Category Archives: Governors Island

Sarajevo, 1914

28 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by in Governors Island, Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace (NPS), WW1

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Soldiers Capturing Assassin of Archduke Ferdinand

The Great War Centennial begins today with the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. As I have stated several times over the past few weeks I intend to do a fair amount of WW1 Interp and other work on this over the next several years. I am even boning up on my French to better help myself. I know from having attended the Centennial Commission trade who in DC two weeks ago that many museums and other institutions are gearing up for this. The publishers are too. Today I began Thomas Otte’s July Crisis: The World’s Descent into War, Summer 1914. Like the Civil War, the Great War is so fascinating because it is both so close and so far away at the time. In ways we are still fighting both of them.

I am fortunate in that the two Park Service sites at which I volunteer, Governors Island National Monument and the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, offer numerous opportunities for such endeavors. The sites even offer opportunities for the Joseph Hawley and Theodore Roosevelt Senior books, which are proceeding apace. Over the summer I am going to share more here on the blog and Facebook page about my progress, something I have not done so much yet.

(image/the arrest of Gavrilo Prinzip after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, 28 June 1914)

St. Cornelius: a very brief history

24 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Chapel of St. Cornelius the Centurion

Chapel of St. Cornelius the Centurion

Early on Sunday morning I was taking some photos of Great War plaques on Governors Island when I came upon the Chapel of St. Cornelius the Centurion. It was one of those early summer mornings where the sky is bright blue and there is a hint in the air of the warm–but not too warm–day ahead. What made it all the better is that, because it was so early, the area was so quiet. The whole thing had the aura the military service personnel must have felt when they lived on the island. A few years ago a now retired veteran who returned to the island for a visit told me he was married here.

St. Cornelius is one of the island’s special spots and has a provenance few visitors to the island realize. Its architect was Charles Coolidge Haight, a veteran of the Union Army who later attended Columbia University and became one of the leading architect’s in the United States. The gothic influence was a trademark of Haight’s, which he mixed here to great effect with a military motif evident in the turrets seen on the upper right. The symbolism is fitting given that St. Cornelius was on a U.S. Army military base.

I could not take photos from inside because the doors were locked but St. Cornelius contains a beautiful stained glass window built in memorium to Winfield Scott Hancock. Hancock commanded the Department of the East from Governors Island beginning in 1878. He ran for the White House against Garfield in 1880 from here as well. In summer 1885 Hancock organized Ulysses Grant’s funeral from the island. Hancock himself died on the island just seven months later. This was all years before the chapel seen above was built.

This is actually the second St. Cornelius; the first was a wooden structure that served its purpose for decades but eventually fell into disrepair. So, a second more permanent structure was commissioned. Enter Haight. An interesting part of the story is that not only was he a captain in the Union Army, he had served in Hancock’s Second Corps. I intend to write a piece about Haight’s chapel over the summer for the Governors Island website. One thing I am curious to know is if he won this commission for his service in Hancock’s corps, or if that was just a coincidence. If and when I find the answer I will share it.

Frederick Dent Grant, who himself commanded the Eastern Department, lay in state here when he died in 1912. President Taft was one of the thousands who came to pay his respects.

 

Marking the Great War

19 Thursday Jun 2014

Posted by in Governors Island, Monuments and Statuary, WW1

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I just got home from the Apple store in SOHO where I took an iPhoto workshop to brush up on my picture taking skills. I did this because at the World War I Centennial Commission trade show last weekend I agreed to participate in The World War I Memorial Inventory Project. The goal of project director Mark Levitch is to photograph and document 10,000 monuments to the Great War spread across the United States. Many are hiding in plain site.

As after the Civil War, the process of memorialization began almost immediately. Nations, states, and small towns around the globe built monuments in the 1920 and 1930s. What these all had in common is that every protagonist believed it had justice and righteousness on its side. This should not be surprising given the incredible human, financial, and material sacrifices they made. Who wants to think they sacrificed for nothing?

I intend to start off with the many World War I monuments on Governors Island. As I noted a few weeks ago there are many sprinkled across the island’s 172 acres. My goal is to do fifty, mostly in New York, over the next five years. I am not going to do the ones on New York City parks because the Parks Department has already done extensive documentation on these already. There are many in post offices, botanical gardens, and places like that. Often they are hiding in plain site.

I will not post the same images here on the Strawfoot that I submit to the inventory project, but occasionally I will take photos of the same subjects and share them here. I cannot tell you how excited I am about this.

(image/tablet for Lieutenant James Andes on Governors Island)

June comes to Governors Island

01 Sunday Jun 2014

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The 2014 season at Governors Island began last weekend. Unfortunately I missed opening weekend because I was out of town. So I was out of the house at 7:00 am this morning eager to catch the two subways and a boat ride that is my commute the island. Here are a few pics from the day.

New York Harbor, 9:00 am

New York Harbor, 9:00 am

There was neither a cloud in the sky nor a ripple on the water all day. That is Castle Williams on the far left and the Statue of Liberty to the right of the boat.

Pulling in

Pulling in

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The Park Service rotates the flag atop Fort Jay on a more or less weekly basis. The flag and the fort are the first thing you see when getting off the boat, but it is still easy to miss. I like to point the flag out to visitors.

If I am not mistaken this is the fifteen star.

Old street sign

Old street sign

This old street sign goes back decades to the period when there was still vehicular traffic on the island. This summer I intend to note and document remnants of the island as it once was. Most of the roads are named after soldiers who fought in France during the Great War. Andes was a 2nd lieutenant of the 16th Infantry killed in 1918.

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When I come back to the island after the seven month hiatus I always check out what is different from the previous season. I was happy to see that the Commanding Officer’s House, located on the city-managed part of the island, is again open after its renovation. This was chain-linked off in 2013. Winfield Scott Hancock among other called this home. It was from the island that he coordinated Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral in 1885. Hancock died on the island in February 1886.

Fort Jay's dry moat

Fort Jay’s dry moat

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Here I am doing my first Castle Williams tour of the year. Man, I forgot how much fun this is. The best thing is, the island will be open seven days a week this summer. You never know what you will see when you come to Governors Island.

 

Summer’s almost here

24 Thursday Apr 2014

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Governors Island, summer 2013

Governors Island, summer 2012: Note the partially constructed Freedom Tower

I received a group email message from one of the supervisory rangers at Governors Island yesterday asking about volunteers’ summer availability and the like. The season begins in just four short weeks, on Memorial Day Weekend. One of the big changes at Governors Island this year is that the island will be open seven days a week. This is a change from the Saturday/Sunday operation of the past few years. Also, the city has re-opened thirty acres of the portion of the island managed locally. Governors Island is 172 acres, with 22 of that managed by the NPS. Last summer was fairly quiet because so much of the southern portion of the island was under repair due both to Superstorm Sandy and the longterm plans of the Trust for Governors Island. The re-opened thirty acres is new park land.

I myself will be splitting my time between Governors Island and the TRB, alternating back and forth each weekend. My first day is going to be June 1. There are many interpretive opportunities I will be pursuing with a great deal of overlap between the two sites. It really is going to be a great summer.

The demotion of General Wood

25 Tuesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Governors Island, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), WW1

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General Leonard Wood and New York City mayor John Purroy Mitchel inspecting troops in 1915

General Leonard Wood (right) and New York City’s preparationist mayor John Purroy Mitchel (top hat) inspecting troops outside New York City Hall in 1915.

Today marks one of the more dramatic, if lesser-noted, moments in the lead-up to American involvement in the Great War. It was on 25 March 1917 that General Leonard Wood sent acknowledgement of his relief of command of the Department of the East at Governors Island. Though not as well known as Truman’s sacking of MacArthur, Wood’s demotion was equally dramatic. It is probably lesser known because the United States joined the European fray just a month later and the carnage of the Western Front eclipsed the Wood imbroglio. How the war effort would have gone with Wood and not Pershing in command of the AEF is one of the great counterfactuals of World War One.

Wood had been Chief of the General Staff of the Army when President Wilson was inaugurated in March 1913. Some tried to get rid of the outspoken Wood then, but he managed to finish out his term. Afterward, he transferred to New York City where he commanded the powerful Department of the East from Governors Island.

Some of the Wood-Wilson tension came from Wood’s relationship with Theodore Roosevelt. After the Great War began in summer 1914 these two former commanders of the Rough Riders advocated for American preparedness. This ran counter to Wilson’s attempts at neutrality. Wood’s demotion was in part his fault. A former president could criticize the Administration; a current general cannot. Nonetheless, over the next few years Wood’s public statements became more strident and, well, public.

He was also part of the Plattsburg Camp Movement, the semi-official military preparedness experiment in which civilians were trained for military service. Roosevelt’s sons Ted and Archie both attended the 1915 Plattsburg camp. Wood was not easy to get along with. In a letter to his younger brother Archie, Ted Roosevelt later wrote that “Confidentially he give me a pain.”

When Theodore Roosevelt irked Wilson with a rousing Plattsburg speech Wood’s hand in the event was obvious. There were many other incidents over the years but the final straw for Wilson seems to have been a talk that Wood gave at New York City’s DeWitt Clinton High School on 14 March. After consulting with the Secretary of War the following week Wilson decided to make the move. It is revealing to note that his decision to demote Wood came after he decided to ask Congress for a declaration of war, which came in early April.

Wood’s demotion came in the form a division of the Eastern Department into three entities. Wood was given his choice and decided to take the command of the smaller Southeastern Department. Wood put on a brave face stating that “I am a good soldier, and go where I am sent.” The outcry was nonetheless immediate. Roosevelt was outraged, as was New York City mayor John P. Mitchel. Angry letters from Wood allies poured into the New York Times. In a show of support Wood was elected president of the Lincoln Memorial University Endowment Association the day after his demotion.

What would have happened if Leonard Wood had commanded in Europe instead of John Pershing is something we will never know.

(image/Library of Congress)

The future of New York Harbor

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Ellis Island, Governors Island

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Flying back into New York City last Friday I had one of the best views one can have of the metropolis when the plane flew directly up the harbor and passed over the city on its way to LaGuardia. We were so low it was like getting a helicopter-view of what was below. The buildings were cool, but my favorite part were the islands in the harbor. It gets lost on many New Yorkers that they live and work on an archipelago. Manhattan Island. Long Island. Staten Island. Roosevelt Island. Ellis Island. Liberty Island. Governors Island. Randall’s Island. So on and so forth.

Flying in I could see the outline of Fort Jay on Governors Island, which was all the more dramatic for being covered in snow. I tell people during my tours of the island to think of everything that has happened in the world over the past two centuries and to think that Fort Jay and Castle Williams have been standing watch in New York Harbor all that time. From above, one also sees how exposed the islands are there in the water. National Geographic has a fascinating piece about how Ellis and Liberty Islands were effected by Superstorm Sandy and what might happen to them and the other islands in the future with global warming.

Governors Island: The final weekend

27 Friday Sep 2013

Posted by in Governors Island, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), Theodore Roosevelt Sr (Father)

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Fort Jay, Summer 2013

Fort Jay, Summer 2013

If you wanted to visit Governors Island this summer but never did, this weekend is your last chance. Sunday is the last day of the season. It could not be a better weekend to be outside either.

People have been asking me what I will be doing once the season ends. Well, starting in late October, after a few weeks R&R, I will start volunteering at the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site in Manhattan. This is something I am excited about. Last year I sat idle during the off-season, and seven months without the privilege of providing Interpretation to the public was too long. This will give me the opportunity to engage in public history year round.

It happened by chance. This past February I ventured to the Roosevelt birthplace (TRB) in preparation for my June talk at the New York History conference in Cooperstown. I was talking about the role Theodore Sr (Teddy’s father), William E. Dodge Jr, and their associates played in the Union war effort in the Civil War. When I walked in, I glanced to the information desk on the left–and saw a friend from Ellis Island behind the counter. He and the rest of the Interpretive staff from Ellis Island had been farmed out to the various Manhattan sites after Hurricane Sandy. As you might imagine, I was quite surprised and pleased to see him. Ranger Sam is a special guy and a National Park Service treasure. To make a story short, he encouraged me to come to TRB after the summer ended at Governors Island. And so, that is what is happening.

It is a more seamless fit than it may seem. Both sites offer plenty of opportunities for creative Interp. My primary focus has always been the Civil War Era, with emphasis on era. I have always maintained that one cannot understand the Civil War without understanding what came before and after. At the TRB I will focus on many things, including the Roosevelts’ lives before the war, how they managed during the crisis, and what they did afterward during the Gilded Age. Theodore Sr was a great friend on John Hay. In fact, he was such good friends with Lincoln’s personal secretary that he had his correspondence delivered to the White House in Hay’s care. Hay, of course, would go on to become Secretary of State in the McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt (Jr) Administrations.

Wheeler, Wood, and Roosevelt (left to right, foreground) in camp, Tampa, Florida, 1898

Wheeler, Wood, and Roosevelt (left to right, foreground) in camp; Tampa, Florida, 1898

When Teddy Roosevelt fought in Cuba two of his superior officers were Leonard Wood and Joseph Wheeler. Yes, the Joseph Wheeler who had fought for the Confederacy decades earlier. Wood and Wheeler both served at Governors Island during various points in their careers. Now, in 1898, he was giving the politically astute but militarily inexperienced Roosevelt guidance as went up San Juan Hill. When the war ended, the Treaty of paris ending the conflict was negated by . . . John Hay. In October 1900 Wheeler himself was back on Governors Island, helping William E. Dodge Jr dedicate the YMCA on the island. These are the types of connections I am hoping to make at the Teddy Roosevelt Birthplace. I think it is going to be a great fall.

(bottom image/National Archives)

On genealogy and personal history

31 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by in Genealogy, Governors Island

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My grandmother's Navy Yard pass

My grandmother’s Navy Yard pass

I spent a part of my day today searching records on Ancestry and Fold3 for some upcoming oral history interviews at Governors Island. What makes GI so fascinating is that, given its location in New York Harbor and its longterm importance as a military installation, so much of American history can be traced back to it. The Revolution. 1812. The Civil War. The settling of the West. 1898. Both World Wars. Governors Island played a role in all of these, and I don’t mean tangentially; the island and the people who worked on it were central in all of them. One thing that gets lost on some people, including myself at times, is that the people who served on the island were just that, individuals. It is one thing to say that the First Minnesota rushed from Gettysburg to help put down the Draft Riots in 1863, or that the Big Red One left for Europe from the island after the United States entered WW1 in 1917. It is another thing to examine a Census or Pension record of a son or father who was part of it. That is why I love the oral history project so much, even though my role in it is not as large as some other volunteers’.

My growing interest in these projects runs hand-in-hand with my growing interest in tracing my own family history. Visiting the Frederick Douglass house in Anacostia last week intensified this interest. As I mentioned in a previous post, my mother lived in the neighborhood when she was a little girl. After seeing the Washington Navy Yard from the Douglass estate, I had to dig out the above pass that my grandmother once used to visit my grandfather, a civilian employee at the facility. An aunt had given it to me several years ago, along with some old family photos. My grandparents were originally from Boston but moved to DC during the Depression and stayed until 1945 when the Second World War was winding down. They had two daughters in the process before eventually moving back to New England and staying there for good. I would have gotten back to it eventually, but all this is what inspired me to-re-up my Ancestry account. Searching records has pretty much how I have spent my evenings over the past week. I have also emailed some distant relatives to see what they might be able to add. Thankfully, I have been able to answer questions they have as well.

I am old enough now (46) to realize that part of my interest in my family history is because my brother and sister and I were deprived of it. Taken by our parents from the Northeast to Florida when we were young kids, we lost touch with the extended clan. It was not hard to do in the 1970s and 1980s, when we all lived without the internet, cell phones, and everything else that makes the world more interconnected than it used to be. It is amazing how quickly you can strike up a conversation with family, even family you have never met before or seen in thirty years.

What I find most moving, when searching my own family or oral history subjects, is the capsulation of a life into a few documents. Half a decade ago this would not have meant so much to me. I had my perspective changed when my father died four years ago. You cannot helped being moved seeing the dash (e.g. 1938-2009) and wondering what the story was. Whoever we are, you are part of something bigger than ourselves.