SMITH HUBBARD & TICHENOR

GOLDENGATE’S

for May 12, 2013

SPELLCHECK

IF a WASP B BUILT ITS NEST in the “U” BOX of TYPE, HOW WOULD YOU SPELL “WACKENREUDER”… and HOW MIGHT THAT AFFECT the RECORDED

HISTORY of EXPLORATION on the PACIFIC SLOPE (of Oregon)?

But First…..

From the desk of ….

OKAY OKAY OKAY ….. !!!!!!

Can you believe it? Been a week already …? And we’re back with another issue?

And they’re still in office …?

WOWEE! PLAYERS! I know, I know!! I know! It’s like the rest of the world is caught in a DEAD ZONE of some sort….. But not us!! Here in S.Y.M.-Zonia™ ,

We’re Advancing into the Deepest Recesses … … of the Interior of the Human Mind !!!

w/ this extra-special SPELLCHECK !! Issue

Wowee!!!

PLAYERS!! … and did I almost forget to Welcome you back? I did, didn’t I? WELCOME BACK !!!

Players – This Week’s issue of S.Y.M.-Zonia™ was inspired by the success of Last Week’s power-packed REWARD issue – in which we took a look – a very close look – at the attention to Medieval French Orthography [ That’s shorthand for “correct spelling” – Ed.] as demonstrated for us by Maine [Probably – Ed.] Sea Captain Abimilech Riggs and perhaps, but to a lesser extent, his predecessor in command [Capt. Lame, I think it was … but don’t quote me!! – Ed.] [ Please address run-on parentheticals – Ed.] of the Shaving Mill Wiley Reynard !!! From these two daring men – Officers and Gentleman, we know, despite reports of their Barbarian Atrocities and Horrendous Outrages, committed in the neighborhood of Tusket Island [Why does that sound familiar ? – Ed.] – we learned that scrupulous care in spelling is worth our attention even in the most dangerous circumstances, yea, even in the midst of warfare – and that it may hold the key … the KEY!! Players … to unimaginable riches in plundered cargo from British merchant vessels taken unawares, providing …. I say, providing … we can get our claims authenticated and properly and successfully adjudicated in PRIZE COURT back in United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, sitting in Boston – which is the home port from which we sailed anyway… All According to statute, duly enacted during a plenary session of the Congress of the United States of America – and!!! All the more fun for being totally legal !!!

WOWEE!!!!

PLAYERS – THIS IS NO SMALL MATTER !!!! Believe you ME!! [Archaic colloquial form – Ed.]

Proper spelling was critical to the success of the prize claim, because … the PAPERWORK HAD TO MATCH !!!

Right!!! When under review during properly convened sessions of PRIZE COURT in Boston, if the name on the capturing vessel, DID NOT MATCH the name on the papers of the Presidential Commission authorizing the privateer, then the cunning Attorneys for the owners of the captured vessel – the purported PRIZE or REWARD vessel – could successfully argue to the Judge, that the authorization, the Presidential Commission, was being improperly extended to the claiming vessel!!!! And – think of it, Players: ALL THE GREATER WAS THE DERRING-DO demonstrated by our sailing hero, Capt. Abimilech Riggs, in that he REVISED and gradually IMPROVED his Medieval French Orthography while on-the-fly, and in the very Heat of Battle … seemingly heedless of the GREAT RISK to which he was exposing himself and his men!! It’s Breathtaking!! PLAYERS: U.S.A. !!! U.S.A !!! U.S.A.!! U.S.A. !! etc.!

PLAYERS !!! More on this below !!! But First ….!!!

IN THE NEWS !!!

PLAYERS!!!

Yes!! There’s more to the story – much, much more !! But that’s all I have room for This Week !! There’s official S.Y.M.-Zonia™ business to take care of RIGHT NOW !!! For instance ….

WHERE is the PRIZE REPORT for the SHAVING MILL WILEY REYNARD and COULD IT POSSIBLY BE … the REWARD ?

PLAYERS!!! Last Week --

As you will recall, S.Y.M.-Zonia™ took on …. The entire British Admiralty … with only One Vessel! REMEMBER?

… After the shaving mill – that decked over pilot boat, probably fitted out along the coast of Maine –most likely in Wiscassett harbor or Boothbay harbor – and rechristened as Wiley Reynard, was entered into service in Boston, and commissioned as a privateer in the Impressments War of 1812 [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2W1Wi2U9sQ !!! -- Ed.] by no less a personage than President James Madison … but then, ex post facto, SPELLCHECKED and christened again, because the name was just …. you know … not quite right; and so accordingly the vessel had to be re-commissioned by President Madison --- but the captain changed his mind… so it was SPELLCHECKED and rechristened again – then re-commissioned, etc. and so on, until, under one name or another, but – as Capt. Abimilech Riggs OCD-thing with medieval French orthography settled down for the cruise -- it was probably as Wiley Re’nard that she was finally captured on July __, 1812, by the H.M.S. Shannon, mounting 38 guns, under the command of Capt. P.B.V. Broke, taken into Halifax, where her entire crew were imprisoned .. that is, at Halifax. … And so forth ….

REVEALED AT LAST!! The SOLUTION !!!!!

PLAYERS!!! If you’ve been around a year or two, you may remember one of Dromgoole’s lesser efforts in the What’s Wrong with this Picture? P.Y.M. Puzzler for October 2, 2011 – which featured this engraving by William Hoogland, of a most remarkable incident of the early months of the war -- “The Constitution’s Escape from the British Squadron after a chase of sixty hours …” -- the answer to which – never before revealed – is the ship at center, which is pursuing the U.S.S. Constitution – but without its sails!!!! That ship is of course none other than the H.M.S. Shannon, Capt. Broke !!!! Yes indeed! The ship of war that captured … the Wiley Reynard !! Notice she’s being kedged by something like 13 boats !!! Figure 12-16 men per boat – and they’re probably American prisoners! O-kay …

We now rejoin the Solution to Last Week’s S.Y.M.-Zonia™ -- in progress ….

So….. what about the Wiley Reynard?

Well -- what was missing from the picture – I mean, the one piece of documentation that should have shed some light on the capture of the U.S.S.M. Wiley Reynard by the H.M.S. Shannon, was – of course -- the routine Admiralty court OPINION adjudicating the capture as either a legitimate prize – which was usual – or retoriun g the vessel and/or its cargo, to the owners. While such opinions were not always published – in fact most of them never were – nevertheless it would be one …. choice … Reward if it could be found: an official adjudication in the case of the Wiley Reynard, appearing somewhere in the documents of the Halifax Prize Court of the British Vice-Admiralty, and overseen by Judge Alexander Croke, LL D !!

Well, what we did find, PLAYERS!!! was of course an opinion in a closely related case: the adjudication in the case of the Wiley Reynard’s companion vessel, the Eunice, which returned right where it should have been in the case of the Eunice, Capt. Riggs, on page __- of Croke’s Reporter. Properly it would be referred to as Stewart’s Reporter or Reports. See Last Week’s Issue !!!!

NOTE: PLAYERS! Before we go further: according to the subtitle of the Stewart’s Reports the cases included are from “The Commencement of the War in 1803 to the end of 1813” -- meaning, I guess that the British considered themselves to be at war [beginning with Spain] from the period of the Tripolitan War until the publication of this reporter, in 1813…

PLAYERS!!! As we shall see below, during this entire decade – from 1803 to 1812 – it was not Spanish vessels alone that were suffering from the attacks of the British man-of-wars!!! American vessels were also being taken captive – right and left -- and adjudicated as prizes, under the provisions of successive decrees of the Regency government’s Privy Council!!! These decrees were commonly referred to as Orders In Council -- we saw something about this Last Week – and they purported to determine the rights of vessels in the British fleet, to intercept and commandeer ships in the mercantile trade … of neutral nations, like those of the United States carrying goods into the ports of Spain, or France, or Portugal.

As an incident of capture, pending adjudication, the crews of such captured vessels were thrown into charming accomodations, like Dartmoor, or the Halifax prison.

This practice lasted for an entire DECADE!!! Before the United States finally gave up on rational negotiations and the Declaration of War was issued …

Remember what I said – the Treaty of Ghent in 1816, never once addressed the four points outlined in the United States Declaration of War …the British have never repudiated or relinquished their claim of right, to impress and enslave Americans !!

Pretty persistent little custards, aren’t they?

Andrew Allen, Jr. His Majesty’s Vice-Consul at …. Boston, and Shipping Licenses NOW – PLAYERS: If there is anything that ties Croke’s Halifax opinions together it is their repeated reference to and reliance upon the 1812-vintage licenses or passports issued to American privateer vessels, by one Andrew Allen, Jr., His Majesty’s Vice Consul at Boston. These recur in case after case report -- not just in the Eunice, and the Reward, but in many others. In addition, Croke frequently references his Appendices, which are a compendium of verbatim documentary texts from Allen, the Prince Regent, the King’s Council, etc, bearing upon the maneuvering behind this diplomatic history, re: passports.1

From these materials, it appears that Andrew Allen had initiated a plan in cooperation w/ Herbert Sawyer, Vice-Admiral for the Halifax Station, to grant, mercantile licenses -- in effect “letters of protection” for American privateers taking supplies and provisions from the United States to, in particular, Lisbon and Cadiz, for the direct support of the allied forces under Wellington’s army attacking Napoleon.

A REWARD….

SOME little documentation for this virtually lost history of the IMPRESSMENTS WAR of 1812 has been published – for instance in Alfred T. Mahan’s Sea Power and its Relation to the War of 1812 (1969) and again in Dudley & Crawford, the Naval War of 1812, a Documentary History (1985). Mahan’s latest edition (2011) goes more deeply into the material, PLAYERS: Two pages!! NO analysis.

The documentary proof is not limited to Croke’s Halifax Reporter, but appears in a wide range of official judicial opinions from among the

New – England District Courts of the United States, but primarily out of Massachusetts, since

intelligence operative Andrew Allen, Jr. was situated in Boston. Many of these case were appealed to the United States Supreme Court, including such blockbuster PRIZE opinions -- as those in the Julia, Luce, the Hiram, Barker, and the Aurora, Pike…. Each addresses the hot topic of “Andrew Allen” licenses. Citations below.

PLAYERS: the young United States were blockade-running supplies to Lord Wellington, to defeat Napoleon.

IF WE CAN SEPCULATE, it appears that Andrew Allen was likely the brains behind this operation – who had secured Adm. Sawyer’s assent and cooperation, and also the close collaboration of none other than Edward Prince Regent, then of the King’s Council – who had a longstanding relationship w/ Halifax, and a close acquaintanceship w/ American sailors who had “visited” that port under various forms of duress, during the first decade of the 1800’s. See again, the opening chapters of Cooper, Ned Myers: or, A Life Before the Mast (1843). Wait !!! That reminds me !!! 1 In addition to Allen’s passports, Croke’s cases discuss other forms of license, such as, e.g., “Sidmouth licenses” – authorizing “neutral traffic” with European ports, esp. St. Bartholomew’s. There were also “Foster licenses,” etc.

EMERGENCY SIDEBAR -- -- ON EDWARD, PRINCE REGENT !!!!

PLAYERS!! A good place to make the acquaintance of Edward, Prince Regent, who governed as a member of the Privy Council during the British Regency Government occasioned by the insanity of King George III [Players – where have you heard of this insane Monarch before? - -- I can’t remember!!! Ed.] might be in the opening chapters of the book, “NED MYERS: o, a Life Before the Mast” … which I mentioned recently in the FALSE FLAG Issue – p. 10!!

Wait just a minute!!!

The book, “NED MYERS … ” was written by a gentlemen by the name of James Fenimore Cooper in 1843. It’s a charming historical sea-story, the first few chapter of which are set in Halifax, Nova Scotia – with this curious young boy Ned Myers, a favorite of Prince Edward, who was stationed there, and kept a lodge on the outskirts of Halifax. Ned -- like an inquisitive lad – is forever about the docks there, in the occasional company of Prince Eddy, in the year 1805 -- that is, as we just learned, shortly after the British naval WAR began, against SPAIN!! The prose and the story telling are FIRST RATE -- and, of course, Halifax is where the prize, the Wiley Reynard was taken .. .

PLAYERS: you will most likely recall that James Fenimore Cooper is none other than the “Middy of the Hornet” !!! As such, we had reason to propose, that since this fact is otherwise undisclosed, he was working in the U.S. Secret Service during the War of 1812. Thus, in 1843, Cooper was preparing NED MYERS for publication at very nearly the same time that Lt. Comm. Charles Wilkes was working at Cooper’s home, “the Heads” w/ Cooper’s ….. cooper-ation, writing his “Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition”. That’s right!!! COOPER – - intelligence agent -- was assisting Commodore Wilkes! WHY???

BUT!!!! This year, 1843, is also the same year in which the courts of inquiry and courts martial assigned to investigate the U.S.S. Somers mutiny affair were reaching their climax, and Mr. Cooper was entering a more fully-fledged print-confrontation with Lt. A. S. MacKenzie, after his exoneration by the Court Martial,2

Recall that it was suggested that there was A CODE within Midshipman Spencer’s Code. See the “Tarrytown Trivia” section of our recent SHORT-SHEETED Issue !!!

for his role in this greatest-ever American naval tragedy …

3

AS I SAID: The opening scenes of “NED MYERS” are set during the years ca. 1805-6, in Halifax, the locale of headquarters of British Vice-Admiralty (prize courts, etc.) in the North Atlantic. The British appear very active taking U.S. vessels captive, during their “war with Spain”! Ned, by now about 12 years, very matter-of-factly discusses from recollection various Brit ships of war and their prize captures coming into Halifax: in remarkable detail he narrates the arrival of H.M.S. Boxer, and Cambrian, with prizes like the Amsterdam Packet out of Philadelphia, and the Driver of North Carolina, etc. etc Clearly, along with adjudicating prizes of the vessels of neutral nations, Halifax Vice-Admiralty court is judicially supervising impressments of U.S. sailors, into British maritime service. And Ned is …. an eye-witness… He learns about the seaman’s life, by climbing about on the rigging of the American prize-vessels!! Young Ned eventually stows away out of Halifax, for New York, and becomes an American seaman.

[Dangling again. & Check Chicago Manual of Style: Footnote numbers should go inside exclamation marks – Ed.] OKAY – I’m off on a tangent again!!!

Meanwhile … throughout the book, the figure of Edward, Prince Regent, who is associated with the operations of the U.K. government in Halifax, appears as the benevolent avuncular protector of the young Ned. Edward is eventually recalled or re-assigned to England – where he becomes a member of the Privy Council – the panel heading the Regency government. The King is, of course, quite loopy.

2 This “press-war” neared its culmination with the publication in March, 1844, of Cooper’s anonymously published, “The Cruise of the Somers: illustrative of the despotism of the quarter-deck; and the unmanly conduct of Commander MacKenzie.” http://cdm16099.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15241coll1/id/18 3 For example, the Judge Advocate at the trial of Comm. MacKenzie, was none other than Ogden Hoffman … a close friend of Washington Irving.

NOW – Back to Andrew Allen, Jr. !!! In fact, it was a classic “Battle of the Forms” -- but conducted for global stakes.

On the one hand … there was clearly a patriotic republican faction -- with Andrew Allen, Jr., H.M. Consul in Boston, issuing licenses under the authority of Vice Admiral Herbert Sawyer, commander of the Halifax Station, and seemingly sanctioned out of the Privy Council -- perhaps under the influence of Edward, Prince Regent. The object – the object was to move American farm produce across the Atlantic, into the supply lines for the peninsular forces of the Allies, under the command of the Duke of Wellington.. On the other hand there was the rest of the British Admiralty, evidently aiding the Napoleonic enterprise through embargoes of necessities – not only to the populations on the continent, but in Great Britain as well -- They did this, of course, by continually intercepting vessels laden with the necessary supplies, and bound for such ports.. … Vessels like …. the Wiley Reynard …. ? The Reward ?

Indeed, Allen appears to have had his own “special relationship” with Edward Prince Regent, of the King’s Council: the two seem to have diligently co-operated by confounding and manipulating ‘standard” diplomatic channels and instruments, while developing their own avenues of diplomatic correspondence – these licenses -- to insure a steady supply of flour and other “dry provisions” to the peninsular forces Wellington’s forces, through ports in Spain and Portugal, in order to guarantee the defeat of the Little Dictator. And by “dry provisions” I am … wildly speculating here … that the American vessels were also smuggling in high precision U.S. arms and ammunition to Wellington – which, if so, would indicate an even more “high-powered” role for American support, as well as the covert co-operation of port and customs authorities – all with the blessing of the U.S. Presidency.

Just saving the Free World and securing the advancement of Human Rights, is all ….

All in an honest day’s work for the new Republic.

Remarkably enough, although there are a couple passing references to American privateers supplying Lord Wellington,4

Riggs had, after leaving the Wiley Reynard, been running contraband foodstuffs for Wellington’s armies in Portugal from Norfolk, Va.

the suggestion is that these were individual initiatives merely. Notably, Snider, Under the Red Jack, p. 90, says that Capt. Abimelech Riggs, after his release from Halifax, was engaged in conveying supplies – but makes no mention of the existence of a licensing system to protect supply lines:

However, the profusion of the “Allen” licenses, the “Sawyer “licenses, the “Sidmouth” and “Foster” licenses, and the case adjudicating them prove that the United States, under Madison, was actively – even aggressively -- supporting the allied resistance to Napoleon across the peninsula.

In other words, with the two recent exceptions mentioned above, we here at Unit D-37 – your guide through S.Y.M.-Zonia™ -- cannot yet find any reference to Andrew Allen’s licenses in the conventional histories of the War of 1812, or of the Napoleonic Wars. This is so, although three U.S. prize cases in which his licenses/passports are treated, went up to the United States Supreme Court5

Check out the footnotes!!!! This way !!!

– so Allen’s activities are as thoroughly documented in our legal literature, as well as in the Halifax texts.

4 PLAYERS!!! Probably I’m just dense, but I’ve never heard that the U.S. under President Madison, had a policy of active support for Wellington’s armies. And this fact seems to be rather under-reported in the historiography of the Napoleonic wars. It received no more than a six-line paragraph, at p. 55 -- and that without any footnotes! – in Hill, The Prizes of War: The Naval Prize System in the Napoleonic Wars 1793-1815. Mahan, and Dudley & Crawford – zilch. 5 See, The Aurora, Pike, Master, 12 U.S. 2039 (1814); The Julia, Luce, Master, 12 U.S. 181 (1814), and The Hiram, Barker, Master, 12 U.S. 444 (1814), all dealing directly with Andrew Allen’s licenses]; See, the Thomas Gibson, Rockwell, Master, 12 U.S. 421 (1814) [Sidmouth License], etc. BUT WAIT!! There’s more …. See, e.g., the lower court cases, like, The Hiram, Fish. Prize Cas. 69, 12 F. Cas. 469 (1813) [Andrew Allen license]; and see cases involving other licenses such as, e.g., The Tulip, Cleeland, Master, Fish Prize Cas. 1, 24 F. Cas. 307 (1812) [Foster license]; I think we’ve only scratched the surface!!!

Conclusions?

PLAYERS!!! ALL HANDS ON DECK !!!!! We’re pulling into the dock after that long and tedious voyage!!!!

All in all, Croke’s casebook documents the efforts of the majority of the Privy Council and the Admiralty to suffocate supplies destined for The Duke of Wellington, even at the further expense of the British people, who were in fact suffering through their own, domestic food shortages during the same period, 1810-1812.6

On the other hand, a revolutionary faction still at work within the “His Majesty’s” government of Great Britain, was struggling to guarantee Wellington’s success, and Napoleon’s downfall. Within the British government, I propose this faction was coordinated by Edward, Prince Regent – who, I think, may have been personally responsible for recommending many of the appointees to offices in Nova Scotia: including Croke’s eventual appointment to the Vice-Admiralty at Halifax. Within the United States, I venture to suggest the one of the chief U.S. counter-intelligence agents, or at least a totally sympathetic Brit, in the foreign service -- was “Andrew Allen, Jr.” himself, operating through the office of H.M. Vice-Consul for the Northeastern States …

Yes!!! This crowd would starve their own people, in order to effect their crazed and devastating plans!!!!

This -- IF TRUE !! -- almost necessarily implies that the U.S. “War of 1812” was in fact many, many years in advance preparations: in the plotting and planning from the intelligence side. And this seems to make sense, if the British were on a war footing, and fairly busy early capturing American prizes, as early as 1803….. I am hypothesizing that advance preparations must have included, in particular, the pre-positioning – aka infiltration -- of Americans and American sympathizers into key positions within the British government, and in particular, also into key positions within the Admiralty: Croke being a case in point. Again, supposing this was going on, Edward Prince Regent would have been critical to accomplishing the appointment of key operators into the right offices, to effect such an enterprise. Perhaps it is reasonable to suppose, that there were careers comparable to Judge Croke’s -- and if not that, at least resumes for clerks and reporters -- which were “created” to fill positions in the Vice-Admiralty Courts in Bermuda, etc., and eventually in the Courts of Mixed Commission in Sierra Leone.

Or maybe not !!!! Players!!!! You decide … Did American sympathizers remain within England, at this time?

ADDENDUM ! You may recall, that the 17-man crew of the Wiley Reynard who had been incarcerated at Halifax prison, were released effective September, 1813 – after about a year held in prison. Why? The first explanation that comes to mind, is that there was a one-to-one prisoner exchange. Another consideration – maybe more likely -- is that the Wiley Re’nard really had become the Reward, Hill,7

NOW, PLAYERS!!!

Master, and so, her cruise was adjudicated by Halifax Vice Admiralty as protected by the Andrew Allen license …. One way or another, she was released, and her crew turned over to Lt. Wm. Miller, agent for prisoners at the Halifax Station – and sent back home …

REMEMBER the LESSON of Capt. Abimilech Riggs and his crew, and the Shaving Mill Wiley Reynard ..

You’re going to need it where you’re going !!! Because …

6 See, David French, The British Ways in Warfare, p. 114 (Unwin Hyman, 1990). 7 One of the crew aboard the Wiley Reynard imprisoned at Halifax, was named Perry Hall. Conceivably, this “Hall” on the prisoners list, was the same “Hill” who was recorded as master of the Reward as adjudicated by Judge Croke … [Players -- REMEMBER to always watch your spelling!! -- Ed.] Meanwhile, Abimilech Riggs was master of the Eunice. For the prisoners list, go to http://www.1812privateers.org/United%20States/Exchange116.htm !!!!

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING

IF a WASP BUILT ITS NEST in the “U” BOX of TYPE, HOW WOULD YOU SPELL “WACKENREUDER” -- AND HOW WOULD THAT AFFECT the RECORDED HISTORY

of EXPLORATION on the PACIFIC SLOPE (of Oregon)?

PLAYERS --

At this point, you now have a fresh appreciation for something your Mother taught you, and that Capt. Abimelech Riggs put into practice, even while dodging enemy fire from the onrushing H.M.S. Shannon -- and so you are all thoroughly prepared to begin …

This Week’s SPELLCHECK Issue of S.Y.M.-Zonia™ !!!

CAVEAT: that I’m running this topic, despite precautionary words addressed to us all Last Week, by Ass. Dr. Beckon

herself, who pretty much said “Don’t go there …!!!” HOWEVER, Players !!! As you will soon see below, I have uncovered fresh, NEW EVIDENCE in the matter that seems to me to warrant RE-OPENING the CASE for the candidacy of none other than COL. JOHN C. FREMONT as the mysterious

SECOND SURVEYOR…. onboard the Sidewheeler Columbia, who Ventured to Voyage with Vitus

Wackenreuder … and, well ….

YOU KNOW THE REST !!

It’s a known fact, however – as we shall see below – that as of 1851, Col. Fremont had retired – not only from his service in the Expeditionary Corps of the Army Topographical Engineers – having, during the 1840’s, lead as many as FOUR (for-the-most-part) hugely successful Expeditions across the Trackless Frontier of the American West, and reported thereon in statements to the United States Congress, and published a number of critically important BOOKS thereon, and in so doing, etc., etc., so earned himself much fame and great accolades, and the immortal sobriquet, or moniker, or AKA nickname ….

“The PATHFINDER” …

Or sometimes, the PATHBREAKER – or the PATH-HUNTER -- --- and once or twice referred to as … the FOOTPATHFINDER …

Where was I? Oh – right: he was retired from all that, AS WELL AS retired from service as military Governor of California, and had successfully emerged from a few Courts Martial arising from that service, etc. etc. and ALSO recently completed a term in office as the first U. S. Senator for California (1849-1851) and only thereafter returned to his remote but VAST rancho, Las Marisposas to a life of solitude and … cattle dung as far as the eye could see…

And SO!!!! After all that, it is only RATIONAL to understand that Col. Fremont was feeling as if his active life and his GLORY DAYS were slipping behind him and that he might spend the rest of his days looking at the boney backsides of Texas long-horns that he’d brought back with him to Las Mariposas, with their tails forever switching flies off their ugly dung-encrusted butts… PLAYERS!!! That I think about sums up Stephanie’s vision for his future!!! But …..

Just say NO… !!!! … to Stephanie’s brutal, dead-end vision of Col. Fremont’s retirement!!!

PLAYERS -- I was HAPPY [ Me, Last Week –Ed.] to have the opportunity of acknowledging the expertise and the documentation submitted by Ass. Dr. Stephanie B., and corroborated orally, by Unk-Nown -- now in hiding from the law -- to the effect, that the correspondent “J.C.F.” whose letters were appearing in the start-up Oregon newspaper, the Statesman, during 1851 -- was not really John Charles Fremont, but was instead James C. Franklin, a confidante of Capt. Tichenor, the founder of Port Orford, (Oregon) and a good friend of Asahel Bush, as well: he – Mr. Bush -- being the founder and publisher of the Statesman… at the time.

I do not dispute it for a second!!!! “J.C.F.” was Franklin! James C. Franklin …. A farmer.

HOWEVER: In fact, it’s quite rational to think that Col. Fremont slipped out of his ranch-house one day early in the summer of 1851, mounted his favorite old hoss, Sacramento -- who had been with him on the 1846 expedition, during the Conquest of California -- and lit out as fast as he could go, for the shining City of STOCKTON (California) -- about which, more later!!! [PLAYERS: As of April, 2013, this noble city entered Bankruptcy proceedings -- while the bankers make off with U.S. tax monies !!! Does that make any sense? – Ed.] [Please fix – ed.] where, tipping the stable-boy, he posted Sacramento in one of the livery stables near the riverfront, and hopped on the first side-wheel steamer headed downriver !!! Ahaaa!!! NOW !!! That was travel !!!! The STEAMBOAT!!! No more saddle-sores for him!! No sirree, not for Col. Fremont!!! Steamboating was the life!!!

This steamer – probably the Golconda, if they had one -- churned downriver, leisurely-like, down the San Joaquin River toward the labyrinthine channels of the San Joaquin delta … careful there, Pilot !! .... And on towards Suisun Bay !!!

BUT – PLAYERS! Not before it docked at the BRAND NEWEST CITY on the San Joaquin River ….. YES:

Where else? YES!!! The newest HOTSPOT in California !!! Seat of Hustle & Bustle & Ingenuity!! WOWEE!!

And here, Fremont debarked – desteamed, is the technical term – and paused to reflect on the fruition of the vision of Manifest Destiny into which his own life’s work had played such a seminal part in his earlier explorations: as now, right before his eyes, the American civilization he had initiated in California, was right there taking shape before his eyes, in the form of YET ANOTHER shining , whirring metropolis of COMMERCE and of unstoppable SCIENCE & INDUSTRY, there… there in the trackless wilderness of Cottonwoods and bull-rushes, berries and bears, on the banks of the mighty [Mighty slow, that is! – Ed.] San Joaquin River. AH! The future would never be the same again!!!

Players!! Cool!!! And as Col. Fremont gazed over the beginning of this sprawling new development, a NEW VISION of his own possible future …. rose before his eyes!!! HE TOO saw his own future as being like the future that was being SEIZED , there on the banks of the San Joaquin, by the dedicated denizens of New York-of-the-Pacific (California) – that is, as BOUNDED but INFINITE … and he knew at once … that, yes … THE FUTURE WAS ON … !!!!!

PLAYERS: California was all VISION in 1850—and into 1851 !!! Fremont had one too!! I KNOW it!!!

New York-of-the-Pacific was just the newest of the many aspiring towns that had been laid out around the San Francisco bay, San Pablo bay, Suisun bay, and up the Sacramento river – and any one of them stood as good a chance to become the new Capitol City of the Eureka State!!!!

RIGHT!!!! And California’s First Governor – Peter Hardeman Burnett announced an impartial OPEN COMPETITION !! to all developers across the state, per an Act of the State Legislature, signed by Burnett on April 22, and certified June 18th, 1850!! And Stevenson & Parker – founders of New York-of-the-Pacific threw their hats into the ring, and entered N.Y.O.T.P. YES: THAT’s HOW BIG THE FUTURE WAS!!! Wide open ….

What’s the point, you ask? Okay: I’ll explain it:

The “FREMONT WAS IN NEW YORK, 1851” HISTO-MYTH …

Players!! – Before we can more fully develop our thesis regarding Col. Fremont’s voyage to Port Orford, in the company of Vitus Wackenreuder, we have to dispense with a persistent piece of histo-mythology – a dangerous “histo-myth” as they are called in the profession literature-- that stands in the way of properly presenting the whole historical TRUTH of it!

That histo-myth – which has as its source a line-item in the San Francisco Daily Alta for September 15, 1851 -- is that in the Summer and Fall of 1851, Col. Fremont and “Lady” had actually visited in old NEW YORK (New York) and were NOT continually in California – an image on the article appears at right and the text reads:

“The following delectable and refreshing bit of news itemizing appeared in the Marysville

Herald, on Saturday last: Col. Fremont and lady, from California, arrived at New York on Sunday Evening, in the steamer Georgia.”

“The paper from which we take the above was printed on Saturday last, and doubtless means to convey that the colonel and lady arrived safe in the harbor of New York on the Sunday previous. Since that time, and after passing a delightful week at some of the watering holes, they have returned to California, taking up their residence in this city. The Colonel may be seen in our streets nearly every day.” [End of quote from the Alta – Ed.]

PLAYERS: -- NOW IT ALL MAKES SENSE!!! Now we can see where Fremont actually was!!! NOW we can deal with the impediment to our hypothesis, the histo-myth that the Fremonts were on the East coast: They were not!!! Col. Fremont and “lady” – meaning his wife, the great woman, Jessie Benton Fremont -- were actually just at the mouth of the San Joaquin river -- probably purchasing investment property … in New York-of-the-Pacific (California) !!!

SPELLCHECK

PLAYERS:

The First Issue of the Marysville (California) Daily Herald, was sent to local newstands on August 6, 1850. Last Week, S.Y.M.-Zonia™ became the first nationally distributed e-weekly puzzling magazine to publish advertisements from the front page of the Marysville Herald, that were taken out by Vitus Wackenreuder to advertise the opening of his Surveyors and Engineers office in the New Orleans Hotel -- which, later, as it aged, became simply the Orleans Hotel. Wackenreuder began advertising in the Herald, in December of 1850 …

Well: there were many challenges for the Editor, Col. R. H. Taylor, in getting the Herald up and running that first long hot summer in Marysville, at the confluence of the Feather and Yuba Rivers!! Wowee!! The workload!

One of these challenges, which may have discouraged Deputy Editor Bates as well, was disclosed in a notice in the September 3, 1850 issue – PLAYERS!!!

… A highly literate WASP, one entirely dedicated to the journalistic professional, had undertaken to build its adobe nest in the cubby-hole for the “U” fonts in the newspaper’s typesetters case—right there in the back room at the Herald!! PLAYERS!! An UN-expected development! A total surprise!!!

Such dedication to the trade on the part of a mere apprentice wasp, reminds me at once of Bartleby the Scrivener, taking up lodgings in the offices of the New York Master of Chancery James Kent !!! Eat, sleep, and breathe your work!!! That used to be the American way for the majority of WASPs!! How things have changed ….

But the publisher reports, that the new insect squatter’s nest eventually became so extensive it reached already down the case, into the “ffi” –whatever that is!! NO ONE MUST TOUCH IT !! DO NOT DISTURB!!

This was happening in September, 1850 -- a month or two before Vitus Wackenreuder’s ads began running in the Herald -- after he opened his office in the New Orleans Hotel, no address, there in Marysville …

PLAYERS: The point of course, is that Vitus Wackenreuder’s name has Two “U”’s !!! Which means … he could be anywhere…

2 “U”’s … and you can’t touch ‘em …. What to do … what to do …

How would YOU spell “ Vitus Wackenrueder” if YOU were typesetter at the Herald, and your boss had told you … not to bother the new apprentice WASP building his nest in the “U”’s??

Vitoos Wackenreeder? Viras Wackenroider? Wackenrewder? Wackenrooder? Wackenweder? Mackenmeder? Wickendigger? Hossenpfeffer? --- or – WOULD YOU AVOID STORIES ABOUT HIM ALTOGETHER??

MY POINT IS – that we DON’T YET KNOW what we DON’T KNOW – and anything might have happened!! One thing we know for sure, is, that thanks to this early pioneer version of SPELLCHECK , we – like Col. Fremont -- have room to dream ….. YES: it could still be true … You only have to BELIEVE and it could all come true…

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