Daniel Bedinger, Revolutionary War POW

Project Gutenberg's American Prisoners of the Revolution, by Danske Dandridge:

To The Memory of my Grandfather, Lieutenant Daniel Bedinger, of Bedford, Virginia

 Daniel's father was born in Alsace, and he himself had been brought up in a family where German was the familiar language of the household. It seems that, in some way, probably by using his mother tongue, he had touched the heart of one of the Hessian guards.

In some way Daniel was conveyed to Philadelphia, where he completely collapsed, and was taken to one of the military hospitals.

Here, about the first of January, 1777, his devoted brother, George Michael Bedinger, found him. Major Bedinger's son, Dr. B. F. Bedinger, wrote an account of the meeting of these two brothers for Mrs. H. B. Lee, one of Daniel's daughters, which tells the rest of the story. He said:

"My father went to the hospital in search of his brother, but did not recognize him. On inquiry if there were any (that had been) prisoners there a feeble voice responded, from a little pile of straw and rags in a corner, 'Yes, Michael, there is one.'

"He placed his suffering and beloved charge in the chair...and carried him some miles into the country, where he found a friendly asylum for him in the house of some good Quakers. There he nursed him, and by the aid of the kind owners, who were farmers, gave him nourishing food, until he partially recovered strength.

After Daniel Bedinger returned home he had a relapse...however, recovered, and re-entered the service, where the first duty assigned him was that of acting as one of the guards over the prisoners near Winchester. He afterwards fought with Morgan in the southern campaigns, was in the battle of the Cowpens, and several other engagements, serving until the army was disbanded. He was a Knight of the Order of the Cincinnati.

Lieutenant Bedinger...died in 1818 at his home near Shepherdstown, of a malady which troubled him ever after his confinement as a prisoner in New York. He hated the British with a bitter hatred, which is not to be wondered at.

Daniel Bedinger's entry at Wikitree.

See a YouTube video of Bedinger's experiences by one of his descendants.

Texas Fiction

A quote from The Eagle and the Raven by James Michener:

"Texas is a collector's paradise (for books about their state) and local publishers know it, for they keep providing a constant flood of books about the Lone Star state."

Author Melodie Cuate makes history interesting for the 9 - 12 year old crowd with her Mr. Barrington's Mysterious Trunk book series and is published by "local publisher" Texas Tech University Press.

See the author on YouTube.

The Wreck Of The Julie Plante

Dr. W. H. Drummond, the noted writer of French-Canadian dialect poems, who died in Cobalt April 6, 1907. One of his most popular poems was "The Wreck of the Julie Plante." Believing that it will prove both
amusing and interesting to the reader we publish it in full :

THE WRECK OF THE JULIE PLANTE

'Twas one dark night on Lac St. Clair,

De wind was "blow," "blow," "blow,"

When de crew on de wood skow "Julie Plante"

Got scare and run below.

For de wind she blow like hurricane,

Bineby she blow some more

When de skow buss up just off Grosee Pointe

Ten acres from the shore.

The captain she's walk on the front deck,

She's walk on the hind deck, too,

She's call the crew from up the hole,

She's call the cook also.

De cook his name was Rosa

He come from Montreal,

Was a chambermaid on a lumber barge

On dat big Lachine Canal.

De wind he's blow from nor' eass' wess'

De sou' wind he's blow too,

When Rosa say, "Oh, Captain,

Whatever shall I do."

De captain she's throw the hank,

But still that skow she drif,

And de crew he can't pass on dat shore

Because he loose dat skiff.

De night was dark like one black cat,

De wave ran high and fass

When the Captain took poor Rosa

And lash her to the mass.

When the Captain put on de life preserve

And he jump into the lac,

And he say, "Good-by, my Rosa dear,

I go down for your sak.

Next morning vary hearly,

About half-past two, three, four,

De Captain, cook and wood skow

Lay corpses on dat shore.

For the wind she blow like hurricane,

Bimeby she blow some more,

For dat skow buss up just hoff Grosee Pointe

Ten hacres from de shore.

Moral.

Now all good wood skow sailor mans,

Take lesson by that storm

And go and marry nice French gal

And live on Grosee Pointe farm.

Den the wind may blow like hurricane

And spose she's blow some more,

You can't get drowned on Lac St. Clair

So long you stop on shore.

[Source]

Put to song by Nelson Eddy (Lac St. Pierre instead of Lac St. Clair) and a more traditional reading here (both on YouTube).

Music To My Ears

"Miss Campanula," ended Mr. Copeland, "will play Rachmaninoff's Prelude In C Sharp Minor."
Down it came.  Pom.  Pom.  POM.
The three familiar pretentious chords.

Those were lines in Ngaio Marsh's Overture to Death.  Thanks to YouTube, I could listen to those three chords which helped to envision the scene.  

Arthur Stringer And The Gibson Girl

A search for an unrelated "Howland" in the Saginaw County, Michigan, Library's Obituary Index revealed the following entry:

Obituary Index

Index: SAGINAW DAILY NEWS

Tuesday, May 21, 1912 (9)

Name: STRINGER, ARTHUR

Spouse's Name: JOBYNA HOWLAND

Married: 00/00/1900

Death Date: 05/20/1912 [sic]*

Death Place: NIAGARA FALLS, NY

Misc: FORMER SAGINAW RESIDENT/AUTHOR

*September 14, 1950

Now who was author Arthur Stringer (1874-1950) and his wife, Jobyna Howland?  Arthur John Arbuthnott Stringer was born in Chatham, Ontario, Canada.  They were married in 1900 in New York City.

New York, Marriages, 1686-1980

groom's name: Arthur John Arbuthnott Stinger

bride's name: Jobyna Lulu Bird Howland

marriage date: 02 Oct 1900

marriage place: Manhattan, New York, New York

groom's father's name: Hugh A. Stinger

groom's mother's name: Sarah Dehuzes

bride's father's name: Job Howland

bride's mother's name: Mary Benstiry

Several photographs of Jobyna Howland (1880-1936) can be seen at the photo gallery of the NYPL's Billy Rose Theatre Collection.  She was an actress and a Gibson Girl model.  Jobyna can be seen here at YouTube.  Ms. Howland's brother, Olin, was an actor.  Jobyna Howland's father, Joby, was "the drummer boy of Shiloh," the youngest enlisted drummer boy in the Civil War at age 11.

Jobyna and Arthur Stringer were divorced.  She was single and living in California in 1930:

United States Census, 1930

event place: Los Angeles (Districts 0001-0250), Los Angeles, California

marital status: Single

birthplace: Indiana

estimated birth year: 1882

relationship to head of household: Head

father's birthplace: New York

mother's birthplace: Illinois

Household Gender Age

  Jobyna Howland F 48

Germaine Gerard F 32

Arthur was remarried and living in New Jersey:

United States Census, 1930

event place: Mountain Lakes, Morris, New Jersey

Household Gender Age

  Arthur Stringer M 55

spouse Margaret Stringer F 36

child Robert Stringer M 12

child Hugh Stringer M 11

child Arthur John Stringer M 2

Ethel Terry F 24

A picture of Arthur Stringer as well as a partial list of his books can be found here.

Territorial Disputes Before The French-Indian War

From The Plains of Abraham, a book by Brian Connell, about the French-Indian War:

..The British fell back on the Treaty of Utrecht, which had ended Marlborough's wars, and declared that the whole territory occupied by the Iroquois Indians* belonged to the British Crown.  *Also called the People of the Long House

[Source]

The result [of the territorial dispute] was deadlock.

[Source]

Luke Gridley's Diary - French And Indian War

Luke Gridley's diary:
 

PREFACE.

THE year 1757 was the nadir of the English cause during the Seven Years' War in America. Not only had it thus far distinctly the worse, — having lost the control of the West at Fort Duquesne in 1755, and that of Lake Ontario at Oswego in 1756, and gained only a desert frontier on the east by depopulating one of its own provinces,—but the disasters had seemingly taught the government nothing. They had not even loosed the hold of political "pulls" and jobbery which was the curse of all the administrative services. For two years a set of very unfit commanders, appointed by court or family influence, with the King's son Cumberland as military dictator, played ducks and drakes with the English chances of gaining the chief heritage of the Western Hemisphere; and they would have lost it altogether but for the provincials whom they despised, belittled, and defamed — largely for their own repute and promotions, and to the fatal misleading of English judgment as to an easy suppression of provincial revolt a few years later. 

 From the war's "big picture" (above) to the sometimes mundane found in the day to day activities: