Heritager/sandbox is located in Nova Scotia
Heritager/sandbox
Kennan-McCurdy House in Nova Scotia
The second and larger home, Beinn Bhreagh Hall (known locally as "The Point") was built in 1889 on the shores of the Bras D'Or Lakes outside Baddeck, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

The Kennan-McCurdy House is historic house in Victoria County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It was the longtime home of J.A.D. ("Douglas") McCurdy, the "father of Canadian aviation and the first person to fly an airplane in the British Empire. The original part of the house was built in 1889 by George Kennan, a prominent American journalist and explorer widely known at the time for his books, articles, and lectures.

George Kennan

edit

George Kennan (February 16, 1845 – May 10, 1924) was an American explorer noted for his travels in Siberia and the Kamchatka and Caucasus regions of the Russian Empire. In 1864, he secured employment with the Russian–American Telegraph Company to survey a route for a proposed overland telegraph line through Siberia and across the Bering Strait. In his book Tent Life in Siberia, Kennan provided descriptions of many native peoples in Siberia that are still important for researchers.


He was a cousin twice removed of the American diplomat and historian George F. Kennan, whose birthday he shared.


He was a frequently contributed articles to magazines, such as Century Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, McClure's Magazine (a muckraker magazine), National Geographic and The Outlook. He was the only journalist among the founders of the National Geographic Society

In May 1885, Kennan began another voyage in Russia, this time across Siberia from Europe.[1] He had been very publicly positive about the Tsarist Russian government and its policies and his journey was approved by the Russian government. However, in the course of his meetings with exiled dissidents during his travel, notably Nikolai Mikhailovich Yadrintsev (1842–1894), Kennan changed his mind about the Russian imperial system. He had been particularly impressed by Catherine Breshkovsky, the populist "little grandmother of the Russian Revolution." She had bidden him farewell in the small Transbaikal village to which she was confined by saying, "We may die in exile and our grand children may die in exile, but something will come of it at last." He also met a teenage Leonid Krasin during this journey.[2]

On his return to the United States in August 1886, he became an ardent critic of the Russian autocracy and began to espouse the cause of Russian democracy. Kennan devoted much of the next twenty years to promoting the cause of a Russian revolution, mainly by lecturing. Kennan was one of the most prolific lecturers of the late 19th century. He spoke before a million or so people during the 1890s, including two hundred consecutive evening appearances during 1890–91 (excepting Sundays) before crowds of as many as 2000 people. His reports on conditions in Siberia were published serially by Century Magazine, and in 1891, he published a two-volume book Siberia and The Exile System. It, with first-hand interviews, data, and drawings by the artist George Albert Frost, had an influential effect on American public opinion.

Kennan befriended other émigrés as well, such as Peter Kropotkin and Sergei Kravchinskii. He became the best-known member of the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom, whose membership included Mark Twain and Julia Ward Howe, and also helped found Free Russia, the first English-language journal to oppose Tsarist Russia. In 1901, the Russian government responded by banning him from Russia.

Kennan was not completely consumed by Russian matters. As a reporter and war correspondent, he also covered American politics, the Spanish–American War, the assassination of President William McKinley, and the Russo-Japanese War, as well as World War I and the Russian Revolution. He also published a book, E. H. Harriman's Far Eastern Plans, (1917, The Country Life Press) about Harriman's efforts to secure a lease to the South Manchuria Railway from Japan, as well as The Chicago and Alton Case: A Misunderstood Transaction, (1916, The Country Life Press), defending Harriman's purchase of the Chicago & Alton Railroad from politically motivated criticism by the ICC and Teddy Roosevelt.

Kennan was vehemently against the October Revolution because he felt the Bolsheviks lacked the "knowledge, experience, or education to deal successfully with the tremendous problems that have come up for solutions since the overthrow of the Tsar." President Woodrow Wilson read and weighed Kennan's report in 1918 criticizing the Bolsheviks,[3] but Kennan eventually criticized Wilson's administration for being too timid in intervening against Bolshevism.

Kennan's last criticism of Bolshevism was written in the Medina Tribune, a small-town newspaper, in July 1923:

The Russian leopard has not changed its spots.... The new Bolshevik constitution… leaves all power just where it has been for the last five years—in the hands of a small group of self-appointed bureaucrats which the people can neither remove nor control.


J.A.D. McCurdy

edit
edit

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ Kennan, George (1891). Siberia and the Exile System. London: James R. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co.
  2. ^ Michael Glenny, "Leonid Krasin: The Years before 1917: An Outline," Soviet Studies, vol. 22, no. 2 (October 1970), pp. 192–221.
  3. ^ Berg, A. Scott (2013). Wilson. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons. p. 499. ISBN 978-0-399-15921-3.

46°06′16″N 60°43′04″W / 46.10444°N 60.71778°W / 46.10444; -60.71778

Jonathan Holman
 
Col. Jonathan Holman
Born(1738-04-09)April 9, 1738
Sutton, Massachusetts
DiedMay 4, 1824(1824-05-04) (aged 86)
Marietta, Ohio
Buried
Allegiance  United States
Service/branchContinental Army
United States Army
Years of service1775–1783
1792–1793
Rank  Brigadier-General
Spouse(s)Persis Rice
Signature 

Jonathan Holman (April 9, 1738 – May 4, 1824) was an American military officer who fought during the French and Indian War and the American Revolutionary War. He is considered one of the founders of the town of Millbury, Massachusetts.

Early life and career

edit

Holman was born in Sutton, Massachusetts. Rufus's father Elisha Putnem[clarify] died when Rufus was 6 or 7, and Rufus temporarily lived with his paternal grandfather in Rhode Island. Elisha Putnam and Israel Putnam, who became a renowned general during the Revolutionary War were cousins. Ann Putnam, accuser of the Salem witch trials, was a first cousin once removed. After Rufus Putnam's mother married John Sadler, Rufus lived with his mother and stepfather in Sutton, where the family ran an inn.[1][2]

Holman served with a Massachusetts regiment from 1757 to 1760, during the French and Indian War. During the war, Putnam saw action in the Great Lakes region, and near Lake Champlain.[3][4]

Migration and work

edit

After the war, Putnam relocated to New Braintree, Massachusetts. There, he worked as a millwright from 1761 to 1768. [5]

Farmer and surveyor

edit

While Putnam worked as a millwright, he devoted his free time to self-education, studying geography, mathematics, and surveying.

In 1769, Putnam became a farmer and surveyor. Rufus Putnam, along with his cousin Israel Putnam and two others, traveled in 1773 to survey near present-day Pensacola, Florida. There, Putnam surveyed and chartered lands along the Mississippi River, which the Crown was going to grant to veterans of the French and Indian War in lieu of payment for their service.[6]

Revolutionary War

edit
 
Gen. Rufus Putnam at center-rear

After the Battle of Lexington and Concord, Putnam enlisted the same day, on April 19, 1775, in one of Massachusett's first revolutionary regiments. Putnam later was commissioned in the Continental Army as a lieutenant colonel, under the command of David Brewer. Brewer's regiment first engaged with the British Army in Roxbury, Massachusetts. After the Battle of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill, the Americans laid siege against the British in Boston. The long siege lasted for many months with neither side able to make any progress. At the urging of William Heath, Putnam used his experience working with British military engineers during the French and Indian war to build fortifications in Roxbury and other locations that were critical to the siege. After his initial success, he borrowed from Heath the book Attack and Defense of Fortified Places, by John Müller that showed him additional techniques for building defensive fortifications. Using Muller's ideas, Putnam devised a system for fortifying Dorchester Heights, overlooking Boston Harbor. Despite the frozen ground in early March, 1776, Putnam's plan of using timbers and fascines allowed the colonial troops to put up the defenses overnight allowing for the subsequent emplacement of artillery, brought from Fort Ticonderoga by Henry Knox weeks earlier, the next day. Putnam's success in establishing a fort in a matter of just hours took the British by surprise and left them in an untenable position, resulting in their evacuation of Boston by sea in the following weeks.[7][8][9][10][11][12]

 
View of the West Point area from Fort Putnam.

General Washington appointed Putnam to be the Chief of Engineers of the Works of New York. He was soon promoted to engineer with the rank of colonel where he directed the building of fortifications which secured victories at Sewall's Point, Providence, Newport, Long Island, and West Point.[10] In December, 1776, when the Continental Congress rejected his proposition to establish a national corps of engineers, Putnam resigned his commission. His resignation was short-lived and he eventually joined the Continental Army and served under Major General Horatio Gates. Putnam commanded two regiments in the battle of Saratoga. He continued to work on critical fortifications, including Fort Putnam at West Point in 1778. In 1779 Putnam served under Major General Anthony Wayne in the Corps of Light Infantry following the capture of Stony Point, commanding the 4th Regiment. Putnam's remaining military career was less eventful. In January 1783 he was commissioned as brigadier general.[13]

Post-war activities

edit

After the war was over, Putnam returned to Rutland, Massachusetts. In 1780 he had bought a farm confiscated from a Loyalist, and he settled there. He returned to working as a surveyor, inspecting lands in Maine (then part of Massachusetts). Putnam was a strong advocate of granting lands to veterans of the Revolution.[14] He was one of the authors of the army's Newburgh Petition, which was submitted to Congress requesting land disbursements. There was pent-up land hunger among younger men in New England, where topography and long settlement restricted buying land.

Putnam was an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati,[15] and one of the principal benefactors of the Leicester Academy in Leicester, Massachusetts, and served on its board of trustees.[16][17]

 
Putnam's home in Rutland, Massachusetts, still stands and is now a B&B.

Later life

edit

Marriage and family

edit

Established at work, in April 1761 Putnam married Elizabeth Ayers, the daughter of William Ayers, esquire of the Second Precinct of Brookfield (now North Brookfield), Massachusetts. Elizabeth died in 1762, possibly in childbirth.[18]

On January 10, 1765, Putnam married again, to Persis Rice (1737-1820), the daughter of Zebulon Rice and Abigail Forbush Rice of Westborough, Massachusetts.[19][18]

Death

edit

Putnam died on May 4, 1824. He was buried at Mound Cemetery in Marietta, Ohio.[20]


References

edit
  1. ^ William A. Benedict, Hiram A. Tracy, History of the Town of Sutton, Massachusetts, from 1704 to 1876, 1876, p. 244
  2. ^ Fred Milligan, Ohio's Founding Fathers, 2003, p. 9
  3. ^ Rufus Putnam, Journal of Gen. Rufus Putnam Kept in Northern New York During Four Campaigns of the Old French and Indian War, 1757–1760, 1886, p. 72
  4. ^ Mark W. Royston, The Faces Behind the Bases, 2009, p. 173
  5. ^ Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio," pp. 27-8, 107, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4766-7862-7.
  6. ^ Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio," pp. 31-9, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4766-7862-7.
  7. ^ Philbrick, Nathaniel (2013). Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution. New York, New York: Viking. pp. 274–275. ISBN 978-0-670-02544-2. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
  8. ^ Hubbard, Robert Ernest. Major General Israel Putnam: Hero of the American Revolution, pp. 157-8, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina. ISBN 978-1-4766-6453-8.
  9. ^ Livingston, William Farrand. Israel Putnam: Pioneer, Ranger, and Major-General, 1718-1790, p. 269, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1901.
  10. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference auto was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio," pp. 80, 103-4, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4766-7862-7.
  12. ^ Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio," pp. 45-8, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4766-7862-7.
  13. ^ Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio", p. 85, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4766-7862-7.
  14. ^ Hildreth, S. P. Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio, pp. 57-65, Badgley Publishing Company, 2011. ISBN 978-0615501895.
  15. ^ Metcalf, Bryce (1938). Original Members and Other Officers Eligible to the Society of the Cincinnati, 1783-1938: With the Institution, Rules of Admission, and Lists of the Officers of the General and State Societies. Strasburg, Va.: Shenandoah Publishing House, Inc.
  16. ^ Hildreth, Samuel Prescott. Biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio, p. 69, Badgley Publishing Company, 2011. ISBN 978-0615501895.
  17. ^ Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio", p. 82, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4766-7862-7.
  18. ^ a b Hubbard, Robert Ernest. General Rufus Putnam: George Washington's Chief Military Engineer and the "Father of Ohio", p. 29, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, North Carolina, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4766-7862-7.
  19. ^ "Persis Rice in ERA database". Edmund Rice (1638) Association. Archived from the original on 20 April 2011. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  20. ^ Gale, Kira (May 31, 2006). Lewis And Clark Road Trips: Exploring the Trail Across America. River Junction Press LLC. ISBN 9780964931527 – via Google Books.

Bibliography

edit
edit
Military offices
Preceded by Chief Engineer of the Continental Army
April – December 1776
Succeeded by
Major-General Louis Duportail
Legal offices
Preceded by Judge of the Northwest Territory
March 1790 – December, 1796
Succeeded by
Government offices
Preceded by
new office
Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory
1797–1803
Succeeded by



Category:1738 births Category:1824 deaths Category:Masonic grand masters Category:American people of the Northwest Indian War Category:American people of English descent Category:American pioneers Category:American surveyors Category:Burials at Mound Cemetery (Marietta, Ohio) Category:United States Army Corps of Engineers Chiefs of Engineers Category:Continental Army generals Category:Continental Army officers from Massachusetts Category:Members of the Northwest Territory House of Representatives Category:Northwest Territory judges Category:Ohio Constitutional Convention (1802) Category:Ohio University trustees Category:People from Marietta, Ohio Category:People of Massachusetts in the French and Indian War Category:People from Sutton, Massachusetts Category:People from Danvers, Massachusetts Category:People from New Braintree, Massachusetts Category:People from Rutland, Massachusetts Category:Surveyors General of the Northwest Territory Rufus


xxxxxxxxxxxx

Asa Holman Waters
[[File:|frameless|upright=1]]
Asa Holman Waters.
Born
Asa Holman Waters

Error: Invalid birth date for calculating age
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipU.S.A.
Alma materYale College, Class of 182_
Occupation(s)Gun manufacturer, investor
SpouseMary Elizabeth Hovey Waters (1829-1892)
ChildrenLilian Waters Grosvenor
ParentAsa Waters
RelativesGilbert H. Grosvenor, grandson

Asa Holman Waters, sometimes referred to as Asa Waters III, was a bank president, gun manufacturer, and abolitionist.

Early years

edit

Asa Holman Waters was born on February 8, 1808, the only son in a family of eight children. His father, Asa Waters, was a prominent gun manufacturer and .

Career

edit

Literary Agency

edit

Personal life

edit

References

edit

Category:1808 births

Warning: Default sort key "Waters, Asa Holman" overrides earlier default sort key "Putnam, Rufus".