Welcome to my Golden Gazette, filled with news on my favorite era-- the Old West. The 1800's were an enthralling time, and I offer you a bit of those long ago days...
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Lady Liberty
October 28, 1886 - The New York Harbor has a new lady. She is the first to greet foreigners as she stands so tall and proud, lifting her torch. She is the Statue of Liberty. A symbol of freedom.
The statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World" was a gift to the Americans from the French people, a token of friendship between the two countries.
The idea of symbolizing this gift was first conceived at a dinner party in 1865, hosted by French Professor and writer Edouard de Laboulaye. He talked about giving a "monument that would celebrate American liberty and promote support for democracy in France." Those attending the party were sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi who liked the idea. For the next twenty years he worked to bring the symbol to life, and even visited the United States in 1871. While in New York, the site he envisioned was Bedloe's Island (now known as Liberty Island.)
Frederic Auguste Bartholdi wanted the statue to be present for the Independence 100th anniversary celebration in 1876. After working five years, he was only able to finish the torch and arm. Those pieces were shipped to Philadelphia for the celebration.
A symbol of friendship stayed with New York for eight years. The lady would need a pedestal to stand. Thus, fundraising soon began.
The Statue of Liberty was completed in 1884. It would be a year later before she was taken apart, placed in 214 boxes and sail on a steamship to her new home in America. Millions of people, including American schoolchildren, donated money to help fund the pedestal.
The Statue of Liberty was unveiled at a huge dedication ceremony on October 26, 1886. She stood 151 feet tall and wore a crown and long green robe. The author of the poem "The New Colossus" was not even invited to the ceremony. Emma Lazarus, a young Russian Jewish woman, had written the poem three years prior to help raise funds. Her beautifully penned words are now famous:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempestost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
In 1903, Emma Lazarus's poem was forever engraved in a plaque and placed to the Statue of Liberty's base.
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Barber poles
A man needing a bandage or have poison drained from the body need not look further than the nearest red, white and blue barber pole. The colors of the pole stand for more than just United States colors and represent blood (red) bandages (white) and vein (blue.) Barbers can perform surgery, extract teeth and drain a patient's blood. One popular source for bloodletting is by applying live leeches or lancing the flesh.
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It's Lilac Time
The Lilac Lady and her luscious lilacs are in bloom. Come with me and delight in the fragrant scents of the season, while strolling through her gorgeous grounds. Hulda Klager will stir your senses with the sweet blossoms she began working with in 1905. Recently, my darlin' hubby, kiddies and I spent the afternoon meandering through the heavenly scented gardens and her lovely farmhouse circa 1887. Lilacs are one of my most favorite flowers. -- ( Be sure to hit your back button to return to Lady Belle Outlaw's Hideout )
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Those were the days. Ever wonder why some teachers seem so 'old fashioned'? Perhaps it had something to do with 'old school.' Sheesh, talk about tough rules...
1872 Rules For Teachers
1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the other reading good books.
6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Every teacher should lay aside from each day pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.
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Gentle reader, over one hundred years ago, a little girl wrote a letter to The New York Sun. Its first run in the newspaper was in 1897, touching the hearts of readers and being reprinted annually until 1949 when the paper went out of business. Here is Francis P. Church's editorial:
Victorian era Santa Claus
Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus
Editorial Page, New York Sun, 1897 - We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no
Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so."
Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
- Virginia O'Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected
by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe
except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is
not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia,
whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great
universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect
as compared with the boundless world about him, as
measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of
truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion
exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its
highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if
there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there
were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no
poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We
should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The
external light with which childhood fills the world would be
extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in
fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the
chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if
you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that
prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there
is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that
neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies
dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that
they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the
wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise
inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not
the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith,
poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view
and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all
real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real
and abiding.
No Santa Claus? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A
thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years
from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of
childhood.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!
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Ever wonder where the word "booze" comes from? In 1860, the most common type of bottle whiskey was sold in was a square, dark amber bottle shaped as log cabins. The best known was the "Booz Log Cabin" bottle. E.C. Booz devised the bottle and, according to legend by our early Western pioneers, it popularized the word "booze," as plainsmen would enter a saloon and, pointing to the log cabin bottle, say, "Gimme a shot of booz."
Whiskey, however, was distilled years before.
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A penny for your thoughts
Recently, my dear mom, who collects old coins, attended a coin show. She brought with her a penny from 1914 that on the backside is blank. Wow! hmm, maybe a mistake. Turns out, after close inspection under a magnifying glass, it was resolved the backside has been filed away, something the naked eye cannot see. According to expert, back in the 1800's, men would file backsides of pennies until smooth, inscribe a 'love message' to their girl and present it as a token of their love. Nowadays, these coins are worth anywhere up to $500.00.
As for my mom's coin being blank, well...kinda makes me wonder what happened and why no inscription was made...
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With Independence Day upon us, I thought it fitting to add the original words to "The Star-Spangled Banner," written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key. It wasn't until 1931 that Congress declared his opus as the official national anthem. Okay, so it's not Old West, but I just happen to get misty eyed when Old Glory is blowin' in the breeze and our national anthem is sung. Have a safe and happy 4th of July!
The Star-Spangled Banner
By Francis Scott Key
O, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed by the twilight's last
gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
through the perilous fight
o'r the ramparts we watched
were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets red glare,
the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night
that our flag was still there.
O, say does that star-spangled banner yet
wave
O'r the land of the free and the home of the brave.
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Belle Starr
She is a legend now, Belle Starr, the notorious outlaw queen of the Indian Territory in the musty 1880's. Shortly after she was killed on February 3, 1889, a dirt farmer near Eufaula, Oklahoma was quoted in a Tulsa newspaper with the following:
"When night settles down over that canyon yonder you can hear the sounds of guns firing along the river, the clanking of chains of the prisoners marching to their cells. All through the night, Belle Starr's favorite mare can be heard pawing the ground near her grave, and if a gun is fired into the ground near Belle's grave the sod will flare up and pop like the pistols of bandits a-firin' from the hip."
(True West, February, 1969)
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A letter from Jack McCall, "A Cool Customer," in the Cheyenne Leader, February 6, 1877. The page one news, with actual spelling, read as follows:
A Cool Customer
The following is a copy of a letter recently written to a friend in Denver by Jack McCall, Wild Bill Hickok's convicted murderer:
Yankon, Dakota Territory
January 13 18'77
Dear Friend,
I received your letter and will drop you a few lines to let you know how I am getting along. I am in good health and spirits, hoping when this reaches you that you will be in the same. I have not heard or seen Jack Kelly since I seen you last. McCarty is here yet and will get his trial in April. I have got my trial and will be hung Thursday, the 1st day of March 1877. I have not heard from any of the boys in the hills. We have very cold weather here. But comfortable place here. I hope you will get out. You asked me if I thought it would pay to go to the hills in the spring. I think it would if you save your money and above all things let whisky alone. So farewell forever on this earth.
Yours,
Jack McCall
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Anyone who knows me, knows that not only
do I love the Wild West, but I simply adore
Victorian. So, what more appropriate month
to pen a bit about Victoria--Britain's formidable
Queen who gave her name to an era, delightful
charm and codes of etiquette. Victoria inherited
the throne when she was 18 years old--reigning
for 64 years-- from the reign of George III into
the 20th century. Victoria and her husband
Albert had nine children, and she was quite a liberal lady. Victoria had a passion for writing and during her adult life she wrote about 2,500 words every day, chronicled her life in thousands of letters to her husband, children, friends, ministers and royalty of Europe. Victoria was beloved by England and looked upon with great respect. It is said that at times she was fiery, prone to mood swings, obsessive love and quick temper. She delighted in Cadbury Chocolates. Her Majesty died at Osborne, Isle of Wright on January 22, 1901.
The dear Queen's last journey was on February 1, 1901 when Victoria was laid to rest with her crown, orb and sceptre, amid a booming of guns continuing every minute until the ship Alberta reached Portsmouth.
