The McCormicks And Napoleon III

 Napoleon III

It was business that took Mr. McCormick abroad in 1867 — the advancement of the reaper in Europe and in particular its presentation at the Universal Exposition to be held in Paris that year.

Source (Napoleon III)

This was an ambitious undertaking of the Emperor Napoleon III, designed no doubt to bolster his weakening prestige and to divert attention from the menacing European situation. Mr. McCormick hesitated about entering his machines, but finally decided to try.

Meantime, the McCormicks attended a spectacular distribution of prizes on July 1 by the Emperor Napoleon, accompanied by the Empress Eugenie, at which the first Sultan of Turkey ever to leave his shores and the Prince of Wales were guests. Fifty thousand people, Mrs. McCormick wrote, filled a vast hall, colors rioted, bells rang, drums beat. And finally the imperial party walked around the building, the Empress in white satin, radiant with diamonds, gracious — "every inch an Empress," Mrs. McCormick thought. 

Major George Farragut

Artifact Depicting George Farragut's Son* At The Farragut Museum

From the biography of Major George Farragut:

With those few of the present generation who have heard at all of Major George Farragut, the idea usually prevails that his only title to distinction lay in the fact that he became the father* of one of America's most noted naval commanders. Yet the services rendered by George Farragut himself, both as a soldier and sailor, were not unappreciated during his own lifetime. This gentleman, sometime a Captain of North Carolina Cavalry in the army of the Revolution, a pioneer in the trans-montane settlements of Tennessee and the Gulf States, and who was later engaged in the naval service of the United States, was a native of the Island of Minorca, one of the Balearic group, in the Mediterranean sea.

Scandinavia And The Palace At Stockholm

Scandinavia, Ancient and Modern: Being a History of Denmark ..., Volume 2
 By Andrew Crichton, Henry Wheaton

This French Diversion

From The Plains of Abraham by Brian Connell:


The middle colonists drew no lessons from this French diversion. The whole idea of conflict with a European power was foreign to them. The Ohio Valley had always provided far too wide a buffer between them and the French. The Indians they felt they could deal with.... .

Of Sceptred Race

"Of Sceptred Race,"  By Annah Robinson Watson:

Margaret Atheling was one who was mentioned in this book.  She married Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland.  What caught my attention was this:  "(Malcolm's) long line of royal ancestors....(included) Heremon, King of Ireland...who it is claimed married the Princess Tea-Tephi, a direct descendant of King David of Israel."

Struggles Through Life, Per Lieutenant John Harriott

Struggles through life, exemplified in the various travels and adventures in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, of Lieut. John Harriott ...[author] (1808) was mentioned in the "true crime" story told in "The Maul and The Pear Tree, by P.D. James and T. A. Critchley.

"My father had served in the navy, and afterwards was a  master of a merchant ship; my grandfather was the last of the family that was born at Brigstock, in Northamptonshire, where the family had lived for several centuries; and the end of the town, where they resided as tanners, went by their name. When the estate
was sold to the Duke of M---, part of it being copy-hold, the title-deeds were traced back in the family as far as William Rufus. That is all which I have to boast of concerning ancestry." 

...a passage about a voyage To New York...

I took my first bias for travelling, or going to sea, from reading Robinson Crusoe; and, when I was little more than thirteen, sailed as a midshipman on-board a ship of war, bound with a convoy of merchant-vessels for New York, in company with another frigate, bound to the West Indies, with a similar convoy; having orders to keep together until we arrived at a certain latitude, this was early in 1759.

Historic Florida & The Europeans

The Everglades: River of Grass by Marjory Stoneman Douglas was profiled in an earlier blog.

Included in the book was a dose of European politics; "It was this Spain, not Columbus, that was to be the conqueror, administrator, spiritual lord and temporal master of the new world only slowly coming into view." Here's a map of early Spanish exploration.

A young shipwrecked Spaniard, Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda wrote a memoir after being rescued from his 17 year captivity and is credited for preserving what little is known of the Calusa language in Florida.

"In 1562 the Spanish ambassador to France frantically warned the Spanish crown of a fleet...under the command of Jean Ribaut, with the encouragement of the Huguenot admiral Coligny, and of the queen mother and her court." "...a little north of the present St. Augustine, Ribaut founded his colony, which lacked every means of survival." The French were slaughtered during an incident known as Mantanzas, led by Pedro Menendez de Aviles.

Fort Mantanzas

Historic MacBeth - King of Alba

I've never read Shakespeare's MacBeth, though I don't know if that was an advantage or a disadvantage while reading "King Thereafter," by Dorothy Dunnett.

In Mrs. Dunnett's well-researched historical novel, she theorized that MacBeth and Thorfinn were not two separate people, but were the same historical figure. Here is a time line of that era featuring other historical figures in "King Thereafter," such as King Canute and King Malcolm.

The first character introduced in the novel was Thorkel Amundason, Thorfinn's foster father and a presence in Thorfinn's adult life as well. An excerpt from "King Thereafter" featuring Thorkel (beginning with the first line in Chapter One) can be found here.

A bit of the tale about the power struggle between the Earls of Orkney when Thorfinn started to consolidate his power base can be found here.

The prevalent characteristic about Thorfinn (MacBeth) was his approach to life and his style as king -- it was a chess match where he was several moves ahead of his opponents. This tendency was revealed early; "Here was a youth, it seemed to indicate, ready to fall in with the wishes of others. Sulien could not tell why, therefore, he became seized with the certainty that this proposal of Alfgar's (Note: Lady Godiva's son) was what Thorfinn had intended to do all along." (Page 30) If events did not turn out as anticipated, MacBeth's mind was agile enough to adjust to circumstances, even in the end.

MacBeth is no longer just a character in a Shakespeare play to me after reading "King Thereafter."

Sophie (Lyons) Choice - Or Born Into A Life Of Crime

The notorious Sophie Lyons Burke, retired criminal turned philanthropist, was once considered an "Edison or Morgan or Rockefeller of her field." Sophie came to my attention while doing research on Judge Ira Jayne in the Edith Mae Cummings case because Sophie Lyons Burke's probate case was named in conjunction with Judge Jayne.

A book written by Mrs. Lyons Burke, entitled Why Crime Does Not Pay is online.

I had done most of my research when I found a November 2009 article about Sophie here, "From Rogue to Reformer." This article, in addition to being an entertaining account of Sophie's life, provided additional details about her family. Sophie's granddaughter, Esther Bower, was named, as was Esther's mother, Florence (see here in 1903 and here in 1917 for Florence's two marriages to Joseph Bauer/Bower). The article also mentioned that Sophie and her favorite child, Carleton*, were cremated and buried in Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit. [Note: Woodmere Cemetery was in the precinct where Jim worked most of his 25 years as a Detroit cop.]

*Carlton Mason [This one?]
Death date: 05 Mar 1922
Death place: Spokane, Spokane, Washington [not Seattle?]
Age at death: 44 years 11 months 1 day
Estimated birth year: 1878
Father's name: Edward Mason
Mother's name: Sophia Van Elken [Sophie's maiden name]
Collection: Washington Death Certificates, 1907-1960

This newspaper article (in the Prescott Evening Courier, dated 24 January 1929), regarding Sophie Lyons Burke's estate, mentioned Sophie's daughter, Madeline Brady (who was incompetent) and in the care of a guardian in an English hospital.

A brief bio and drawing of Sophie's husband, Ned Lyons, a renown criminal in his own right, can be found here. (There's also a drawing of their cohort, George Mason; was he the father of Sophie's son, Carlton Mason? Pure speculation on my part).

This article, "Queen of Crooks, mentions Sophie's "Paris" years where she was acquainted with Victor Hugo, George Sand and Guy de Maupassant. One of Sophie's daughters was an opera singer in Paris (Lottie?). Contemporary accounts (May 1889) of Sophie as Madame de Varney can be found here and here.

This paragraph from "The jewelers' circular" (26 July 1899) mentioned that William Burke, alias "Billy The Kid," was arrested in the company on the notorious Sophie Lyons, and that he had previously been arrested in Detroit on suspicion of pulling a "sneak job" at Wright Kay jewelers. Billy was turned over to the Pittsburgh police after his Detroit arrest where he got 2 1/2 years for robbery.

Sophie Lyons Burke was in court in Washtenaw County, Michigan; the court expenses (Oct. 1884) for J. W. Babbitt, Asst. Prosecuting Attorney and D. C. Griffin, justice, were listed here. This bio of Sophie (p. 206) stated that she was engaged in blackmail until 6 Feb 1883 when she was convicted at "Ann Harbor [sic]" (Ann Arbor, Washtenaw Co., Michigan) where she was convicted for larceny and sentenced to 3 years at the Detroit House of Corrections.

The "retired" Sophie was robbed in Detroit in 1922, according to this New York Times article printed 6 July 1922. Stolen items included diamonds given to Sophie by her son who had recently died in Seattle, according to the article [Carleton?].

A Rogue's Gallery can be found here, including a picture Sophie Lyons Burke and others mentioned in her book.