Mostly Teddy

I've always thought pretty well of both presidents Roosevelts, but have tended to favor Franklin.

I have admired both of them for their support of the American Labor Movement.

Their last Dutch ancestor was Cornelius V. S. Roosevelt. Cornelius was born in the Netherlands in 1794 and later founded the Chemical Bank of New York which later became Chase Bank. The family got off to a good economic start.

I wonder if Theodore named Sagamore Hill after Wampatuck, who was, it seems, related to the Mattakeeset of Massachusetts Indians and was known English settlers as Josiah Sagamore. Who can tell us more about Sagamore? I believe that he is thought to havre sold the land Boston stands on to the English and that he died leading tribal members to fight Mohawks.

Speaking of Teddy, do you remember the Main?
I heard that in 1976 Admiral Hyman G. Rickover established that the blast on the Main was most likely a large internal explosion cause be spontaneous combustion in inadequately ventilated bituminous coal which then ignited gunpowder in an adjacent magazine.

Wasn't there something about a ship near the beginning of the Viet Nam "war?"

It it was a war in VietNam why was it a police action in Korea?

From Dream to Dream

Stephen W. Kearny may not have been a sweetheart but he was the top pre-Civil War Army officer of his time. He is import for reasons other than his part in the conquest of California, but it is that conquest that interests me at the moment.
The Kearny Code for governing government behavior towards Californios may not have been great, but it was much better than that behavior actually became. What it became may not have been as bad as Federal behavior became during Reconstruction, but there are comparisons.

Kearny (pronounced "Kar-ney" sounds Irish) was born in 1794 in New Jersey and died in Missouri in 1848. Remember the "'49ers?" He was of a 'good family' being able to trace his roots back through General William Alexander and Sara(Lady Stirling)Livingston.
In 1826 he was appointed the first commander of the new Jefferson Barracks in Missouri. While there he married Mary Radford, the step-daughter of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
While at Jefferson Barracks, Kearny organized a regiment of dragoons on the lines of a cavalry unit. The U. S. Cavalry eventually grew out of that unit.

Kearny left for California with a fighting force of 300. They arrived tired in California and were stopped in their tracks by Captain Leonardo Cota of the Californio-Mexican cavalry under Andres Pico at the Battle of San Pasqual where Kearney was wounded. Even after Kearny was helped by Commodore Stockton's navel force at San Diego it remained a "Mexican stand-off for some time. After the Battles of San Gabriel and La Mesa with subsequent control of Los Angeles the Anglos gained the upper hand. They were helped some by a lack of trust for the Mexicans which had grown among the Californios.

Still for a short time, a bit like Camelot, 'the days of the dons' had been a bit like the dreams of the Caliphs.