Category Archives: Governors Island

The Wonder of it All

15 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by in Governors Island, National Park Service, Writing

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NPS100 full cover.inddI have written about this a bit in the past but today is the official release date of The Wonder of it All, the book published by the Yosemite Conservancy for which I contributed a story. My chapter tells the tale of the first time I took the Hayfoot to Governors Island. One of the guidelines was that the stories could not give names. Here, though, I can point out that the guide we had was the one and only Sami Steigmann. Sami was later the person who talked me into transferring as a volunteer to Governors Island.

Don’t forget that 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. It was so much fun to be part of a project marking the NPS anniversary. Though the shift of emphasis is different, I approached Wonder in the spirit of Oh, Ranger!, which was itself influenced by a book written by Horace Albright in the 1920s. It is getting warmer by the day. Wherever you are, make the Park Service part of your spring.

Coming across a piece of the First Army

22 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by in Governors Island, New York City

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When we were in the city yesterday we ventured in to a thrift store after breakfast to see what treasures we might find. Such stores in New York can often reveal hidden gems; many people clean out their apartments after decades of living and bring it in without a second thought, not to mention wealthy folks who drop off their high quality clothes, mementoes and what have you just because they’ve become bored with it and are moving on to something else. There’s a whole other way to live.

These did not come home with me but I could not help getting my picture taken with this First Army jacket and helmet. It was not clear if the two came from the same person but they were next to each other in the store. I imagine the jacket is from WWII, which means the wearer served in Europe. Note the thick weight of the garment and also its small size. Men were smaller back then, having grown up during the Depression as they did. The jacket itself is in very good condition, as are the First Army insignia and the staff sergeant stripes. The First Army of course dates back to the First World War when it was commanded by Pershing himself and later by Hunter Liggett. Those who have ever visited Governors Island will recognize the latter’s name. It was one of those small things that added an interesting moment to our Sunday.IMG_2969

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Winding down January 1916 at Governors Island

31 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in Governors Island, Leonard Wood (General)

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Theodore Roosevelt's friend and political ally Leonard Wood was a major advocate Preparedness while commanding at Governors Island.

Theodore Roosevelt’s friend and political ally Leonard Wood was a strong advocate of Preparedness while commanding at Governors Island. As January 1916 closed out he was planning for, and looking ahead to, the opening of the civilian training centers come summer.

In the digging I did for yesterday’s post for the anniversary of the birth of Franklin Delano Roosevelt I came across a vignette about Major General Leonard Wood. Wood was commanding the Department of the East on Governors Island at the time, and with talk about Preparedness coming from all sides–from Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Elihu Root, and now even President Wilson–Wood too was thinking about the possibility of American involvement overseas. That is why one hundred years ago this week General Wood publicized his plans for that coming summer’s Plattsburgh camps. As Wood described it there would be five camps in Plattsburgh itself and four at Fort Oglethorpe in Georgia. I believe choosing a base in Georgia was a conscious effort to bring North and South together in preparation for joining the Allied cause. That’s also why, when America really entered the war a year later, so many of the bases hastily springing up down South were named after Confederate officers. Remember that this is only a few years after the Gettysburg 50th anniversary.

In a bulletin Wood explained that the nine camps would be divided into senior and junior divisions. College graduate and men aged 23 – 45 would attend the senior encampments and undergraduates and age-qualifying high school senior would be in the junior ranks. The Eastern Department brass was envisioning 10,000 men participating. 1916–just like 2016–was an election year and the Plattsburgh Movement would play a greater role in the election as the months passed.

(image/The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Maj.-Gen. Leonard Wood, 1860-1927.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1860 – 1920. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-1144-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99)

 

 

Find Your Park in 2016

01 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in Civil War sesquicentennial, Governors Island, Great War centennial, National Park Service

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Yellowstone as it was in 1916, the year Woodrow Wilson signed the enabling legislation for the National Park Service. Grant had established Yellowstone itself as a national park thirty-four years earlier.

Yellowstone as it was in 1916, the year Woodrow Wilson signed the enabling legislation creating the National Park Service. President Grant had established Yellowstone itself as a national park forty-four years earlier.

With 2015 now in the books we can officially declare an end to the Civil War sesquicentennial. Some pundits claimed it to be underwhelming, but I believe our understanding of the events of 1861-65 is clearer now than it was five years ago. Visitation was up at the Civil War sites, and various bloggers did an outstanding job of telling the story. Scores of others contributed as well. That said, it is a cruel irony that it took the terrible events in Charleston this past June to bring the Civil War’s legacy into most of America’s homes. When they write the history of the Civil War sesquicentennial forty-five short years from now during the bicentennial, Charleston will be a big part of the narrative.

2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the creation of the National Park Service. National parks themselves date back to the Ulysses S. Grant Administration, and were further aided during Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure when he signed the Antiquities Act in 1906. Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation creating the Park Service itself a decade later. There are few NPS sites relating to WW1 in the United States; most of that work is carried out by the American Battle Monuments Commission overseas. Governors Island here in New York is about the closest one gets to an NPS site relating to WW1. (It is so much else besides that too of course.) I don’t have many details to give away just yet, but this coming summer on Saturday July 23 the National Park Service and the World War One Centennial Commission will be co-sponsoring a day-long event commemorating the First World War. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this and will share more detail as they come. This is the first I am mentioning of it publicly.

The National Park Service theme through December 31st is Find Your Park. Wherever you are, I encourage you to visit the various natural and historic wonders that are waiting to be discovered. And if you live in the New York area, please mark your calendar for July 23 so you can make it out to Governors Island.

(image/Internet Archive book images, via Wikimedia Commons; originally published in Campbell’s new revised third edition Complete Guide and Descriptive Book of the Yellowstone Park)

Remembering Millard Fillmore Cook

29 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Governors Island, Those we remember, WW1

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Millard Fillmore Cook served under General Pershing on the Mexican border in 1916. The following year he was discharged from the 106th (23rd) due to a broken leg. He served forty-one in the New York State militia.

Millard Fillmore Cook served under General Pershing on the Mexican border in 1916. The following year he was discharged from the 106th (23rd) Regiment due to a broken leg. He served forty-one years in the New York State militia.

This month marks one of the smaller but nonetheless poignant moments in the early months of America’s involvement in the Great War. Millard F. Cook was discharged from the 106th Infantry Regiment in December 1917. The 106th was the  designation for the old 23rd New York Infantry Regiment before its calling into national service for eventual deployment to France. Millard F. Cook had joined the 23rd in December 1876 and by time of the American declaration of war in April 1917 was the oldest officer in the entire New York State National Guard. Corporal Cook was in the militia during the Great Railroad Strike in 1877 and was an officer as part of the Punitive Expedition on the Mexican border in 1916.

One sees the two calls to national service. New York Governor John A. Dix appointed Cook a brevet captain in 1912. Five years later a Governors Island medical board recommended his honorable discharge on medical grounds.

One sees the two calls to national service. New York Governor John A. Dix also appointed Cook a brevet captain in 1912. Five years later a Governors Island medical board recommended Lieutenant Cook’s honorable discharge on medical grounds.

Cook (1855-1934) was born during the Franklin Pierce Administration six years prior to the onset of the Civil War.

Cook (1855-1934) was born during the Franklin Pierce Administration six years prior to the onset of the Civil War.

Cook was born in Detroit in 1855 but moved to Brooklyn, NY with his family as a young child. He apparently believed in commitment and longevity; Cook was an accountant with the New York Sun for sixty-two years, a national guardsmen for forty-one, and a church musician and musical director for much of that same time. Newspaper accounts show him directing such efforts as Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S Pinafore, the Haydn Vocal Society of Brooklyn, and numerous congregational musical groups for decades. Cook was elected secretary of the 23rd Infantry’s Council of Officers in February 1917. However when the Great War came he was not destined to go to Europe with the men of his unit. The 23rd was nationalized as the 106th that spring, but Cook broke his leg in a car accident during a training exercise in Upstate New York on May 16. The recovery did not go well and he was eventually examined at Governors Island on December 5. Before the end of the year a panel of four physicians at Fort Jay recommended Lieutenant William F. Cook be honorably discharged. He is buried today in Uniondale, Long Island’s Greenfield Cemetery.

(top images via Ancestry.com and bottom from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle courtesy of Newspapers.com)

Frank Sinatra, 1915-1998

12 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by in Governors Island, Those we remember

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Today would have been Frank Sinatra’s 100th birthday. I linked over on the Facebook page to a bit I did for the Governors Island website about Sinatra’s 1945 visits to Fort Jay for his Army physical. His draft board had recalled the singer to see if his 4-F classification should be reconsidered. I’d tell you the rest but then you wouldn’t click on the link. I stumbled upon the story of Sinatra’s visit seventy years ago to Governors Island when reading Earl Wilson’s 1976 biography, which had been sitting unread on my shelves for a few years before I pulled it down last week.

It seems a little wartime Frank is in order. During the Second World War performers recorded these V Discs exclusively for distribution to soldiers overseas. They no doubt wanted to do it for the war effort, but their reasons were not entirely altruistic; the musicians strike that lasted from 1942-44 prevented artists from recording any material. These V Discs were the only exception. All the big names recorded them. The strike had other repercussions but, ironically and thankfully, it worked out to the benefit of the boys in France, Italy and the Pacific.

Juilliard’s military tradition

03 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Governors Island, Jazz

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My good friend Molly Skardon, who is the driving force behind the Oral History Project at Governors Island National Monument, has published a piece about military musicians in this month’s edition of the Julliard Journal. I encourage you to check it out. When we think of music and the Great War we inevitably and properly think of James Reese Europe and his jazz men. That is just part of the story, however. Many of the A.E.F. bands have their roots in a program started just before the outbreak of the conflict. Music has always been important to the military. At Governors Island military bands trace their roots as far back as the 1830s. John Philip Sousa led the U.S. Marine Band for years before striking out on his own. It’s difficult for people in the twenty-first century to grasp the cultural impact he still has today. Molly informs us that the Army’s musical tradition began a new chapter in 1911 when the Institute of Musical Art–the institution that became Juilliard–founded the Military Band Department. Some of America’s greatest musicians have learned their art in this musical laboratory.

When the First Army was stationed on Governors Island its band was responsible for performances of all kinds–funerals, parades, state visits, and whatever else the brass came up with. Molly and I, with others, have interviewed some of these people as part of the OHP. Some of these guys are still active as well. We saw one of them play in Greenwich Village a few months back. We never had the good fortune of seeing Michael Rose play, but we did interview him over the summer. Up top is a video of him and his band which he posted just yesterday. Mr. Rose got his start playing as a young trumpeter stationed on Governors Island in the 1950s. He went on to play with Gene Krupa, Benny Goodman, and many others.

Remember that next week is Veterans Day. Here is a slightly different link to Molly’s article, with related links to other stories about Juilliard’s relationship with the military. And by the way if you are a veteran of Governors Island’s First Army Band, or were stationed there in any capacity, please contact me about setting up an oral history interview.

A snapshot of Governors Island

24 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in Governors Island

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Garden-Party-Governors-Island-e1445221745818I am sorry for the recent lack of posts. Things have been in full swing at my school. The season has ended at Governors Island but things still come through my in-box, including this photo that I thought I would share. A friend and I were looking at it yesterday and he noted how confining the ladies’ clothes must have been. This image was taken in 1911 and shows how little things had changed style-wise prior to the First World War. This is a full decade after the death of Queen Victoria and one year after the passing of her son Edward VII. One can hardly tell however that the Edwardian Age had come and gone. This scene could have been 1891 just as easily as 1911. The Great War liberated women in a number of ways, including what they wore. Manpower deficits helped put them to work in factories, which meant their clothes had to be more functional; also, shortages in steel and other raw materials made the corset impractical and soon obsolete. Goodbye whalebone, hello brassiere.

This photograph was almost certainly taken in what is now called Nolan Park on May 25, 1911 in recognition of Decoration Day. I say this confidently because there are many similar images taken on that day. This was between Leonard Wood’s stints as commander of the Eastern Department; Frederick Dent Grant was in charge. Note the black cloth hanging as if from a clothesline up top. Images like this are fascinating because we, one hundred years later, know what comes next. Three years later this world of garden fetes and genteel Decoration Days would get swept away by the calamity of the First World War.

(image/Library of Congress via History by Zim)

Sunday morning coffee

20 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by in Governors Island

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It is the penultimate Sunday of the Governors Island season. I can tell that fall is coming because it’s still dark outside. A few weeks ago it was already bright by this time. Some of you have already seen the video above. It’s the piece we did at Governors Island in August. I am posting it here because I added it to Youtube. It had not been on a video platform at Governors Island and I wanted to make it better available. I hope we get to make more of these over the centennial. I finished the draft of the Hermann Hagedorn article last night and sent it to a friend to give it a look. I’m hoping to put the final touches on it over the week and send off. I really hope this gets published. We’ll see what happens.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Sunday Morning Coffee

06 Sunday Sep 2015

Posted by in Governors Island

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IMG_2443I’m sorry for the lack of posts this past week. It was the first full week of classes at my school. I have also been trying to get an article finished. As of now it stands at 1500 words. I’d like to get an 1000 written over the weekend and then another 1500 over the course of the coming week. The work is enjoyable but it does leave one drained. The piece s about Hermann Hagedorn and the creation of the Roosevelt Memorial Association. I really hope this gets published. The German-American Hagedorn met Roosevelt during the presidential campaign of 1916. It was that period between the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and America’s involvement in the Great War in April 1917. Hagedorn was a first generation American whose parents had both been born in Germany before coming to New York City independently of one another. There is so much to go on.

IMG_2434The remainder of the weekend on Governors Island should be nice, with great weather and much to do. The West Point Fife and Drum Corps are on the island today. If you come out to Governors Island, today or any time, make sure to look at the buildings, which stand there silently containing the stories of what once took place in them. These images are of the post hospital on the northwestern part of the island directly behind Castle Williams. Robert Lee Bullard, who commanded the First Infantry Division and later the Third Corps and Second Army during the First World War, died here in September 1947. He was a West Point graduate in 1885 before serving as a young officer with Nelson Miles and Leonard Wood in the campaign that captured Geronimo.

So many generations of soldiers passed through Governors Island, which will happen at a military post that stands from 1821 to 1966. I find it fascinating how these generations overlap. Counting today you have four more Sundays before the season ends to get out and see for yourself.

[Correction, everyone: The West Point Fife & Drum Corps will be here next weekend, September 12 and 13. From where I am sitting I can see New York Harbor through the window as I type this. It’s a great day to be outdoors.]