Birds of a Feather: Double-Crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron and Double-Crested Cormorants at NAS Pensacola

On a dreary January day strolling the waterfront at Naval Air Station Pensacola while waiting on my son to check-in for the week, I was treated to a variety of birds going about their daily business.  On one pier, a heron and a bunch of double-crested cormorants were trying to stay dry.  Cormorants have no oil glands to help waterproof their feathers, so they have to air dry their feathers after swimming and are often seen spreading their wings to do so.  The double-crested cormorant is named for the two tufts of feathers on its head during breeding season.

Double-Crested Cormorant in the Eagle Pool at Loess Bluffs NWR

Cormorants are very distinctive swimmers.  Riding very low in the water, their heads and upper backs are the only things visible in the water.  They dive quickly and can stay submerged for up to 70 seconds and reach depths of about 30 feet.  Small fish can be swallowed under water, but most are brought to the surface before they are swallowed.  In addition to fish, they may hunt frogs and salamanders, as well as crayfish and crabs.  Indigestible materials such as bone and crustacean shell are regurgitated in a pellet like those of owls.

I first remember hearing/reading about cormorants on Captain Kangaroo in "The Story About Ping" by Marjorie Flack and illustrated by Kurt Wiese.  It stars Ping the Duck, who lives on a wise-eyed boat with his family and human master on the yellow Yangtze River.  The master lets the ducks out to feed and when they come home, master swats the last duck on the backside.  Ping, being chronically late, decides to hide rather than go home and get his spanking.  The next day he sees a lot of boats, but not the wise-eyed boat.  One of these boats has black fishing birds with hooked beaks.  These are cormorants.  The bird would catch a fish, then return to the fishing boat, where the human master would give them a bit of fish for pay.  (What the book isn't telling you is that the fishermen tie snares around the necks of the cormorants or place rings around their necks to keep them from swallowing big fish - learned that in elementary school).

Ping dove for fish, but surfaced far from the cormorants, and followed a trail of crumbs to a houseboat, where Ping was promptly caught, trapped in a basket to await becoming supper.  SUPPER?!! No wonder we were so screwed up as kids.  I can understand a witch eating bad kids, but cute little ducks?  Yeah, I know.  As an adult, I found out that ducks are delicious.

Anyway, the little boy on the boat felt sorry for Ping, and let him go.  Ping found his way home, and swam towards his family, only to find he was going to be last again.  This time, however, he accepted his swat. Not real clear about the moral of the story, but it made an impression.  I remember this story from almost 50 years ago.  It has real staying power - first published in 1933 and made the National Education Associations "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children" list in 2007.

Narrated Story of Ping

Double-crested cormorants overwinter in the United States south of Missouri, especially coastal areas.  These birds breed in the north-central United States and south-central Canada.  In the mid-central United States, these birds make stopovers at waterholes during Spring and Fall migrations. 

Range Map of Double-Crested Cormorant

Double-Crested Cormorant Sunning at Loess Bluffs NWR

Bodacious Botanicals: Dotted Horsemint

Having studied biology on some level for more than 40 years, I have seen a wide variety of living organisms.  One of the most striking plants that I have seen is the Dotted Horsemint (Monarda punctata).  It grows to about three feet tall, with clusters of yellow tubular flowers with purple spots on the upper leaf axils.  The bracts (leaves near the flowers) turn white to lilac in color.  The stems are square, a hallmark of the mint family.  The leaves are spearhead shaped (lanceolate) to narrowly oblong and have hairs.  This plant grows in sandy soils from Vermont to southeastern Minnesota and down to Florida and Texas.  Interestingly, the dotted horsemint is missing from the Ohio River drainage.  Horsemint tends to grow in colonies, so if you find one plant, you will likely find others.

Also known as the spotted horsemint or spotted bee balm, the decorative flowers work well in butterfly gardens.  They bloom for a long time, and have showy foliage from July - October.  Pollinators include bumblebees, honeybees, plasterer bees, miner bees, wasps, swallowtail butterflies and the Karner blue butterfly.  Hummingbirds are attracted to the aromatic blossoms, as well.

Dotted horsemint has found many uses by humans through the years.  Being a member of the mint family, it produces several fragrant oils, and the Navajo used them to freshen the air in their hogans.  The plant has been used by several American Indian tribes as a medicine.  It has been used by tribes as diverse as the Meskwaki (Fox), Mohegan, Blackfoot and Nanticoke in teas and powders to relieve stomach cramps, cold, fever and flu.  Poultices on wounds can be used as an antiseptic. 

The plant produces a high content of thymol, which has known medicinal qualities.  Several mints are known to settle a queasy stomach when brewed into a tea.  Thymol can also be used to remove worms from the digestive tract, has antibacterial and antifungal properties.  Thymol has also been used as a miticide and fungicide in beehives.  It shows promise as a way of treating bacteria while reducing the incidence of antimicrobial resistance when used in tandem with antibiotics or antifungals.  Thymol also acts as a depressant through GABA-receptors, which explains some of the calming effects of herbal teas containing mints. 

This nice stand of horsemint was along the nature trail at Illiniwek Village State Historic Site in Clark County, Missouri.  This site contains the only known Illinois Indian village in Missouri.  Although the plant has a wide distribution, the first time I saw it was about 3 years ago on vacation with Nadienne. If you garden with native perennials east of the Rocky Mountains, this would be a showy addition to your collection.

Grave Matters: Missouri's Swamp Fox

Meriwether Jeff Thompson c. 1857

All Jeff Thompson wanted to be when he grew up was a soldier.  It was a gentlemanly pursuit in his native Virginia.  He would realize that dream, but only after a long delay.  Attending military school in Charleston, Virginia (now West Virginia) from the age of 14, he applied for admission to the Military Academy at West Point, as well as Virginia Military Institute, but was turned down by both institutions.  It seemed that life at a store was in the cards for Jeff, which must have stung for a man coming from a military family.

He wandered the country a bit, starting out from his native Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) in 1843, working in stores in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Frederick City, Maryland, before coming to Liberty, Missouri in 1847.  In 1848, he moved to the bustling town of St. Joseph, Missouri.  Having an aptitude for mathematics, surveying and engineering, he soon became the city engineer.  He reportedly was very charismatic and energetic, qualities which helped him achieve advancement.

In 1851, he obtained a position as a surveyor with the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad.  He went to find a position on the crew and wound up in charge of the surveyors for the preliminary survey.  Eventually supervising the building of the western Missouri section of the railroad, he rode on the first train from Hannibal to St. Joseph.  He took over the controls himself outside of town and drove the first locomotive into St. Joseph in 1858.  While working on the railroad, he became a member of the land company that laid out and promoted the town of Hamilton in Caldwell County.  Among the residents of this town were James Cash Penney, founder of the JC Penneys chain.

Thompson's Engineering Protractor

Learning surveying and mapping on the fly, Thompson was a quick study.  Soon he found the instruments required to draw exact road lines and machinery to be inadequate, and invented his own protractor to aid in producing engineering drawings.  The patent model at the left now resides in the Smithsonian Museum of American History's collection.  It is formally a "Rule for Describing Polygonal Forms" US patent 21,784 issued 12 October 1858.  It is a crude looking instrument, because it was made to illustrate the patented concept, not to function as a working tool.  There is no evidence that the tool ever went into production, and although Thompson invented several instruments, this is the only one for which he pursued a patent.

The executive

For all of his struggles in business as a young man, Jeff Thompson became a man on the move.  He became a military leader, named colonel of his Missouri State Militia unit.  He served as the seventh mayor of St. Joseph from 1857-1860.  He was the president of a gas company, Buchanan County Surveyor, real estate broker, agent for the Platte County Railroad, member of the Elwood (KS) town company, president of the St. Joseph and Maryville Railroad, secretary of the St. Joseph and Louisiana Railroad at the same time that he was St. Joseph mayor.  He surveyed land in Kansas and Nebraska Territories, surveyed the first lines for the St. Joseph and Maryville Railroad, as well as some of the route for the St. Joseph and Topeka Railroad.

You can tell that Thompson was a great proponent of railroads.  He placed the first bags of mail on the horse and delivered a speech at the first running of the Pony Express on 03 April 1860, remarking:

"The day will come when at this very town you may board a train which will take you through to the gold fields, and that within a very few years! More than that, I say that the wilderness which lies between us and that El Dorado will soon blossom as the rose."

The Pony Express was in large part possible because the mail from the East had been expedited by the railroad.  Russell, Majors and Waddell had arranged for westbound mail from Chicago to be routed to Quincy then to the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad.  The railroad continued to be important to mail delivery, and the first mail car for a railroad was designed and used on the Hannibal and St. Joe Railroad.

The General

Col. Jeff Thompson, CSA

Thompson did not run for re-election as St. Joseph mayor.  Business and national politics began to weigh on his mind.  Following the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States and the calling of secession conventions in the South, Thompson was not idle.  Although he was not a slave owner, he thought that slavery was protected in the Consitution and any attempt to abolish it was illegal.  He went to the state capital of Jefferson City and lobbied for passage of a military bill and a secession convention.  He endeavored to "use my little influence to bolster up such weak-kneed and timid Southerners as might be frightened from doing right for fear that a war would be forced upon them."  He was unsuccessful, as the military bill failed to pass and the delegates to the secession convention voted to stay in the Union.  The state that contained a mix of Southern, Western and Northern influences was unraveling and in few places was a war that pitted "brother against brother" fought so brutally.

Brig. Gen. Jeff Thompson, MSG

Frustrated by a governor that espoused the Southern cause, but refused to release money to support activities of the militia, Thompson decided to go to offer his services to his home state of Virginia.  When he left, St. Joseph was so divided that Mayor Armstrong Beattie ordered that no flags be flown anywhere in town.  The new postmaster of St. Joseph decided he was going to raise the US flag at the post office on 22 May 1861.  After the flag was raised, Thompson climbed a ladder to the top of the building, cut the flag down and threw it into the crowd, which tore it to pieces.

Jeff Thompson became a colonel in the Confederate States Army and when given command of the First Division of the Missouri State Guard in July 1861, he became a brigadier general in the State Guard.  He carried out several actions against the Union in southern Missouri, a low area that was very swampy.  He became "Missouri's Swamp Fox" or  "The Swamp Fox of the Confederacy" and his troops were known as the "Swamp Rats".

When Union Gen. John C. Frémont  placed Missouri under martial law and proclaimed emancipation for the slaves of rebels, Thompson issued a counter proclamation.  Thompson led a 1500 man cavalry raid on the Iron Mountain Railroad bridge over Big River in Jefferson County, MO on 15 October 1861.  He then withdrew south, joined up with infantry and decided to attack Union forces at Fredericktown on 21 October with a force of 3000.  In this engagement, the Missouri State Guard was outnumbered.  The Union forces were composed of two columns: 1500 under Col. Joseph Plummer and 3000 under Col. William Carlin.  Thompson deployed the Guard on wooded ridges overlooking the main road, and put Col. Aden Lowe's infantry out in the open as bait.  Lowe's unit met the initial Union force and held their own, but waited too long to retire.  Lowe was killed and his unit took heavy casualties (total Missouri Guard casualties: 25 killed, 40 wounded, 80 captured).  As the Union troops moved forward to capture an artillery piece, they came under heavy fire from the Missouri State Guard.  Thompson was able to withdraw, but the engagement was a Union victory, and consolidated Federal control of southeastern Missouri.

Thompson's troops caught the attention of Union Brig. Gen. US Grant, commander of the District of Southeast Missouri, when Frémont sent word that Thompson was at Indian Ford on the St. Francois River.  Grant was to dispatch troops on 03 November to capture Thompson's force near the Arkansas border.  3000 men under Col. Plummer were to leave Cape Girardeau and 4000 under Col. Richard Oglesby from Bird's Point.  These troops were diverted to meet a greater Confederate threat at Belmont, Missouri as Grant considered Thompson's troops to be ineffective as a fighting force after Frederickstown.

You're in the Army's Navy now

CSS Gen Jeff Thompson in battle line at Plum Point Bend

In 1862, Thompson became involved in the battle to control the Mississippi River, commanding a ram in the Confederate riverine fleet.  It was fairly common to have Army personnel on board ships as gun crews. He commanded enough respect on the field and on the river that a converted sidewheel steamer was outfitted as a "cottonclad ram" and renamed the CSS General Jeff Thompson.  The ship saw its first action at the Battle of Plum Point Bend, about four miles upriver from Ft. Pillow on 10 May 1862. Twelve Federal mortar boats and eight ironclads were tied up there, and the Confederate fleet, with Jeff Thompson on the CSS Gen. Bragg, was going to try to clear them out.  The Union ironclad USS Cincinnati headed out into the shallows where but few of the Confederates could follow.  The CSS Bragg hit the ironclad with a gun volley, but her tiller rope was fouled and she was effectively out of action.  The USS Cincinnati and USS Mound City were rammed and sunk.  The Confederates had to withdraw as their ships needed deeper water to reach the other Union ships.  Their presence did hold off Federal forces long enough to allow Ft. Pillow to be evacuated by 01 June, then the Confederate flotilla headed down to Memphis for refueling and resupply.

CSS Gen Jeff Thompson sinking at Memphis

The CSS Thompson didn't have a long career.  The Union Mississippi River Squadron of ironclads pushed downstream to Memphis.  A lack of fuel meant that the Confederate force could not withdraw, but chose to fight it out on 06 June 1862.  Early in the fight, the Jeff Thompson was hit heavily by Union guns, caught fire and began to sink.  After the crew abandoned ship, she burned to waterline and her magazine caught fire and exploded, sending debris high into the sky.

 Only one of the Confederate ships would escape.  The CSS Gen. Van Dorn was able to head south and find refuge in the Yazoo River.  The rest were destroyed or captured.  Among those that were captured and entered Union service were the Gen. Price and the Gen. Bragg.  This effectively ended Confederate naval presence on the Mississippi River, with the CSS Arkansas later being the only outstanding challenge to the Union.

Explosion of the magazine of the CSS Jeff Thompson

On the road again

St. Charles Hotel in Pocahontas, Arkansas

Jeff Thompson was assigned to duty west of the Mississippi River and was soon in Arkansas.  He joined the second raid into Missouri led by Gen. John Marmaduke.  The raid commenced on 18 April 1863 with 5000 troops, many of which were unarmed and without mounts.  Marmaduke feared the soldiers would desert if he left the unarmed/unmounted behind, and took them along, planning to supply them with captured materiel.  The raid collapsed in defeat following an unplanned and ill-advised attack on Cape Girardeau on 25-26 April.  Given orders to pursue Union troops only if they marched towards Pilot Knob and Fredericktown, Col. George Carter followed General McNeil to heavily fortified Cape Girardeau.  Carter was demoted and Marmaduke had to retreat back to Arkansas.

Brig. Gen. Jeff Thompson at Johnson's Island (front, next to right)

Though this foray into Missouri was a disaster, Thompson proved himself to still be an able commander.  His symbolic value to the Confederate resistance in Missouri was at a high, and he became a prime target for the Union Army.  On 24 August 1863, elements of the Missouri State Militia Cavalry (Union) commanded by Col. Richard G. Woodson of the 3rd Missouri State Militia Cavalry heard that Thompson was in Pochahontas, Arkansas with very little in the way of force.  Woodson ordered Capt. Henry C. Gentry of the 2nd Missouri State Militia Cavalry to ride for town with all haste and arrest the general before he could escape.  Gentry rode into town and arrested Thompson and several officers at the St. Charles Hotel.  Thompson was calmly reviewing maps of southeast Missouri and caught by complete surprise.  The Missouri State Militia Cavalry took their prisoners back to Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  Thompson would be sent to Gratiot Street Prison in St. Louis, Fort Delaware (on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River) and Johnson's Island (in Lake Erie, near Sandusky, Ohio) prisoner of war camps.  On 03 August 1864 (or 29 July, depending on which history you are reading), he was exchanged for a Union general.

Fort Delaware - Seth Eastman c. 1870

Out of the frying pan, into the fire

Map of Johnson's Island

Soon after his release from Johnson's Island, Thompson returned to the service of the Confederacy.  He joined the Autumn 1864 raid on Missouri with General Sterling Price and 12,000 horsemen.  Thompson took over the command of Gen. J.O. Shelby's "Iron Brigade" as Shelby was now commanded a division.  The whole campaign was fraught with failure. On 27 September 1864, Price attacked Ft. Davidson at Pilot Knob with several uncoordinated attacks from several directions.  The guns of the fort were turned in response to each one.  When the position became defenseless, the Union escaped through a gap in the siege lines, and lit a timed fuse which destroyed the powder magazine and the fort.  The Confederates had the fort, but had suffered 1000 casualties, used up a huge amount of ammunition and had not captured the men or arms of the Union soldiers.  It would now be impossible to capture St. Louis.

Price set his sights on capturing Jefferson City, but found it too heavily defended.  He then turned towards Lexington and Westport (Kansas City).  After victories that provided supplies at Glasgow (15 October), the Little Blue River (east of Independence, MO - 21 October) and Independence (Second Battle - 21-22 October), disease, desertion and casualties caught up with Price.  The dogged fighting by the Union forces under Maj. Gen. James Blunt slowed Price's advance long enough for Gen. Alfred Pleasonton's cavalry force of 10,000 to join the battle.  The Confederate force, which had shrunk to about 8.500,  was decisively defeated by 22,000 Union soldiers at the Battle of Westport (23 October).

Mine Creek looking toward the Union line from the Confederate line.
The Federal line was near the treeline at the horizon.

During the Battle of Westport, the Iron Brigade under Thompson drove the Union troops under Brig. Gen. Thomas Moonlight back into Kansas, and those under Col. Jennison back into Westport.  The Confederates were unable to capitalize on this advantage, running out of ammunition.  In the retreat that followed defeat, Thompson's men would fight a rear guard action to give the Confederates time to escape the field of battle.

Setting sights on the supplies at Fort Scott, Kansas, Price started in that direction, but were pursued by Pleasonton through the night and into the next day.  On 25 October, Price was forced into three engagements: the Battle of Marais des Cynges (Trading Post), the Battle of Mine Creek, and the Battle of the Marmiton River.  All three were heavy losses for Price.  All hope of capturing Fort Scott gone and his forces whittled to fewer than 6000 men, Price had to make a run for Indian Territory (Oklahoma).  Price was pressed into one more engagement near Newtonia, Missouri during which Thompson and the Iron Brigade rode to the front, dismounted and engaged the Federals.  The Federal force was forced back into a cornfield by the Ritchey estate.  When the Union surged forwards, Price had escaped.

Mine Creek Crossing - it was full of water on 25 October 1864

Missouri State Guard Brig. Gen. M. Jeff Thompson was appointed commander of the Northern Sub-District of Arkansas in March of 1865.  By May of 1865, Thompson's command  of 7500 men was one of the largest Confederate forces left in the field.  He made arrangements at Chalk Bluff, Arkansas on 09 May 1865 to surrender his troops.  He marched them to Wittsburg and Jacksonport, Arkansas on 11 May 1865 to lay down their arms and obtain their paroles.

Shelby and Price took their men to Mexico and offered their services to Emperor Maximillian, but they were refused.  Ultimately, Maximillian would face a firing squad following a popular revolt against the European government.  While these men would gain fame as the "undefeated" or "unsurrendered", the war was over for Jeff Thompson.  He became one of the first Confederate officials to apply for reinstatement of citizenship and take the loyalty oath.  His talents as a civil engineer and surveyor won him a post-war position as Surveyor General of Louisiana and Chief State Engineer of Louisiana.  He moved to his wife's hometown of New Orleans, and for several years supervised projects that would control flooding and improve swamp land in Louisiana.  Several histories of Louisiana have praised his competence as an engineer and service to the state.

"Home again and home again"

At some point along the line, Jeff Thompson had contracted tuberculosis, a common respiratory disease of the time.  It is likely that this happened during his Civil War service.  His hard work ethic likely exacerbated the disease, and a tired Thompson returned to St. Joseph, Missouri in 1876.  In short order he passed away at the age of 50 years on 05 September 1876.  The man who wanted to be a soldier but was turned down by major military academies had earned his bones as a high ranking officer for the Confederacy in the Civil War, a politician, businessman, surveyor and civil engineer.  His flood control systems protected St. Joseph and Louisiana for years after his death.  Leading the effort to reconcile the South with the North, he was alternately praised as a model citizen and vilified for abandoning the "Southern cause".

Thompson is buried in a fairly easy to find spot in Mt. Mora Cemetery in St. Joseph, Missouri.  His grave is in a small triangle just southeast of Section L and northeast of Section B.

Jeff Thompson, Mark Twain and David Rice Atchison - Talk about pop culture

Jeff Thompson was a large enough personage that his fictionalized self was made part of the book The Guilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in 1873.  It seems fitting, since the papers for the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad were drawn up in the offices of Sam Clemens' father.  Warner had been a surveyor/engineer on the railroad, so he was acquainted with Thompson.

On laying a straight line:

An early Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad locomotive

"The Colonel hitched up his chair close to Harry, laid his hand on his knee, and, first looking about him, said in a low voice, 'The Salt Lick Pacific Extension is going to run through Stone's Landing! The Almighty never laid out a cleaner piece of level prairie for a city; and it's the natural center of all that region of hemp and tobacco.'

'What makes you think the road will go there? It's twenty miles, on the map, off the straight line of the road?'

'You can't tell what is the straight line till the engineers have been over it. Between us, I have talked with Jeff Thompson, the division engineer. He understands the wants of Stone's Landing, and the claims of the inhabitants—who are to be there. Jeff says that a railroad is for—the accommodation of the people and not for the benefit of gophers; and if, he don't run this to Stone's Landing he'll be damned! You ought to know Jeff; he's one of the most enthusiastic engineers in this western country, and one of the best fellows that ever looked through the bottom of a glass.'

The recommendation was not undeserved. There was nothing that Jeff wouldn't do, to accommodate a friend, from sharing his last dollar with him, to winging him in a duel. When he understood from Col. Sellers. how the land lay at Stone's Landing, he cordially shook hands with that gentleman, asked him to drink, and fairly roared out, 'Why, God bless my soul, Colonel, a word from one Virginia gentleman to another is 'nuff ced.' There's Stone's Landing been waiting for a railroad more than four thousand years, and damme if she shan't have it.'''

Jeff Thompson and Senator Atchison

"The fever at length got tired of tormenting the stout young engineer, who lay sick at the hotel, and left him, very thin, a little sallow but an 'acclimated' man. Everybody said he was 'acclimated' now, and said it cheerfully. What it is to be acclimated to western fevers no two persons exactly agree.

Some say it is a sort of vaccination that renders death by some malignant type of fever less probable. Some regard it as a sort of initiation, like that into the Odd Fellows, which renders one liable to his regular dues thereafter. Others consider it merely the acquisition of a habit of taking every morning before breakfast a dose of bitters, composed of whiskey and assafoetida, out of the acclimation jug.

Jeff Thompson afterwards told Philip that he once asked Senator Atchison, then acting Vice-President of the United States, about the possibility of acclimation; he thought the opinion of the second officer of our great government would be valuable on this point. They were sitting together on a bench before a country tavern, in the free converse permitted by our democratic habits.

'I suppose, Senator, that you have become acclimated to this country?'

'Well,' said the Vice-President, crossing his legs, pulling his wide-awake down over his forehead, causing a passing chicken to hop quickly one side by the accuracy of his aim, and speaking with senatorial deliberation, 'I think I have. I've been here twenty-five years, and dash, dash my dash to dash, if I haven't entertained twenty-five separate and distinct earthquakes, one a year. The niggro is the only person who can stand the fever and ague of this region.'"

This last statement attributed to Atchison was not totally untrue. Malaria caused by Plasmodium vivax was a tremendous problem in the United States since it had been introduced by the Spanish conquistadors. One of the reasons that enslavement of West Africans was needed in the Southern agricultural economy was that the Africans lacked Duffy's antigen (a blood cell protein) and they were immune to vivax malaria. The parasite was denied a portal into their red blood cells. Sickle-cell trait also made black slaves resistant to the most virulent form of malaria caused by P. falciparum.

On drinking corn liquor properly

"Mr. Jeff Thompson, for it was the camp of this redoubtable engineer, gave the travelers a hearty welcome, offered them ground room in his own tent, ordered supper, and set out a small jug, a drop from which he declared necessary on account of the chill of the evening.

'I never saw an Eastern man,' said Jeff, 'who knew how to drink from a jug with one hand. It's as easy as lying. So.' He grasped the handle with the right hand, threw the jug back upon his arm, and applied his lips to the nozzle. It was an act as graceful as it was simple. 'Besides,' said Mr. Thompson, setting it down, 'it puts every man on his honor as to quantity.'"

Sing, sing a song, sing out loud, sing out strong

"Early to turn in was the rule of the camp, and by nine o'clock everybody was under his blanket, except Jeff himself, who worked awhile at his table over his field-book, and then arose, stepped outside the tent door and sang, in a strong and not unmelodious tenor, the Star Spangled Banner from beginning to end. It proved to be his nightly practice to let off the unexpended steam of his conversational powers, in the words of this stirring song.

It was a long time before Philip got to sleep. He saw the fire light, he saw the clear stars through the tree-tops, he heard the gurgle of the stream, the stamp of the horses, the occasional barking of the dog which followed the cook's wagon, the hooting of an owl; and when these failed he saw Jeff, standing on a battlement, mid the rocket's red glare, and heard him sing, 'Oh, say, can you see?' It was the first time he had ever slept on the ground."

Although a Star Spangled Banner singing Thompson may seem at odds with his Civil War career as a Confederate, he felt himself a loyal American.  Of his flag-lowering at the Post Office he remarked, "I had cut down the flag that I had once loved.  I had as yet drawn no blood from its defenders, but I was now determined to strike it down wherever I found it."

Getting There

From Frederick Avenue in St. Joseph, turn north onto Mt. Mora Rd, which is between 14th Street and 17th Street.  Once in the cemetery gates, take the first right and follow it up the hill to the triangle between Section B and Section L.

Every time that I have passed this gravesite, it is decorated with US flags.  Not sure why, unless they consider his antebellum career in the Missouri State Militia to be US service.  More and more I see the graves of staunch Confederates decorated with the US flag.  All I can say is that I don't like it, especially if their only military service was to the CSA.  The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia has been appropriated by hate groups and has been banished from most public places.  Most Confederate soldiers never fought under that flag.  Most of them fought under their own state's flag, specially designed unit flag or the first national flag of the Confederacy.  The flags of 1864 and 1865 did incorporate the battle flag blue cross and white stars on a red background with a white or white and red field.   I have been known to plunk the CSA's first national flag down on a Confederate's grave when I can find them.  I guess that is my act of rebellion.

First National Flag of the Confederate States of America

Waypoint:  Latitude 39.775503 N; Longitude 94.841077 W

Ghost of Christmas Past: Little Drummer Boy

The Little Drummer Boy Animated Special

Every academic has this nightmare come to life; you slave away on your magnum opus, that ONE paper, book, play, painting, sculpture, whatever and when unveiled, it gets absolutely no attention. But one little thing you do on a lark EVERYONE seems to pay attention to. It was nothing, didn't even take the effort of most of your other works, but THIS is the one that gets attention. For Arthur Conan Doyle, it was Sherlock Holmes. Tried to kill him off, but had to bring him back by popular demand. For Basil Rathbone, the quintessential Holmes, it was also the role that he could not escape. For A.A. Milne, it was Winnie the Pooh. Robert Plant hates "Stairway to Heaven". For Katherine Kennicott Davis, that work was "The Little Drummer Boy"

Katherine Kennicott Davis

How could you hate "The Little Drummer Boy"?  Every kid sings it, every band puts it on a Christmas album, even one of the best-loved Christmas specials was based on it.  That may be exactly the point.  Katherine Davis saw herself as a serious musician.  She penned over 600 works of music, including seven operas to her own texts, children's operettas, hymns, cantatas and choruses.  She wrote "Let All Things Now Living" to an old Welsh tune (the Ash Grove) in 1939, and it became a popular Thanksgiving tune for several churches at the time.  This song she published under the pseudonym "John Cowley".  She loved these great works, but it was the Little Drummer Boy that rose to the top.  She would say the song had been "done to death on radio and TV", but it keeps on a plugging along.

Bookends

St. Joseph High School c. 1900

Katherine Kennicott Davis was born in St. Joseph, Missouri on 25 June 1892 to Maxwell G. Davis, a shoe manufacturer and Jessie Barton Davis.  Quite the child prodigy, she is reported to have written her first music, "Shadow March" at the age of 15.  She graduated in 1910 from the St. Joseph High School, which was renamed Central High School that same year. My Grandma Shafer went to that high school later.  At the time, the high school was located at 13th and Olive Streets, behind Everett Elementary school (where Nadienne and I were briefly schoolmates at Everett during my six weeks in second grade there and her Kindergarten year).  Nadienne, Benjamin, Christian and I all graduated from the "new" Central High School at 25th and Edmond Streets.  From Central High School, Katherine Davis went on to study music and graduate from Wellesley College, just outside Boston, Massachusetts.

After graduation from college, she was hired to teach music theory and piano at Wellesley.  She would pursue further studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and Nadia Boulanger in Paris.  Her "day job" would be teaching.  She taught at the Concord (MA) Academy and Shady Hill School for Girls in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  She wrote music almost until the end of her life, when illness forced her to stop.  She passed away on 20 April 1980 in Littleton, Massachusetts.  In her will she assigned all of her royalties to the music program of Wellesley College. Her grave is in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.  She has a very simple stone, with no mention of any of her accomplishments.

Writing "Carol of the Drum"

Katherine K. Davis c. 1910

Exactly how Katherine Davis came to write what she called "Carol of the Drum" in 1941 is not known, but three stories circulate as authority.  My favorite says that she laid down to take a nap and the song came to her as she tried to sleep.  Another says that she freely adapted and translated a Czech song called "Carol of the Drum" and a third says that she arranged the song with Harry Simeone, Jack Halloran and Henry Onorati.  I rather think that she probably adapted or was inspired by the tune from a Czech song, but probably wrote the story, perhaps as she napped.  Heck, I wrote term papers while I was out on runs, and only had to type them out when I got back home or to the dorm.

The song got off to a slow start.  Before 1958, the song was only recorded twice.  One of these was by the Trapp Family Singers in 1955, shortly before their retirement in 1957.  In 1957 Henry Onorati re-arranged the song for the Jack Halloran Singers on Dot Records, but the recording didn't make it out before Christmas.  Onorati introduced the song to Harry Simeone, who re-arranged it renamed it and released it in the form we most commonly know it as a recording of the Harry Simeone Chorale on "Sing We Now of Christmas" in 1958.  This was the big time.  Harry Simeone worked on the music for several Bing Crosby pictures and conducted the band for The Firestone Hour on TV from 1952-1959.  Onorati and Simeone were given a co-writer credit on the song, but likely should only have credit for the arrangement. although their changes don't sound all that significant, just bigger.

Since the Simeone arrangement, the song has been recorded by over 200 artists.  Marlene Dietrich even sang a German version in 1964.  Besides the Harry Simeone Chorale soundtrack of the 1968 stop-motion special "The Little Drummer Boy", the best known version is likely the David Bowie and Bing Crosby duo that overlaid "Peace on Earth" on "The Little Drummer Boy".

The story

We all know the story.  Not the embellished version for the animated special (one of the all-time Christmas classics), but the song.  A little boy finds himself in the stable where Jesus was born.  Not having any riches, he played a song on his drum from his heart.  The gift is accepted with honor, as it was all that the boy had and played from a place of genuine love.  How much more of a Christmasey message can you get?

Life in St. Joseph

Maxwell and Jessie Davis Marriage License

The family moved several places in town, which was very commonplace.  In 1900, they were living at 215 S. 18th Street. The family at that time was Maxwell, Jessie, Katherine and Willard B (born April 1894), along with Jessie's mother, Lydia Barton. In 1920, Katherine was listed as living with her parents at 604 N. 8th Street.  When Maxwell Davis died in 1927, the family residence was 1917 Faraon Street. Jessie Davis was residing at 503 S. 11th Street when she died in 1947.

Katherine Kennicott Davis' father, mother and older sister (Dorothy, died of scarlet fever in 1892) are buried in a family plot in Mount Mora Cemetery in St. Joseph.  Section B, Block 11

Further reading

The Little Drummer Boy Special

Sam Clemens and Florida, Missouri: Mark Twain Birthplace

Marker on lot where Sam Clemens was born

If you were asked to name a person from Missouri, you'd probably say either Mark Twain or President Harry S. Truman. Mark Twain is most closely associated with Hannibal, Missouri, which has profited greatly from the association. From the authentic, to the invented to kitsch, you can find it in Hannibal. You can also find tons of tourists. Gives me the willies just thinking about it.

Mark Twain has been one of my favorite authors since just about the time that I could read. Huckleberry Finn was one of the first prizes that I won by memorizing quotes (third grade). Even got me through 11th grade Literature. I know it's no longer a "politically correct" book because of its liberal use of a certain word, especially in association with a particular character. You know the one I'm talking about. That's right, ol' Jedi Jim. It is a temporally correct book, however and serves as a relatively unvarnished view of life in antebellum Missouri's "Little Dixie".

While the summer crowds in Hannibal do not appeal to me, Nadienne and I thought that a visit to the spot where Mark Twain was born as Samuel Langhorne Clemens would be fun. So off we trekked to the tiny town of Florida, Missouri. Twain spent the first four years of his life here, as his father tried to get a transport business running on the Salt River nearby. The river was fickle, making it impossible to sustain a regular delivery route and so the family was off to Hannibal.

Mark Twain remarks on his birthplace

Two story log house near Twain's birth site marker

"I was born the 30th of November, 1835, in the almost invisible village of Florida, Monroe County, Missouri. I suppose Florida had less than three hundred inhabitants. It had two streets, each a couple of hundred yards long; the rest of the avenues mere lanes, with rail fences and cornfields on either side. Both the streets and the lanes were paved with the same material--tough black mud in wet times, deep dust in dry."

"Most of the houses were of logs--all of them, indeed, except three or four; these latter were frame ones. There were none of brick, and none of stone. There was a log church, with a puncheon floor and slab benches. A puncheon floor is made of logs whose upper surfaces have been chipped flat with the adz. The cracks between the logs were not filled; there was no carpet; consequently, if you dropped anything smaller than a peach, it was likely to go through. The church was perched upon short sections of logs, which elevated it two or three feet from the ground. Hogs slept under there, and whenever the dogs got after them during services, the minister had to wait till the disturbance was over. In winter there was always a refreshing breeze up through the puncheon floor; in summer there were fleas enough for all."

Twain Birthplace House with slab bench in front

"A slab bench is made of the outside cut of a saw-log, with the bark side down; it is supported on four sticks driven into auger holes at the ends; it has no back and no cushions. The church was twilighted with yellow tallow candles in tin sconces hung against the walls. Week days, the church was a schoolhouse." - Mark Twain "Early years in Florida, Missouri" from Mark Twain's Autobiography

Twain thought that Florida was an almost invisible town during his time, but what we found was that Twain's Florida was the big time.  A few houses exist on the town site.  A few streets and the cemetery.  The entire population of Florida in 2010 was a whopping 9 residents.And the Twain marker, but that is about it.  The railroad and time have passed this little hamlet by.

"Recently some one in Missouri has sent me a picture of the house I was born in. Heretofore I have always stated that it was a palace, but I shall be more guarded now." - Mark Twain

Museum musts

Preface to Tom Sawyer handwritten by Mark Twain

The Mark Twain Birthplace Shrine holds the two-room house in which Sam Clemens was born, as well as a collection of manuscripts, furniture and a carriage that belonged to the family.  These items are mostly on loan from other museums.  The display I enjoyed the most housed handwritten manuscript pages that were the preface for Tom Sawyer.  The good old days, when penmanship was somewhat important, and you could submit a manuscript written long-hand.  Anything that I publish has to be written in a word processing program, formatted to the hilt and include publication ready figures.

Twain family carriage

Is this really the house?

While reading articles about Florida, Missouri and the state park, I was surprised to find out that there was any kind of debate over whether the house on display is the authentic birthplace of Samuel Clemens.  A birthplace was mentioned in an 1890 article explaining that the house had been sold and was to be moved to Chicago for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.  The move was too costly, and the house stayed in Florida.  In 1897, a buyer proposed to cut the house up into souvenir articles.  Accounts of the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis state that canes were sold, purportedly made of wood from the birthplace.  One of the houses pointed out as a Twain birthplace was probably the second house that the Clemens' lived in during their time in Florida.  Mark Twain himself deemed the house "too stylish" (perhaps tongue in cheek) to be his birthplace.  It was this house that had been broken up and sold as canes.

Birthplace cabin in Florida

The house located in the Mark Twain Birthplace Shrine was pointed out to Twain biographer Albert Bigelow Paine in 1907 as the Twain birthplace by Eliza Damrell Violette Scott, a Florida resident who had been fourteen at the time of Sam's birth and knew the Clemens.  Eliza's son, Merritt A. "Dad" Violette bought the house in 1915 from owners who were going to tear the house down as it was in such bad disrepair.  Violette moved the house across the street, started repairs on the house and eventually turned it into an attraction that grew into a resort: campsites, cabins, and a clubhouse.  He gradually made repairs on the house and gave tours for years.

Birthplace cabin at the time of Paine's visit

Paine's visit to Florida planted the spark to preserve the birthplace.  Violette turned it into an attraction and one of the campers at Violette's resort, Ruth Lamson took on the challenge of creating a state park that would preserve the cabin.  Lamson and her father, Frank helped form the Mark Twain Memorial Association in 1923.  Mark Twain State Park would be dedicated very soon, in 1924.  The house in the shrine was moved to the park site in June 1930.  It was originally housed in little more than a shed with wired windows, but it provided respite from the elements.  There it stood until the shrine was opened in 1960.

Samuel L. Clemens at 15

Almost as soon as the park was formed, the authenticity of the house was called into question.  Most of the people who would have known the history of the house had left Florida or were dead.  The most authoritative account of the origins of the house came from Violette, who got the information from his mother.  When materials in the house were analyzed, it was found that much of the material came from a time after the Clemens' occupation.  This doesn't seem to be a surprising find.  When Violette bought the house, it had lost its windows, chimney and a lean-to kitchen had collapsed.  There were no standards for historical preservation and renovation at the time.  Violette did what he could to make the house presentable, structurally sound and faithful to the original layout.

At one time, Violette had asserted that the house was composed of 80% original period material, which it isn't.  Does this diminish the importance of the house?  Ask the people who still line up to see Da Vinci's "Last Supper", Michelangelo's "Pieta" and "Sistine Chapel", any number of frontier forts in the US or just about any place older than 50 years.  All will have undergone upkeep and restoration.  They are an approximation of the "real", but they remain "authentic".  The house is not the important thing here, it is just the main draw into the birthplace shrine, where many will learn much more about Mark Twain than they would have otherwise.  Twain would have gotten a chuckle over academic arguments about the house.  He likely would have pointed out that you can argue about what ramshackle house he was born in, but he was born in a ramshackle house, and it might as well have been this one as any other.

Twain reflects on his first birthday at his seventieth

Sam Clemens in his Oxford academic robe

"I remember that first birthday well," he began. "Whenever I think of it, it is with indignation. Everything was so crude, so unaesthetic. Nothing was really ready. I was born, you know, with a high and delicate aesthetic taste. And then think of - I had no hair, no teeth, no clothes. And I had to go to my first banquet like that.

"And everybody came swarming in. It was the merest little hamlet in he backwoods of Missouri, where never anything happened at all. All interest centered on me that day. They came with that peculiar provincial curiosity to look me over and to see if I had brought anything fresh in my particular line. Why, I was the only thing that had happened in the last three months - and I came very near being the only thing that happened there in two whole years.

"They gave their opinions. No one had asked them, but they gave them, and they were all just green with prejudice. I stood it as long as - well, you know, I was born courteous. I stood it for about an hour. Then the worm turned. I was the worm. It was my turn to turn, and I did turn. I knew the strength of my position. I knew that I was the only spotlessly pure person in that camp, and I just came out and told them so.

Twain at work on Tom Sawyer

"It was so true that they could make no answer at all. They merely blushed and went away. Well, that was my cradle song, and now I am singing my swan song. It is a far stretch from that first birthday to this, the seventieth. Just think of it!"


'Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.'

"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."

"Always acknowledge a fault frankly. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you opportunity to commit more."

Getting There

Mark Twain Birthplace Shrine

The Mark Twain Birthplace Shrine is just outside of Florida, Missouri near Mark Twain Lake.  Easiest access is probably from the north.  From US-36 take US-24 west at Monroe City.  From US-24, take MO-107 south to County Rd. 526 towards Florids (left).  Turn right on Shrine Road and you will see the birthplace at the end of the drive.  From the south, you are on your own.

Waypoint: Latitude 39.488239 N; Longitude 91.785910 W

Street Address:  37352 Shrine Rd., Stoutsville, MO 65283

Further Reading

Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site