The Bicentennial of My Ancestor Paul Colburn

My 4th great-grandfather Paul Colburn died 200 years ago this week: February 27, 1825. He is buried in the Sulphur Springs Cemetery in Loami, IL in Sangamon County. His marker is a small plate at the foot of the stone of his son and daughter in law, William and Achsa Colburn. (The first three photos are from Find-a-Grave because I can't find my own at the moment.) Paul's great-great-grandfather, Edward Colburn (1618-1700) was an emigrant from England and the first settler of Dracut, MA. I learned recently that Paul was a stone carver whose work can be seen in cemeteries in southern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts. Paul and his wife Mehitibel and some of their children decided to go west, which took them five years, 1815-1820. They settled in Pittsburgh for a while, waiting for the Ohio River to be suitable for raft travel, then they settled in Marietta, OH. When they stopped in Louisville, KY, one of their sons and his wife died, leaving children orphaned. Then Mehitibel died as they went through Shawneetown, IL. Finally they settled in Sangamon County as one of the first pioneers of small Loami, IL. They arrived in the county a few months before Elijah Iles, who is considered the founder of nearby Springfield. The two early Sangamon histories give their story, which I copied: https://paulstroble.wordpress.com/2011/06/11/my-family-the-carsons-and-colburns/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIrWE1leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHbmgzRvGsAErD9pSf2iGxlzMH0wzyTcyjyYFrrtQp4ZrVx1wQXpdN3emkw_aem_LmdtoJDDmBvLlUhFU7F4yA These are ancestors through Dad's beloved maternal grandmother Alice Carson. The Colburns went through such hardship to move to Illinois, that I'm glad that I know Paul's death date and can share their story. 

Landscape: Paul Fischer

 

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Pluto's Discovery

Pluto was discovered on February 18, 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ. A planet beyond Neptune had been theorized since the 1840s. Percival Lowell himself searched for a number of years. He caught faint image of Pluto in 1915 but, sadly for him, they were not recognized as the ninth planet. Tombaugh's discovery was confirmed by followup photographs, and was announced on March 13, 1930. In the years since, the Kuiper Belt has been discovered: a very large belt of objects from asteroids to dwarf planets. Pluto is one such planet in the belt. The object Eris is larger than Pluto. Since other planets and their moons (if any) have a "clear" orbit of their own around the Sun (unlike Pluto and its many Kuiper objects), the International Astronomical Union "demoted" Pluto to dwarf planet status. A certain amount of unhappiness resulted, even including resolutions in state legislatures to affirm Pluto as a planet!  Pluto orbits the Sun once in 248 Earth years. So it has made a little over 1/3rd of its journey since 1930. During some Earth years, Pluto's atypical orbit brings it closer to the Sun than Neptune. It has five satellites, and a surface temperature that can reach 33 degrees K (-400 degrees F).

Picture from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#/media/File:Pluto_in_True_Color_-_High-Res.jpg

Pale Blue Dot

The Voyager 1 space probe was launched in 1977 to study the outer Solar System. On February 14, 1990, when the probe had traveled about 3.7 billion miles, the probe's camera was turned around to get a final photo of Earth. Earth appears as a tiny, bright dot in the band of light on the right. Carl Sagan, who proposed the idea of the picture, wrote a book Pale Blue Dot (1994) in which he reflects on our smallness in the universe. "It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

 

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Landscapes!

Some beautiful paintings that I've seen posted on Facebook lately. (Copied under fair use.) 

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The Four Chaplains

On the Episcopal calendar, the Four Chaplains are honored today, the anniversary of their deaths in 1943 when their ship, the SS Dorchester, was torpedoed by a German sub and sunk. Rev. George Fox was a Methodist Minister, Rev. John P. Washington was a Catholic priest, Dr. Alexander D. Goode was a Reform rabbi, and Rev. Clark V. Pooling was a Reformed Church minister. As the ship sank, they assisted soldiers in boarding lifeboats, calmed the men, and gave their own life jackets to soldiers. They prayed for the men and sang hymns together, their arms joined, and went down with the ship. Dr. Goode also prayed in Hebrew, and Fr. Washington in Latin. Only 230 of the 904 crew members were rescued. 

The four chaplains are honored in numerous ways, including the 1948 postage stamp pictured here. I first learned of the men when I was little and collected stamps, and my dad, who was a Pacific war veteran, told me the story.

The Illinois Territory

On this day in 1809, Congress passed legislation that established the Illinois Territory. Ninian Edwards, the namesake of nearby Edwardsville, IL (and father of Lincoln's brother-in-law), was governor for nearly all of the territorial period. Fun fact: Edwards' daughter Julia married politician Daniel Pope Cook, who became the namesake for Cook County, Illinois. There has never been a history focused upon Illinois territory and its government, but "The Illinois Country, 1673-1818" by Clarence Alvord (1918) is a classic study that has sufficed.

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Landscape: Grant Wood

Grant Wood, Spring in Town, 1941. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 

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Landscape: Oswald Achenbach

I discovered this artist this evening. Born February 2, 1827, Oswald Achenbach isn't so well known today but was acclaimed in his own time. Here are his paintings "Fireworks in Naples" (1875), "Morning" (1854), and "Constantine's Triumphal Arch in Rome" (1886). 

Anniversary of "The Raven"

"Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,/ In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore...."  

"The Raven" was first published in the New York Evening Mirror on January 29, 1845. Poe used internal rhyme and alliteration, and based the rhythm on Elizabeth Barrett's poem "Lady Geraldine's Courtship". Of course, the poem is about an agonized lover who becomes more upset by the single word spoken by his avian visitor.

(We used to have ravens in our Arizona backyard. They're nearly two feet long, depending on the type. If one flew into my house, I wouldn't talk to it, I'd run away, LOL) 

The poem brought Poe little income but acclaim as a poet.

Three Great Baseball Players

Great ball players!  Jackie Robinson, and Ernie "Mr. Cub" Banks, and also Nolan Ryan, were all born on January 31st (1919, 1931, 1947).  

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Morris Founding Fathers

Here are Gouveneur Morris and Robert Morris, painted by Charles Wilson Peale in 1783. The two were not related but they shared a January 31st birthday (1752, 1734) and distinction as Founding Fathers. 

Robert Morris served as a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, the Second Continental Congress, and the United States Senate, and was one of only two people who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution. (Roger Sherman is the other.) Robert served as Superintendent of Finance of the U.S. in 1781-1784. With Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin, Robert is one of the founders of the U.S. financial system. 

Gouveneur Morris not only signed both the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution, he also wrote the final version of the Constitution's Preamble. He advanced the idea of being a citizen of the Union, rather than only the citizen of an individual state. (This idea continued to develop in the U.S.). Gouveneur was also one of the outspoken opponents to slavery at the constitutional convention. He represented New York in the United States Senate from 1800 to 1803.

The two men served together in the 1780s when Robert was Superintendent of Finance and Gouveneur was Assistant Superintendent.

Jacqueline du Pre

Although her life and career were cut short by MS, Jacqueline du Pré is regarded as one of the greatest cellists. She was born January 26, 1945, 80 years ago. I remember getting such a lump in my throat as I listened to her playing the Elgar concerto, on Kent State's radio station several years ago. That 9/8 beginning is so affecting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPhkZW_jwc0

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

On January 27, 1945--80 years ago--Allied forces liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau. Auschwitz was the complex of camps, near the Polish town of Oświęcim, where nearly a million Jews were murdered within five years, and also non-Jewish Poles, Roma, the handicapped, and others, 1.1 million altogether. The United Nations designed January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, to remember the Jewish victims of the Shoah and the millions of other victims of the Nazis... I had heard of this book, "And Every Single One Was Someone," by Phil Chernofsky. Except for the introduction, the book contains only the word Jew, 4800 times on each page for 1250 pages, thus repeating the word 6 million times. The cover depicts a Jewish prayer shawl.

New Music Every Week: Bruckner's Fifth

 I decided to listen to new music---new to me---every week in 2025. 

I've always read about Bruckner's symphonies but had listened very little to them. Here is the beautiful Fifth, conducted by Sergiu Celibidache. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elVHvTrEM34

 

Landscape: John Clymer

 

New England's "Indian Wars"

 My most recent poetry book, "East Rock", includes a chapter about King Philip's War (1675-1676), the deadly conflict between Native tribes and English settlers in New England. I had distant English relatives in the war, including one who was killed in the ambush called Wheeler's Surprise. 

I collected several wonderful antique books about the "Indian Wars" of New England. 

 

This last book was owned by Bishop Whipple: 

"Henry Benjamin Whipple, the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, is known for his missionary work among the Dakota and Ojibwe and his efforts to reform the U.S. Indian administration system. After the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, Whipple was one of the few white men to oppose the death sentences of 303 Dakota." https://www.mnopedia.org/person/whipple-henry-benjamin-1822-1901#:~:text=Henry%20Benjamin%20Whipple%2C%20the%20first,Indian%20administration%20system

As that site indicates, he continued to work for the growth of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota and also on behalf of Native Americans.

See also: https://www.mnopedia.org/person/whipple-henry-benjamin-1822-1901#:~:text=Henry%20Benjamin%20Whipple%2C%20the%20first,Indian%20administration%20system.

50th Anniversary of "Blood on the Tracks"

 Dylan's classic album "Blood on the Tracks" was released January 20, 1975! 

https://forward.com/culture/music/690199/bob-dylan-blood-on-the-tracks-50th-anniversary-1975/

Ficowski's "A Reading of Ashes"

 A few years ago I discovered the poetry of Polish poet and writer Jerzy Ficowski (1924-2006). During the war he was part of the Polish resistance and participated in the Warsaw Uprising. I found this edition of his book, A Reading of Ashes: Poems (Odczytanie popiołów). The book is in Polish and Hebrew, with art by Marc Chagall. 

This source discusses Ficowski's desire to address the Holocaust, as well as efforts to conceal the horror. https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/reading-ashes-poems-odczytanie-popiolow

In another source, we have this: "A Reading of Ashes is an attempt to invent a language to describe completely new things, as well as an expression of helplessness and genuine repentance." https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110671056-085/html?lang=en&srsltid=AfmBOopZw7nIo0ZchQcUzRlfJDHYGCptYQ3VNSBODeqM6ovhXRwRKC7G

A Precious Old Poetry Book

My mom purchased this book at one of Vandalia's used book sales downtown. Proceeds went to the Friends of the Library. This particular book had been withdrawn from library circulation. 

I liked to read some of the poetry as I sat outside in our backyard, when I was in middle school,  1971 and 1972. I liked Walt Whitman the best, and also Sidney Lanier. I hoped that someday I'd also write poetry.