The Jacksboro Gazette (Jacksboro, Tex.), Vol. 57, No. 15, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 10, 1936 Page: 3 of 8
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By LOUISE M. COMSTOCK
TV/TEN variously serve their
1V1 country. Some live, others
<lie for it. Samuel Wilson ren-
dered the United States of
America a service no other in-
dividual has yet been able to
-duplicate. He gave his country
that symbolic personality which
embodies all the traits popu-
larly attributed to its people;
the name by which it has been
praised and reviled, revered
and ridiculed the world over.
He did it uniquely, simply by
being himself. Samuel Wilson
was Uncle Sam.
For this service Samuel Wil-
son recently received his na-
tion’s thanks. At the impressive
upright oblong of granite which
marks his grave in Oakwood
cemetery,- in Troy, N. Y., a new
flag climbed its pole, a stiff,
fresh wreath tipped against the
stone, a band played and state
troopers fired a military salute.
The New York department of
the Veterans of Foreign Wars,
convening at Troy, thus paid
homage to an early Trojan.
But, “We are not in the final
analysis honoring a single indi-
vidual," said National Comman-
Veterans of Foreign Wars, Members of the Ladies Auxiliary, V, F. W., and a Firing Squad of
State Police Stand at the Grave of “Uncle Sam” Wilson in Oakwood Cemetery in Troy, N. Y., as
Tribute Is Paid to His Memory.
local situation. Already the more
substantial citizenry of Albany
was advertising its substance by
living in brick houses, their ma-
terials imported, like the urge to
own them, from its native Hol-
land. The Wilsons bought a farm
on Mount Ida and went into the
brick business.
There are buildings standing
in Troy today constructed of
Wilson bricks. For that matter
the whole country is rich with
evidence of their lives there.
At one time Sam ran two
farms, one of which he used for
a summer and one a winter
Memorial Over the Grave of “Uncle Sam” Wilson, Erected by
His Daughter, Mrs. Marlon Wilson Sheldon.
der-in-Chief James E. Van
Zandt. “Rather we are dedicat-
ing this program to our country
itself, to the spirit of American-
ism which prevails in our rela-
tions with one another and with
the world.”
Had Samuel Wilson been
aware during his lifetime that he
was to become all that, it is
probable he would have thought
his metamorphosis a huge joke.
That, we gather, is the sort of
person he was. Kindly, shrewd,
humorous, scrupulously honest:
the best of New England broad-
ened a bit by its first adventur-
ous step westward.
A Bay State Scot
He was born in 1766 at Meno-
tomy, now Arlington, Mass.,
eighth of thirteen children in a
Seotch family which could claim
early and influential connections
in Boston but never rose to the
dignity of a coat of paint on its
own shack! In 1780 the family
moved to Mason, N. H. And in
1781 the youthful Samuel, hav-
ing attained the advanced age of
fifteen years, did his duty as he
saw it by enlisting as service
boy in the American Army of the
Revolution. Had he been even a
drummer boy, history might
have caught him early. But he
was merely a service boy.
In 1789, at the comparatively
mature age of twenty-three, Sam
left Mason with his brother,
Ebenezer, and followed the trend
of the times westward. Not very
far west, except as measured by
the near-sighted eyes of 1789.
What is today the city of Troy
was then but a raw settlement on
the banks of the Hudson river.
Early Trojans ,
Sam and Ed Wilson were
among the first to settle there.
They chose well. Behind the set-
tlement rose two small hills,
named in accordance with that
region’s taste in classical no-
menclature, Mounts Ida and
Olympus. Their western slopes,
where is today Troy’s pleasant
- Prospect park, contained clay
suitable for making bricks. Sam
and Eb had learned about bricks
back in New Hampshire. They
had also sized up shrewdly the
home. He and his brother left
their mark on their holdings in
such local terms as “Wilson’s
Bowl” and “Wilson’s Hollow.”
Betsy Wilson was a New
Hampshire girl, daughter of a
veteran of the Battle of Bunker
Hill. In 1797, tne brick business
well under way, Sam returned to
Mason to marry her and bring
her back to Troy. She bore him
four children, two of whom
reached maturity. Benjamin be-
came a lawyer. It was his daugh-
ter, the late Mrs. Marion Wilson
Sheldon, who erected to her
grandfather’s memory the monu-
ment which marks his grave to-
day. Her son, Carlton Wood Shel-
don of Kansas City, his daughter,
Mrs. Helen Marion Brockett, and
her daughter, Betty Sheldon
Brockett, are Uncle Sam’s and
Aunt Betsy’s only living descend-
ants today.
Early Packers
i
The brick business well in
hand, the Wilson brothers ex-
tended their efforts. Adjoining
one of Sam’s farm houses was a
large field suitable for grazing,
.watered by two ponds. Here the
Wilsons undertook to raise stock.
Their cattle flourished. The Wil-
sons erected a slaughter house,
and entered the meat business.
As early as 1805 they could ad-
vertise in the local papers: “Two
large and convenient slaughter
houses,” where could be “killed,
cut and packed 150 head of cattle
per day.” When times were at
their best, the slaughter houses
required employment of 4(X> men.
Still the Wilsons expanded. At
the foot of what is now Ferry
street they built a dock. They
purchased their own sloops. Out
from the firm of S. and E. Wilson
at Troy and down the Hudson to
Albany and points east came
Wilson meats and Wilson bricks
by the shipload.
And what is so noble in that?
What to warrant flags and
wreaths and military salutes?
Nothing at all. Uncle Sam was
simply being himself, working
shrewdly but with honor for his
own interests.
The War of 1812 created urgent
demand for provisions for the
troops saving the United States
from the British. One Elbert
Anderson Jr. of New Jersey ob-
tained a government contract for
rationing the New York and New
Jersey troops stationed near
Albany. The contract, still to be
examined in the War Department
records at Washington, specifies
“2,000 barrels of prime pork and
300 barrels of prime beef in full
bound barrels of white oak.” In
those days there were no refrig-
erated freight cars. Elbert Ander-
son took stock of the local
sources of supply. He advertised
in the Troy papers. As a result
the slaughter houses of S. and E.
Wilson were commissioned to
furnish a goodly portion of the
meat required, and Sam Wilson
was additionally appointed
United States inspector to pass
upon its “prime” condition. On
every barrel thus approved he
stamped the letters U. S. for
United States and E. A. for El-
bert Anderson.
And now comes the crux of
the story, muffled as such
crisis usually are by legend,
by hearsay and by local imag-
inings. What actually took
place may be as clearly de-
duced from its most dramatic
version as from any other. It
begins like an old familiar,
with an encounter between an
Irishman and an innocent by-
stander. Asked the bystander,
nodding his head toward one
of the certified barrels, “And
what does the U. S. stand for?”
“Uncle Sam,” said the Irish-
man. (You can supply your
own brogue.) “Oh, come now,
■ Uncle Sam who?” “Why, don’t
you know? Uncle Sam Wilson.
He owns nearly all about here
and he’s feedin the army!”
So much for the acorn from
which grew the ntlghty oak. For
the nourishment which sped that
growth to colossal proportions,
one must examine the temper
and morale of the troops which
fought the War of 1812. It was
probably not much different from
that of any troops in any war.
For physical and mental torture
so long continued that they have
themselves become monotony,
laughter is a wonderful though
perverse panacea. Perhaps you
think the Irishman’s retort in this
case not particularly funny.
Maybe so. But the troops to
which the story wended its way
were composed of boys from in
Sam’s these-them-and-those war
they were fighting? It is a fact
that by 1813 the term was in
common use among the troops
stationed near Albany to desig-
nate the United States of
America.
It was first printed in this con-
notation in the papers of that
region. The Troy Post in an edi-
torial of September 7, 1813, re-
ferred to the hard luck which
had lighted “on Uncle Sam’s
shoulders”, and added in a foot-
note “this cant term for our gov-
ernment has got almost as cur-
rent as John Bull.” Shortly there-
after Uncle Sam’s teams, his
troops and payroll were men-
tioned in several northern New
York and western Vermont pa-
pers. The Columbia Sentinel in
December, 1814, printed an edi-
torial entitled “Uncle Sam and
John Bull,” contrasting the nig-
gardly pay in the American
Army with that in the British.
Finally, in Nile’s Register for
1815, we find a definition: “U. S.
or Uncle Sam—a cant term in
the army for the United States.”
It was time and the cartoon-
ist, of course, who promoted
Uncle Sam from a “cant
term” to a definite personality.
It was done by the conventional
methods of caricature.
The first known picturizatiow
of the new synonym for the
United States appeared in Punch,
London, in 1844. It showed a
long, lean Uncle Sam in long
coat tails and stove pipe hat.
According to those who should
know, Samuel Wilson was long
and lean and wore a high beaver
hat, though how the new*
reached London is beyond con-
jecture. First American cartoon
was drawn in 1852 by F. Bellow
for the New York Lantern, a
comic weekly of the period. It
added, whether to the London
version or to ftie original we
shall never know, the familiar
tight trousers; low-cut waistcoat,
high collar and bow tie. It was
Thomas Nast, famous American
cartoonist; who embellished the
figure further with chin whis-
kers, striped his trousers, starred
his waistcoat, and otherwise
brought it up to what is today
accepted as standard. Nast be-
gan his drawings within a year
or two of Samuel Wilson’s death.
But there is no evidence that he
drew from life. There are Tro-
ed “the man who was elected by a
single vote.”
His contest with Samuel J. Til-
den of New York, the Democratic
nominee, threatened for a time in
1876 and early 1877 to bring about
a resumption of the Civil war. Per-
haps it explains in some measure
the bitterness of battles today be-
tween Republicans and Democrats.
Hayes faced the disadvantage of
running in the wake of the eight
years of the Grant administrations,
followed as they were by sensa-
tional accusations of financial
frauds. There was little to choose
between abilities of the candidates
and when first returns were in,
Tilden was acclaimed as winner.
Shortly after election day, it was
revealed that Tilden’s managers
were uncertain as to the results
their party had achieved in Flori-
da, South Carolina and Louisiana.
Normally Democratic, these states
still were in the hands of carpet-
bagger governments.
Tilden had 184 electoral votes
and the ballots of any of the three
states named would have elected
him. Hayes, with 166, needed all
of them to have one more elec-
toral vote than Tilden. In Louisi-
ana, the canvassing board threw
out 13,250 Democratic votes and
gave the state to Hayes. Republi-
cans asserted their candidate had
won in both South Carolina and
Florida. But Democrats of the
three states returned votes for Til-
den.
To make the situation a typical
American scene, congress was di-
vided, one branch being Democrat-
ic, the other Republican.
It was decided finally to appoint
five congressmen from each party
and five judges of the Supreme
court to make the decision as to
which set of returns from the
disputed states should be accepted.
The election of Hayes was as-
sured by the vote of Justice Brad-
ley, whose participation gave the
deliberative body a margin oi eight
Republicans to seven Democrats.
And congress approved these mo-
mentous findings just in time to
enable Rutherford B. Hayes to take
the oath of office as President.
COME WHEN COME
VOU’RE WITHOUT
LOOKED roR WARNING
OR
The Thomas H. Nast Version of Uncle Sam—Columbia Chides
Him for the Increased Coinage of Silver Dollars. (From Harper’s
Weekly, 1878.)
and about Troy. They had known
Samuel Wilson all their lives,
they knew him as Uncle Sam,
and they found it funny. That
was enough.
Began as a Joke
Whatever the psychology in-
volved, the joke stuck. So Uncle
Sam Wilson was feeding the
army, was he? Well, if it was
Uncle Sam’s meat they were eat-
ing, why not Uncle Sam’s so-and-
so uniforms they were wearing,
Uncle Sam’s lousy blankets they
slept under, Uncle Sam’s this-
and-that hospitals to which they
carried their wounds, and Uncle
jans who will loudly deny that
their hero ever wore whiskers!
Tailleur, however, is one thing,
personality another. And while it
is as certain as Monday morning
that Samuel Wilson would have
as soon submitted to one of his
own butcher knives as worn stars
and stripes, .it is equally certain
that the kindly smile behind the
fictitious whiskers, the shrewdly
twinkling eye, the thoughtful
brow and the big, .capable hands
of the cartoon were his. We must
give due credit to the acorn.
Samuel Wilson was Uncle Sani.
$ Western Newspaper Union
NAMING A PARTY
IRONICALLY enough, the names
* of the two principal political par-
ties once were combined as Demo-
cratic Republicans, a group of
which the standard bearer was
Thomas Jefferson, referred to per-
haps oftener than any other leader
when Democrats trace their po-
litical origin.
Under Jackson the party name
was shortened to Democrat, which
it continues to bear.
Republicans emerged as a sepa-
rate party as early as 1854, al-
though its first nominating conven-
tion was held two years later. Up
at Ripon, Wis., in a corner of the
campus of Ripon college, stands
the Ripon Congregational church,
scene of the first G. O. P. meeting
The Ripon meeting had been
called by Major Alvan E Bovay,
I a Whig lawyer, ‘ who generally
receives credit for suggesting the
name of the party.
He had passed on his idea to
Horace Greeley who later advo-
cated the name Republican at a
convention in Jackson, Mich.
Although Ripon had a voting list
that hardly exceeded 100 in those
days of exclusively male suffrage,
more than half of them attended
Bovay’s first gathering. The im-
pulse which brought them together
was the conviction that the slavery
question was coming rapidly to
! a head and that those who opposed
! must unite in a new group, regard-
j less of geographical lines.
Northern states naturally proved
j the most fertile ground for spread-
ing the new doctrine. Before the
party’s first national convention,
which was held ip Philadelphia on
June 17, 1856—a firm “toehold” had
been secured by senatorial repre-
sentation at Washington,
i History fails to record what part,
if any, Major Bovay played in the
Philadelphia meeting. The dele-
! gates were unanimously in favor of
nominating John C. Fremont and
; he was selected on the first ballot.
Another Republican attended,
j however. He was the gangling Illi-
nois rail-splitter, Abe Lincoln, and
some of his colleagues had the
temerity to advance his name as
a candidate for vice-president.
“Honest Abe” lost the nomination
! but four years later he was to
carry the party to victory.
© Weatern Nawap&per Union.
Rivers That Flow North
The St. Johns River in Florida is
supposedly the only river in the
United States which flows north-
ward throughout its entire course
There are others, however, which
flow north for a part of their course.
These include the Monongahela in
Pennsylvania, the Tennessee in Ten-
nessee and Kentucky, the Red River
of the North in Minnesota and North
Dakota, Big Horn in Wyoming and
Montana, Powder in Wyoming and
Montana.
Pattern li87
No matter what the Season—a
sampler’s always fun to do, espec-
ially when it offers as colorful
a picture, as quaint a verse, as
this. You’ll find it a grand way to
use up scraps of cotton or silk
floss, and a design that works up
in no time, for the background is
plain. Wouldn’t it go beautifully in
a young girl’s room? Perchance
that Young Miss will want to do
this easy cross stitch design her-
self!
Pattern 1187 comes to you with
a transfer pattern of a sampler
12 1-4 by 15 1-4 inches; color sug-
gestions; material requirements;
illustrations of all stitches used.
Send 15 cents in stamps or coins
(coins preferred) for this pattern
to The Sewing Circle Needlecraft
Dept., 82 Eighth Ave., New York.
N. Y.
Write plainly pattern number,
your name and address.
Strong, Silent Men
Certainly strong men are not
necessarily silent. Caesar wasn’t;
nor Napoleon; nor Solomon; nor
Daniel Webster; nor Abraham
Lincoln. Lincoln told funny sto-
ries and good ones.
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THE IO« SIZE CONTAINS 3'/2
TIMES AS MUCH AS THE 5< SIZE
M0R0UNE
■ SNOW WHITE PETROLEUM JELLY
Worth Having
There is no job where “no ex-
perience” is a recommendation.
TO KILL
Screw Worms
Your money back if you don’t like
Cannon’i Liniment. It kills screw
worms, heals the wound and keeps
flies away. Ask your dealer. (Adv.)
Opening for
FEMALE AGENTS
• Makers oi a well known, highly
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in 90% oi cases. It will not be
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erences are furnished with letter
of inquiry.
Write today, to
DENTON’S COSMETIC CO.
4402-23rd St, Long Island City, N. V.
HEARTBURN FROM OVEREATING?
Hurried or overea ting usually causes heart-
burn. Overcome heartburn and digestive
distresses with Milnesia, the original milk
of magnesia in wafer form. Thin, crunchy,
deliciously flavored,pleasant to take. Each
wafer equals 4 teaspoonfuls of milk of
Biagnesia. 20c,35c & 60c sizes at druggists.
Watch Your
Kidneys./
Be Sure They Properly
Cleanse the Blood
WOUR kidneys are constantly filter.
T ing waste matter from the blood
stream. But kidneys sometimes lag in
their work—do not act as nature in-
tended—fail to remove impurities that
poison the system when retained.
Then you may suffer nagging back,
•che, dizziness, scanty or too frequent
urination, getting op at night, puffiness
under the eyes/ feel nervous, misera-
ble—all upset
Don’t delay? Use Doer’s Pills.
Doan's are especially for poorly func-
tioning kidneys. They are recom-
mended by grateful users the country
over. Get them from any druggist
Doans Pills
sfc i'
Us
is i 5
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The Jacksboro Gazette (Jacksboro, Tex.), Vol. 57, No. 15, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 10, 1936, newspaper, September 10, 1936; Jacksboro, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth730059/m1/3/?q=cemetery: accessed July 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Gladys Johnson Ritchie Library.