Pilgrims stepping onto Plymouth Rock, of Indians and Puritans setting down to tables of bounty at Thanksgiving, and Indian-Pilgrim cooperation in the establishment of settlements in the New World, this book is not for you. If, on the other hand, you want your history based on fact, this story of racial disharmony, violence, and an unrelenting search for religious identity and economic opportunity, this is what you are seeking.
Categories: Pilgrims
It has been a good trip to Boston this time around. I have someone close to me that has terminal cancer so I get to visit them as much as possible.
I had dinner with a Sherborn Town Historian one night. Betsy Johnson is an expert on history in the town and we exchange ideas from time to time. We are generally in agreement that Captain Moses Babcock’s Company of Cavalry was War of 1812 and not the Revolution as indicated in the 1974 Sherborn History Book. His grave is marked with a Revolution marker but this is a common mistake with 1812.
She asked me to describe the differences between the Continental Army and the Militia of that time.
1) The militia was paid for by the towns and not federally.
2) Militia officers were voted on by the men and in the Continental Army they were appointed by the Army.
3) Militia men were not in set enlistment contracts because all able bodied males were supposed to be in it. The Continental Army was for set period enlistments.
4) The militia could be drafted into the Continental Army and not the other way around.
I hope this helps.
