A Grand and Noble Beast

Last week’s essay on the arrival of the cherry blossoms and springtime here in Washington certainly resonated with many of you. Your responses were gratefully received and appreciated and I always enjoy hearing from folks. So please feel free to drop me a line whenever.

I am very sorry for the delay in posting this essay on the American bison. I have been promising it for the past month or so, but it took longer than I expected to get it down on paper. Now it’s time to share it with you. Also, check out the recommended links where I have listed some bison-related websites. Happy reading!
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Like most Americans, I grew up hearing stories of how the bison herds of yesteryear covered the prairies from horizon to horizon. As a child I occasionally saw one or two - we called them buffalo back then - in a small enclosure at one zoo or another. I also recall seeing small herds of bison - a couple dozen head at most - pastured and grazing among the wheat fields of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta as I drove across the Canadian prairies during my first major road trip during the summer of 1970. Not anywhere close to the numbers I read about when I was younger, but for an American city boy their numbers were impressive enough. Still, I never really thought much about bison and their place in the pantheon of iconic American symbols. In many ways they have become, perhaps, the most iconic of all. So it is a national shame what we have done to them.

I never encountered bison in the wild until the early autumn of 2004 when my wife and I first visited Yellowstone National Park. We entered the park at West Yellowstone, Montana and after crossing into Wyoming we immediately began to see evidence of the awesome destruction wrought by the 1988 North Fork Fire which consumed much of the timberland in the Madison and Gallatin mountain ranges in this northwestern quadrant of the park. We drove along the Madison River for several miles and soon came across a herd of what I estimated to be 30-40 bison quietly grazing along the river bank. As long as we did not venture too close, they did not seem to pay much attention to us. Bison in Yellowstone may look docile and slow moving, but one should not be lulled into a false sense of security. They may appear to be ambling along, but should one or all of them decide to run, they can clock out at 30-40 mph from almost a dead start. Strong leg tendons also allow them to jump vertically to a height of six feet, and 14 feet horizontally. We saw proof of this a few days later, but during this first encounter we ended up just sitting there for quite a while and watching them as they slowing sauntered along the river. I almost forgot that this stretch of the river is one of the premier trout fishing waters in this area, so fascinating are these wonderful animals.

We also encountered a large herd wandering the grasslands and neighboring hillsides of the Lamar River valley, in the eastern section of the park. Here we roamed the trails around Soda Butte where we found evidence of wallows where bison either bedded down or rolled in the dirt to rid themselves insects and other nuisances. We glassed the surrounding hills and spotted a small herd moving single-file along a deep cut trail above the river. It was beginning its autumn trek from higher to lower elevations where food and shelter would be more abundant during the fast-approaching cold weather months (in the spring they will return to the higher elevations). In the valleys they would gather into larger herds in which rivalry among the bulls would surface.

Probably our most impressive encounter came while wandering through the thermal fields near Old Faithful. Here we chanced upon two small rival herds whose bulls were challenging one another for supremacy. This is a frequent occurrence in late summer and early autumn, during the peak mating season and later when the bulls are protecting their harem, and this encounter provided a few anxious moments. While the heifers and adolescents stood by on the sidelines, several bulls began to tangle - jumping up and down, grunting loudly, charging one another and butting heads. Usually it did not take long for one or the other to retreat, but there were two bulls that would not give up. As they continued to struggle they moved ever closer to where we were standing and watching. Unfortunately there was no place for us to go hemmed in as we were by the active geysers and thermal fields. Fortunately, the battle ended before they got too close and the defeated and bloodied bull walked right past us, oblivious to everything else.

After returning home from our trip to Yellowstone, I began to read a great deal on the history and plight of the American bison. Some of the information was contained in general and detailed studies on the Great Plains, North American wildlife, and wildlife and habitat conservation. To this day I try to read everything I can on the subject. Two books in particular stand out and I highly recommend them to anyone who shares my interest. The first is Dan O’Brien’s Buffalo for the Broken Heart (2002), a copy of which I picked up during a subsequent early spring visit to Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, including a return to the bison herds in Yellowstone National Park. O’Brien tells of his own effort to restoring life to his cattle ranch in the northern Black Hills of South Dakota by replacing his beef cattle with bison. Former Senator Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) called O’Brien’s memoir a "poignant portrayal of our link to the land, and to each other." I also just finished Steven Rinella’s American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon (2008) which Jim Harrison calls a "boldly original and ultimately refreshing book." An understatement if I ever read one. I think Rinella captures my own feeling about the American bison. "I sometimes imagine that we saved the buffalo from the brink of extinction for the simple reason that the animal provided a handy mirror in which we could see our own innermost desires and failures, and our most confounding contradictions. Our efforts to use the buffalo as a looking glass have rendered the animal almost inscrutable."

So why are bison so damn fascinating? The American bison is the largest indigenous animal in North America. Often referred to simply as buffalo in common nomenclature following the American Revolution, it is believed that the earliest predecessors of today’s bison moved from Siberia across the Bering land bridge and dispersed throughout the continent. Its primary habitat, however, was the grasslands of what is today the Great Plains stretching from Alberta and Saskatchewan, in western Canada, to the Llano Estacado (the Staked Plains) between the Mescalero and Caprock escarpments of the Texas Panhandle. Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and his party were probably the first Europeans to venture forth on the Great Plains during the mid 16th century and his reports referred to immense herds of a strange breed of humpbacked cattle that ran wild and appeared to be indigenous to the region. "I found such a quantity that it is impossible to number them, for while I was journeying through these plains, until where I first found them, there was not a day that I lost sight of them."

The American bison, according to Theodore Roosevelt who had observed them in their native habitat from Texas to North Dakota and understood the threats they faced, is a "truly grand and noble beast, and his loss from our prairies and forests is as keenly regretted by the lover of nature and of wildlife as by the hunter." When the continent was first settled by the Europeans in the early 17th century, the bison roamed from coast to coast. The earliest English settlers along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay encountered herds of bison in the nearby forests. By the time of American independence, in 1776, much of the Eastern Seaboard had been settled and cultivated and the bison herds had moved westward, beyond the Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains, to an area between what is now Tennessee and Ohio. American settlers moving west frequently used the established "buffalo trails" to their new homes beyond the eastern mountains. At the beginning of the 19th century, most of these herds had been decimated or driven beyond the Mississippi River to establish what Roosevelt called "the most distinctive and characteristic features of existence on the great plains."

There was no real threat to the early existence of the bison on the Great Plains. There were adequate sources of food and water and these strong and vigorous animals were well designed to handle the cold and harsh winters. The Native Americans on the Great Plains came to count on the bison as a principal source of food, clothing, shelter, and tools. The meat is high in protein whether it is cooked, smoked, or dried. These tribes often fought to establish and defend supremacy over favored hunting grounds, but since the hunting was often done on foot and using only spears and arrows, the bison population was allowed to flourish.

Over two and a half centuries after Coronado first encountered the enormous bison herds on the Great Plains, the Lewis and Clark expedition made its great voyage of discovery from the Mississippi River, via the Missouri and other rivers, to the northwest coast where the Columbia River flows into the Pacific Ocean. Already in September, 1804 Lewis reported that the expedition had reached the confluence of the White and Missouri rivers along the Pine Ridge escarpment marking the beginning of the wide Missouri plateau (today south central South Dakota). It was here the expedition first encountered a huge herd of buffalo. "I do not think I exaggerate [sic]," Lewis reported. "I estimate the number of Buffaloe [sic] which could be comprehended at one view to amount to 3000."

With the westward settlement following in the wake of Lewis and Clark and other expeditions opening up the Great Plains, the Native American tribes found they had to protect their traditional hunting grounds not only from other tribes, but from white hunters and trappers who brought with them horses and new and modern weapons allowing them to hunt more efficiently and across a larger area. The Native American tribes also began to hunt with horse and guns, and employed the "pishkin," a Blackfoot term translated as "buffalo jump," where tribal members disguising themselves with bison skins snuck up behind a herd and forced it off a nearby precipice and on to the rocks below. Like their new competitors, these tribes operated under the misconception that the immense bison herds were a limitless resource. Yet, while the Native Americans continued to use as much of the animal as possible for food, clothing, shelter, and tools, the new settlers frequently took only the tongue (long considered a delicacy and much in demand) and the hide while leaving the rest of the carcass to rot on the prairies.

The Métis perfected the "industrial slaughter" of bison in order to sell meat and hides in the Dakotas and Montana, and the bison population decreased gradually until after the Civil War when settlers once again began to move west. But it was the coming of the railroads in the latter half of the 19th century that spelled doom for the American bison. The Union Pacific began in Omaha in 1865 and four years later it had extended to Utah where it joined another railroad from the west thus becoming the first transcontinental railway. In doing so, it split the bison population on the Great Plains into a northern and southern herd. The Santa Fe Railroad and the Kansas-Pacific branch of the Union Pacific further bifurcated the southern herd. Buffalo Bill, an almost mythical character in American history and popular culture, is reported to have killed over 4000 bison in an 18-month period in order to feed the railroad construction crews. The railroads also made it more economical to transport bison-related products to markets back east. Bison hides had been found to be a source of high grade leather and were much in demand in domestic and foreign tanneries. Bones became a source of fertilizer.

The demand for these items grew and as a result more bison had to be killed to meet these demands. The first of the large-scale extermination operations began near Dodge City, Kansas, in the early 1870s, and these soon extended into western Oklahoma and the Llanos Estacado of the Texas Panhandle where Teddy Roosevelt had his first lesson in the dangers facing the American bison. Even though there were traditional Native American hunting grounds in this area protected by treaty, the skin and bone hunters continued to kill millions of bison throughout this area. The two-year period of 1872-1874 marked the peak of the near total extermination of the American bison. By 1875 over 25 million bison had been killed - literally slaughtered for their hides - and the southern herd had been virtually decimated with only a few isolated small herds left in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Kansas. The last of the Llanos Estacado bison was killed in 1880. Five years earlier the herd had covered 50 square miles.

The Northern Pacific Railroad moved across the Dakotas and into western Montana, further dividing the northern herd. By 1881 it had reach Miles City, Montana which became a center for hunters seeking out this herd. By 1883 - just two short years later - there was only one remaining large herd, in the Black Hills of western South Dakota. That year the state passed a law protecting the herd . . . too little too late. A North American herd once estimated number over 30 million had virtually disappeared.

The last of the free-roaming bison in Canada was killed in 1883; in 1891 in the United States. The only moderate size herd - less than 1000 bison - left in North American were in Yellowstone National Park, established in 1872, and in a handful of other smaller reserves in western Montana. Samuel Walking Coyote, a member of the Pend d’Oreille tribe, saved a few orphaned calves and established the National Bison Range in the Flathead Valley of western Montana. Similar experiments saved the bison from extinction and over 12,000 bison lived in the United States and Canada by the end of World War I. Scions of this herd were later introduced to Yellowstone and it was their descendants that my wife and I watched with fascination during our visits to the park.

Today there is an estimated 500,000 bison in North America although only 4% are free-roaming on government and public land, and up to 10% of these wild bison succumb each year to disease (frequently water-borne vectors), accidents, predators and the weather. The remaining animals are all privately owned. Ted Turner’s half-million acre Vermejo Park Ranch in northeastern New Mexico is home to the only privately owned, genetically pure bison herd.

There are two bison farms only an hour or so north of where we live here in Maryland. Both are situated in the rolling farmland north of Baltimore and along the Pennsylvania state line. We have been visiting one of these - Twin Springs Bison Farm in Lineboro, Maryland - for the past few years in order to stock our freezer with various cuts of high-quality bison meat which contain only a fraction of the fat and calories found in beef. Now I better understand why the Native Americans honored the bison as a mainstay of their culture and traditions. This family-owned and operated farm was establish in 1999 and is now home to a 100+ head herd roaming over 300 beautiful rural acres. During a recent visit to Lineboro the owners told us about the annual bison auction sponsored by the Eastern Bison Association and held at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex, in Harrisburg. My wife and I marked our calendar and drove up to Pennsylvania on the appointed day.

Sally Ann grew up on Florida cattle ranches and whenever she smells the strangely fragrant odor of cattle country she constantly reminds me that "it smells like home." She had been to cattle auctions before, but the bison auction in Harrisburg was unlike anything I had ever seen before. No longer roaming the open range or pastures, here they were segregated into holding pens based on their size and gender. Before the auction tentative buyers (and those of us who were just curious) wandered among these pens to get a close-up look at the animals before the bidding began. Upon close inspection - close enough to feel the heat and moisture of their breathe - I was reminded just how magnificent these animals truly are. On the drive home that afternoon I thought back on the long and tortured history of the bison and I am thankful that they are finally making a comeback in the United States through sustainable livestock management programs. The American bison is a reminder of what Steven Rinella calls "a frontier both forgotten and remembered."

NEXT WEEK: Travels With John - Tales of Another Road Trip

Cherry Blossoms Mean Springtime in Washington, DC

The blossoming of the Japanese cherry trees along the Tidal Basin, and the attendant National Cherry Blossom Festival, is an annual springtime rite of passage here in Washington, DC. After several rather drab winter months - often cold and wet even if we seldom see more than a few inches of snow that quickly melt - the beginning of spring is usually heralded by the sudden emergence of bright yellow forsythia blossoms, and the dark green shoots of infant crocuses, daffodils and tulips. But it is the arrival of the cherry blossoms - sakura - that signals the true end of winter. Those of us who reside in and around Washington receive regular reports from the National Park Service as to when we might expect the blossoms to peak. When they finally do, residents and tourists from far and wide descend on the Tidal Basin. The Metro subway trains add cars and they are fuller than usual. Schedules are expanded to accommodate the great influx of people and their wallets who come to town to attend the festival and to observe up close and personal the reawakening of our nation’s capital after a long and relatively quiet winter.

The idea of planting Japanese flowering cherry trees on reclaimed land along Washington’s Potomac River waterfront dates back as early as 1885, but it was not until 1906 that there was any serious attempt to learn whether these trees could survive and reproduce in Washington’s climate. It was exactly 100 years ago, in April 1909, that First Lady Helen Herron Taft took up the cause and almost immediately the city of Tokyo offered to donate 2000 trees for the waterfront plantings. The first of these trees came not from Japan, but from a commercial nursery located in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The formal donation of the trees from Tokyo finally came in August 1909, and they arrived by ship at Seattle in December of that year, and in Washington by train in early 1910. Unfortunately, they had been severely pruned for shipping and were found to be diseased and infested with insects. On January 28, 1910, President William Howard Taft ordered all of these trees, as well as their wrapping and the bamboo packing cases, to be burned immediately. Over the years there have been persistent rumors that some of these original trees were spared the flames and were planted at Hains Point, in East Potomac Park at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. There are a few gnarly looking older trees there, but most people in the know believe this story is nothing more than an urban myth.

Despite this rather embarrassing setback, the governments of the United States and Japan worked together to rectify the situation, and in early 1912 over 3000 stronger Yoshino hybrid trees were shipped to Seattle and then by rail in special freight cars, to Washington. The first of these new trees were planted on the north side of the Tidal basin on March 27, 1912, an event that eventually gave rise to the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival. These trees still stand to this day. The rest of the trees were planted around the Tidal Basin, and in East Potomac Park situated just to the south.

The cherry trees became the focus of the widespread opposition to construction of the Jefferson Memorial at the southern end of the Tidal Basin, beginning in late 1938. This construction necessitated the removal of a number of the trees along with several mature elms, a key landscaping element in Pierre l’Enfant’s original design for the capital city. Construction continued even as the opposition mounted, including instances when protestors had themselves tied to the trees in order to prevent their removal and destruction. Today, however, the Jefferson Memorial has become a lasting symbol of the National Cherry Blossom Festival and I dare say that no one visiting the Tidal Basin in early spring has not taken a photograph of the Memorial framed by the white and pale pink sakura.

Washington’s cherry trees flourished for almost three decades and came to symbolize the advent of spring as well as the enduring friendship between the United States and Japan. This came to an end on the morning of December 7, 1941, and several of the trees were cut down in the days following the bombing attack on Pearl Harbor. In order to save the surviving trees, they suddenly became known as “Oriental” flowering cherry trees . . . sort of like renaming French Fries “Freedom Fries” during the war in Iraq. The cherry trees declined during the war years as a result of general disinterest and the cancellation of the annual festival until 1947, and the protests against their removal at the Jefferson Memorial construction site vanished. Ironically, the parent stock in Tokyo also fell on hard times during the war, and an important symbol of the postwar reconciliation between the two countries occurred in 1952, when the United States government, through the auspices of the National Park Service, offered to ship to Japan cuttings from the descendant trees in Washington in order to help rejuvenate the original grove of cherry trees along the Arakawa River, in Tokyo.

The Japanese government reciprocated with another gift of 3800 additional Yoshino trees in 1965 as part of Lady Bird Johnson’s program to beautify Washington. These trees were planted north of the Tidal Basin, in the vicinity of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Various breed stocks are also the subject of research conducted at the National Arboretum, and the flowering cherry trees continue to represent the active long-term cooperation between the United States and Japan to ensure the sustenance of these beautiful trees in both countries. In 1999, a new generation of cuttings were planted to guarantee the survival of the cherry trees along the banks of the Potomac River.

As I reported a couple weeks ago, April 1 was pegged by the National Park Service as the day the blossoms would peak. And they did just that! They began to pop out on March 28 and they are expected to remain with us for another week or so, until around April 11. The peak has been quite spectacular this year despite some inclement weather - heavy rains followed by strong, gusty winds - which arrived on the heals of the blossoms. My wife made her annual pilgrimages (she goes as many days as she can) to the Tidal Basin to enjoy and photograph the blossoms in all their splendor (some of which I share with you here). Although I have gone down in past years, I did not go this year. I am not a big crowd person and it is safe to say that tens of thousands make the grand tour of the Tidal Basin on any given day. Instead, I participated in a newer rite of spring here in Washington, DC . . . the kick-off of the new baseball season with a final exhibition game between the hometown Nationals and the bad boys from Charm City - the Baltimore Orioles. It was an opportunity to meet the players and wish them well on what will only be an uphill season. I ate a ballpark dog with a couple of brews and cheered the Nats on to a 5-4 victory. Whether it is the arrival of the cherry blossoms . . . or the first ball game of the year . . . spring has arrived in Washington, DC.

NEXT WEEK: A Grand and Noble Beast . . . finally!!

Frank Lloyd Wright's Child of the Sun

I have recently returned from another quick trip to Florida. While I was there I spent a great deal of time pondering a Florida-related book manuscript that has been weighing heavily on me lo these past 16 years. As I noted in my last column, I currently find myself in a situation where one must fish or cut bait. So an unexpected return to Florida gave me an opportunity to look at this project anew resulting in a burst of energy which I hope will rekindle this project. I also figured it might be helpful if I sat down and wrote something about it . . . shuffling the coals around in the hearth hoping a new flame, a new heat might spring forth.

A little background for the uninitiated. I attended Florida Southern College as an undergraduate, receiving my BA degree in 1974. The college happens to be the largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings on a single site . . . the only integrated college campus design of his long and distinguished career. While I went on to graduate school in Arizona and Maryland, my good friend and classmate Ray Fischer remained at the college where he ended up serving as Director of Public Relations. It was in this role that he began to work on a history of Wright’s long and fascinating association with the college in the latter years of his life and career. Sadly, Ray was cut down in the prime of his life, succumbing to cancer in the autumn of 1992. Attending his memorial service in the college chapel designed by Wright, I listened as the chaplain mourned the fact that the story Ray was assembling might never be told. It was then that I picked up the torch with the goal of completing this project. Now it is approaching a long awaited and, I hope, a satisfying conclusion. There is interest out there, so today I want to share some of the story with you. To look at some photographs of the Wright-designed buildings at Florida Southern College, please visit: http://www.photoshopshowcase.com/ViewFlashMedia.aspx?AID=110446&AT=3
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Located in central Florida, the city of Lakeland is almost equidistant from Tampa and Orlando. It has been known for decades as the capital of the Florida citrus industry, and since 1920 it has been the home of Florida Southern College, a small liberal arts school affiliated with the Methodist Church. As the city grew and developed during the era of real estate speculation in Florida in the 1920s, so too did Florida Southern College. Beginning with a single red brick building set among the orange groves on a hill overlooking Lake Hollingsworth, the campus expanded with the construction of an additional brick classroom building. The collapse of the real estate boom in the late 1920s, however, saw the college fall on hard times due to a declining enrollment and insufficient monies to pay its faculty. The Board of Trustee gave serious consideration to closing the college for good.

But Florida Southern College survived, thanks in large measure to the optimism and vision of its young president, Ludd M. Spivey, who came to Lakeland in 1925 and immediately set out to raise money to expand the college's enrollment and its physical plant. Spivey opposed all attempts to downsize or close the college. He managed to keep the classrooms open while everything seemed to be collapsing around him.

The future of Florida Southern College was largely guaranteed by the creation of the E. Stanley Jones Foundation in 1936. Named in honor of a world-renowned missionary to India whom Spivey had met aboard a ship returning from Europe, this foundation sought to raise one million dollars for Spivey's expansion programs. Spivey also decided that, if Florida Southern College became the institution he envisioned, its campus would have to symbolize this progress. A number of traditional brick classroom and dormitory buildings were constructed throughout the mid-1930s as enrollment slowly increased, yet Spivey was looking for something unique, something that would set Florida Southern College apart from other colleges.

In early 1938, Spivey focused his attention on Frank Lloyd Wright as the man who could translate his vision into reality. There are many stories of how Spivey came to select Wright, but once Spivey made up his mind, there was nothing that would deter him. On April 11, 1938, he sent a telegram to Wright, who at the time was working on the construction of his new winter home and studio, Taliesin West, outside of Phoenix, and requested a meeting "concerning plans for a great education temple in Florida." On April 21, 1938, Spivey arrived at Taliesin, the architect's home and studio near Spring Green, Wisconsin, and made a pledge to the architect. If Wright agreed to design a master plan for a new campus, he would find the money to pay for it. Spivey had already gained the reputation as a fundraiser par excellence, and his plans piqued Wright's curiosity.

Two weeks later, Wright traveled to Lakeland to tour the 63-acre campus where Spivey hoped to erect an "architectural center of the south." Wright told the students and faculty that it was high time that America had an architecture of its own, and promised that he could give the campus fresh form, a Florida form. Wright rarely agreed to undertake a project, especially such a large one, on little more than a handshake, but he was struck by Spivey's optimism and obvious charisma, and willingly accepted the commission. Spivey agreed to pay an initial fee of $10,000 for the master plan, including renderings of the whole plan and each separate unit, and Wright returned to Spring Green and set out to design his "Child of the Sun," a college to be constructed among an orange grove in central Florida.

Wright's 1938 master plan called for the construction of an integrated complex of 18 separate buildings, including a chapel, library, administration building, music building, an industrial arts building, a science and cosmology building, an art gallery with studio workshops, and a number of seminars and faculty houses. Each building would be unique in style and form according to its specific function, yet part of an integrated and symmetrical whole. This sense of continuity would be achieved by the use of a limited palette of materials: glass, steel and concrete - glass to break down the barriers between exterior and interior, adding light and heightening the sense of space; steel to provide strength; and concrete textile blocks, the basic fabric of construction, were manufactured on the campus using local sand and crushed coquina shell.

In the master plan, Wright moved emphatically away from the regimentation of classic and gothic architecture typically found on the American college campus. Poured concrete and the textile blocks permitted him to experiment with various geometric shapes and other design options. The master plan also called for the construction of a circular pool, or waterdome, to serve as a focal point for the new campus, as well as a network of "esplanades," or covered walkways, connecting the individual components of the plan which called for extensive landscaping in a pattern of terraces and arbors. Wright wanted the surrounding orange grove to be left undisturbed as much as possible and each new building would be surrounded with various semi-tropical plants.

As Wright prepared the master plan for the new campus, he was also designing a chapel, the first building to be constructed and the centerpiece of the entire complex. Spivey insisted that the plans for the chapel be completed as soon as possible so as to assist in the college's fund-raising activities. By November 1938, the chapel's foundation had been laid and the cornerstone dedicated, yet actual construction did not commence until the summer of 1939, and it progressed very slowly. In order to save money, students did much of the construction work under the supervision of Robert Wehr, an industrial arts instructor. In return for room, board and tuition, these student workers spent three days a week on the job and attended classes on the remaining three days. They had Sundays off. With little or no experience with Wright's construction techniques and the nature of the material being used, Wehr and his workers ran into a number of difficulties manufacturing the requisite number of blocks and achieving the correct consistency in the concrete mixture. Numerous letters and telegrams went between Lakeland and the Taliesin Fellowship solving problems so that construction could continue. William Wesley Peters, one of Wright's first and most trusted apprentices (and later a son-in-law), eventually traveled to Lakeland to lend his expertise and his knowledge of Wright’s designs to the construction of the chapel.

The progress of construction also depended upon fund-raising. Spivey sent Wright money when he had it, and the architect was often hesitant to continue without payment. Spivey replied that he could not raise more money or collect pledges unless construction continued uninterrupted. By January 1941, the chapel was nearing completion and it was finally dedicated in March 1941 and named in honor of Annie Pfeiffer, a major college benefactor. Also completed that year were three small one-story seminar buildings separated by two small narrow courtyards. Located directly north of the chapel, each of these buildings contained a classroom and two offices, including a new office for President Spivey.

Shortly after the chapel's dedication, Wright completed plans for a new library, just west of the chapel site and connected to that building by the first segment of the esplanade. The library's foundation was laid in May 1941, and Robert Wehr and his crew of 45 students hoped to complete the construction by the Spring of 1942. The United States' entry into the war, however, interrupted construction when many of the male students entered the military and construction materials, especially steel, became rather scarce. President Spivey made numerous appeals to the War Production Board, contending that the college could not operate effectively without a library. Spivey was forced by circumstances to improvise. He employed female students to work on the library which progressed slowly and only when steel and other materials were available. To make matters worse, a hurricane struck Lakeland in late 1944 destroying the chapel's tower. Once again Spivey appealed to Washington for steel to make the necessary repairs. The library was eventually dedicated in March 1945 although finishing work remained incomplete until after the war.

Wright completed the design for a new administration building in October 1946. Although some claim that the architect personally supervised its construction, this important task was assigned to Kenneth Lockhart, one of Wright's young apprentices sent from the Taliesin Fellowship. Ground was broken in December 1946 and construction was completed in late 1948 as was the adjacent Wright-designed waterdome, the circular pool located between the new administration building and the smaller seminar units and directly north of the chapel and library, that was to serve as the focal point of the new campus. A double-wide portion of the esplanade was extended from the library to the administration building.

The construction of a large industrial arts building followed, the most ambitious structure to date. Already in early 1941, before the chapel had been completed, Wright was promising the preliminary sketches for this building. He completed them the following year, and Spivey hoped the College could manage the construction of the library and the industrial arts building simultaneously. The war and the shortage of manpower, the scarcity of building materials, and the college’s inability to raise the requisite funds to pay Wright, made this impossible. The completion of the library took precedence over other construction and the available funds and materials were used for that purpose. The drawings for the industrial arts building were resurrected in 1949, following the completion of the administration building and the waterdome. Once again, Kenneth Lockhart supervised the construction which was completed in 1952. The esplanade network was extended from the seminars and the chapel to the new building.

Construction on two more buildings began prior to Wright's death in April 1959. The Science and Cosmology Building, which Spivey had hoped to construct as early as 1942, was finally started in 1953. The largest building in the Wright complex, it is over 400 feet in length and contains the only planetarium designed by Wright. While incorporating the now ubiquitous concrete blocks and reinforced concrete slabs, it was also the first building in the complex to use molded aluminum. A smaller chapel was also constructed adjacent to the main chapel, based on preliminary sketches sent to the College in 1942. Construction was postponed during the war and it was not built until 1955. Kenneth Lockhart had by this time returned to the Taliesin Fellowship, and Nils Schweizer, who was appointed Wright's representative in the Southeastern states in 1952, supervised the construction of both of these later buildings.

Wright's master plan also called for the construction of several additional buildings, none of which was constructed. Wright formulated three separate designs for a music building. The first design, dating from 1943, was followed by a second design three years later. By that time, however, all available funds and energy were directed into the completion of the administration building and the waterdome. These plans were shelved and would not be resurrected until 1957, following the completion of the industrial arts building, the science building, and the minor chapel. President Spivey, upon his retirement in June 1957, urged the College to finally construct a music building, and Wright prepared yet another design, working drawings of which were submitted in 1958. The building was never built.

In late 1948, the college was busy at work trying to raise the necessary funds to construct an Olympic-size swimming pool and a large circular amphitheater on the edge of Lake Hollingsworth, on the southern end of the new campus. Designed to seat over 5,000 people, this structure would serve to counterbalance the large circular waterdome at the north end of the complex, as well as the various other circular design elements intersperse throughout the complex. This project, despite all the enthusiasm surrounding it, never progressed beyond the planning stage.

Plans for a building that would hold an art gallery, studio workspace and small recital auditoriums met a similar fate even though Wright had prepared two separate designs. The first, requested by the college in 1942, was submitted for approval in 1944. Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, who had studied music at FSC in the 1920s, offered to fund the construction of a new arts building on campus, but she greatly disapproved of Wright's design and demanded that substantive changes be made. Wright refused and the project was abandoned. Wright prepared new drawings in 1949 based on an earlier design dating from 1921. It included gallery and studio space as well as additional lecture halls and classrooms. Again, these projects were eventually abandoned due to a lack of funds and the college's efforts to complete the library and administration building during the lean war years.

The association between Florida Southern College and the Taliesin Fellowship
began to wane following Spivey's retirement in 1957 and Wright's subsequent death in 1959. With these two men out of the picture, there was no one left to ensure that Spivey's original vision as embodied in Wright's master plan would be brought to completion. Following the completion of the science building, plans for construction of the remaining buildings described in the master plan were abandoned. Instead, Nils Schweizer, the Wright apprentice who had left Lakeland to establish his own architectural practice in nearby Orlando, was named College Architect. He designed and supervised the construction of a number of buildings situated among those designed by Wright. He also oversaw the expansion and modification of certain of the Wright building, including the seminars and the library, to provide for their adaptive reuse as administrative offices. It was now clear that the Wright era at FSC was over.

The past three decades have not been kind to Wright's "Child of the Sun." His buildings became interesting conversation pieces over the years, and their true significance went largely unrecognized until just recently. Years of damage from the sun and moisture have also exacted a high toll, and many of the buildings are in dire need of restoration, especially those earlier ones that were built before the Taliesin Fellowship assumed direct supervision of the construction. With a renewed interest in Frank Lloyd Wright and his architecture, the Wright-designed campus at Florida Southern College is getting a closer look because of its significance as the largest concentration of his buildings anywhere in the world. The college has also started to do its part; restoration has begun and the campus will continue to offer insight into the mind and vision of America's greatest architect.

NEXT WEEK: Cherry Blossoms Mean Springtime in Washington, DC

Entr'acte II - On a Short Springtime Hiatus

Since my last posting on March 8 - “A Visit to the Banks of Plum Creek” - I have been on an unexpected hiatus without time to consider and write about the random thoughts that continue to run through my head. Is it spring fever? I think that might be part of it. It may also be the result of the sudden realization that today I am one step closer to what William Least Heat-Moon referred to as “geezerdom.” Not quite sure how to take this, but I guess I will just grit my teeth and bear down.

There is one bright note, however. This is the first full day of spring and here in Maryland the signs of the new season are everywhere. The forsythia is in full bloom and the crocuses and daffodils are peeking out in our garden. Some of the cherry trees here and just over the border in DC are budding and they say we will be at peak blossom time around April 1 . . . a few days earlier than expected due to the recent warmer nighttime temperatures.

I am working on a piece about the American bison which I had originally planned to post last weekend before this unforeseen interruption in my routine descended on me. So stay tuned . . . that will be appearing here very soon. Things have a tendency to pile up for all of us, and sometimes the best thing to do is to step back and then either throw the Hail Mary . . . or punt. We’ll see what happens.

In the meantime, I wish all of my readers a happy and healthy spring season. Get out there and walk, ride your bike, enjoy a backyard barbeque (bison is good for you!), and hopefully I will be back in the saddle in the next couple of weeks. Here are a couple of pictures Sally Ann and I took in the backyard this week. Spring is here!

A Visit to the Banks of Plum Creek

Here is this week’s update and another road trip discovery . . . this time on the eastern fringes of the Great Plains. After the visit to Joe, Montana (see February 21, 2009 column), my wife and I continued eastward across the badlands of North Dakota, through the watershed of both the Little Missouri and Missouri rivers, and into those of the Sheyenne River, the Boie de Sioux, and the Big Sioux River. The graven plateau gave way to the endless miles of Eastern Dakota prairie grasslands. I had traveled across North Dakota on Interstate 94 during that first big road trip in the summer of 1970 (see February 16, 2009 column), but the blue highways of this region were all new to me and it seems there was a new discovery down every road. I want to share with you just one of these, one that again supports what I have already written about the function of road trips; to travel "into the landscape in order to better understand it, and the people who call it home, those who praise or curse it for what it offers or takes away." Thanks again to Sally Ann for her good eye in taking the photographs. I hope you will read on.
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I never read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books when I was a kid. Just not my cup of tea, I guess. But my wife did, and she loved the stories of the Ingall’s family as it moved from the Big Woods of western Wisconsin to Kansas, and eventually north again to the small town of Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and De Smet, South Dakota, in the latter half of the 19th century. I really knew nothing at all about Mrs. Wilder or her stories until the television series "Little House on the Prairie," which was very loosely based on her characters, premiered in 1974. I’ll admit it; my wife and I watched it regularly. After all, she knew the characters from reading the books, and the series starred the late Michael Landon whom I idolized in his role as Little Joe on "Bonanza," a program I watched religiously as a young boy, but I did not think much about Laura Ingalls Wilder or the television series once it went off the air in 1983.

More recently, my wife and I were traveling through the Dakotas, and while studying our maps in a motel room in Watertown, South Dakota one evening, she pointed out that we were only an hour or so away from the town of De Smet, where the Ingalls family settled in 1879 after three years of failed crops in Minnesota. It was in De Smet that Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and went to school, and where she met and married Alonzo Wilder at the age of 18, in 1885. They moved to Alonzo’s farm just north of town and raised wheat, the main cash crop in those parts. De Smet became Laura’s "Little Town on the Prairie" that formed the core of many of her books, six of which are set in and around the town. Although I am not always interested in the writings of certain authors, I have always held a keen fascination for the lives of writers, any writers; where did they live and how did these places impact on how and what they chose to write about? So curiosity got the better of me as we planned to visit De Smet the following day.

The next morning we drove west out of Watertown on US 212, and then south on State Route 25, passing though wide expanses of prairie farms stretching to the horizon, where the roads ran in grid pattern to the four compass points. Each town we passed through looked pretty much like the one before and after. As we approached De Smet from the north we came upon a small historical marker informing us that the Wilder homestead, the small claim shanty where Laura and Alonzo lived after they were married, was once located in a wooded thicket to our west. It was there that their daughter Rose Wilder Lane (1886-1968), was born. Like her mother, she continued to celebrate her youthful days on the prairie although she would grow to be an accomplished journalist and novelist in her own right, and at age 78 the oldest war correspondent during the Vietnam War. The Wilders had a difficult row to hoe on that farm and they eventually pulled up stakes and left De Smet in 1890, settling in the Missouri Ozarks where they would remain for the rest of their lives. Mrs. Wilder died in February 1957, just three days after celebrating her 90th birthday. She lived in De Smet for just over a decade, but it was her years there, and those of her earlier childhood spent in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, about which she would write most fondly . . . stories that several generations of young girls would cherish into adulthood.

Upon our arrival in De Smet, we found a small park situated near the center of town which serves as the current site of the old Surveyor’s House, in which the Ingalls family first lived after moving to the Dakota territory. My wife took a tour of the house as well as a replica of an old one-room school house similar to the one that Laura and her sisters attended. Laura, at the young age of 15 and still a student herself, later worked as a teacher in such a school. While she explored these places to her heart’s content, I was satisfied to walk the quiet streets of De Smet and collect my thoughts about life in the heartland. It is not easy wresting one’s livelihood from the soil where the wind blows as long and hard as the winters are cold and the summers are hot. "No one," Mrs. Wilder wrote, "who has not pioneered can understand the fascination and the terror if it."

At the end of her tour, my wife inquired about the Ingalls family’s time on Plum Creek, near Walnut Grove, between 1874 and 1876, and whether it might be possible to visit the site. The nice lady who gave her the tour through the buildings picked up the telephone and called the owners of the farm on which the old homestead is now situated, to inquire whether it would be alright for us to drive over there that day to have a look around. So, after lunch in De Smet and a visit to the Ingalls family plot in the town cemetery on a hill south of town, and a brief visit to the site of the Ingalls farm near the Big Slough where five stately cottonwood trees planted by Pa Ingalls still grow, we set off on US Highway 14 - the Laura Ingalls Wilder Scenic Highway - for the 100 mile eastward journey to Walnut Grove.

We crossed into Minnesota and soon passed through one of the largest wind farms in the United States at Lake Benton - over 200 large wind turbines positioned along Buffalo Ridge, one of the highest areas in the state, their spinning props filling the sky in ever direction. Fifty miles beyond the border is Walnut Grove, population 599, a town very much cognizant of its important place in the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and her books. There is an annual pageant and several signs around town reminding one of this connection, but there is not much in this small town that was there when the Ingalls family lived nearby on the banks of Plum Creek. As we approached the town my wife read to me Laura Ingalls Wilder’s description of her family’s arrival at Plum Creek.

We followed the directions provided to us in De Smet and drove a short distance north to a well-kept farm with its stately old house and red barn and out buildings. Beyond these is a two-track through acres of what would soon be corn fields to the banks of quietly meandering Plum Creek. The plum thickets are still there and the place looks like it must have when the Ingalls family lived here. There is a depression on the hillside where the small dugout once stood, and below it flows Plum Creek. The site is bordered by a broad tableland where the family’s tilled fields and wood lot were located. We had the place all to ourselves and we wandered up and down the stream and across the fields. All you could hear was a fresh springtime breeze blowing through the tall grasses. I am sure my wife was thinking back to the stories she read as a young girl. I’m glad we came if for no other reason than that.

The trip to Walnut Grove and Plum Creek on that beautiful April day? Pure serendipity. When we awoke that morning in Watertown, South Dakota we had no plans to drive well into Minnesota. That is the wonderful thing about a road trip. You go where your personal winds blow you and sometimes you end up on an unexpected shore. In this case, the banks of Plum Creek. By late afternoon we had resumed our trip back toward Sioux Falls, our intended destination that evening. Tired and hungry we wondered what the next day would bring.

NEXT WEEK: Entr’acte II: A Grand and Noble Beast

A Brutal Political Murder

Last summer I was invited to participate in the biennial meeting of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society at Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine. This timely gathering was aptly called "Nathaniel Hawthorne: Starting Over," as Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College for four years, graduating with the Class of 1825. A couple points of clarification, however. First off, I am not a Hawthorne scholar and would not claim to be one. Secondly, I was not invited to this meeting to talk about Hawthorne. Instead, I journeyed to Bowdoin to tell the sad tale of Jonathan Cilley, one of Hawthorne’s oldest friends and college chums, whose death in 1838 in a ravine less than a mile from my home in suburban Washington, DC led to the outlawing of dueling in the United States. And it was Cilley’s former Bowdoin classmate Hawthorne who helped spearhead the effort to ensure that others might not suffer the same fate as his old friend. So, wearing my historian’s hat this week, let me share a portion of the story I told during my visit to Hawthorne’s alma mater where I was also afforded an opportunity to see several manuscripts, correspondence, and other ephemera surrounding the Cilley-Hawthorne friendship. I am also including some photographs taken here in the Washington area, as well at Bowdoin and in Thomaston, Maine. Thankfully individuals no longer settle disputes in ways that violate “their duty to themselves, their wives and children, their immediate constituents, their country, their god, upon contemptible punctilios . . . .”
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On the morning of February 24, 1838, two distinguished members of the United States House of Representatives met at Bloody Run, a small tree-shaded ravine in Bladensburg, Maryland, just over the District of Columbia boundary. To these dark and bloody grounds came Washington’s gentlemen to settle disputes by firing large caliber lead balls at one another. Jonathan Cilley, a Congressional representative from Maine, stood opposite William Graves, a colleague from Kentucky, and when it was over, Cilley lay mortally wounded. His tragic death led to a public outcry encouraging Congress, which characterized the killing as “the Washington murder” and “a brutal political murder . . . without any circumstance of extenuation,” to outlaw dueling the following year.

Jonathan Longfellow Cilley was born July 2, 1802 at Nottingham, New Hampshire, the son of Major Greenleaf Cilley and the grandson of General Joseph Cilley, a hero of the American Revolution. Young Jonathan was raised in a family with a strong political legacy; he was the nephew of Bradbury Cilley, an at-large member of the U.S. House of Representative from New Hampshire between 1813 and 1817, and his older brother Joseph, who had distinguished himself on the Canadian frontier during the War of 1812, would later serve two years as the U.S. Senator from New Hampshire.

Following his father’s death in 1808, the family’s New Hampshire holdings came to his brother Joseph, and Jonathan would have to look elsewhere to make his way in the world. After attending the prestigious Atkinson Academy and Hampton Academy, in his home state, Cilley traveled to Maine in 1821 where he attended Bowdoin College along with classmates including Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States, the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

In the same coach in which Cilley left Portland for Brunswick and Bowdoin College were Franklin Pierce and Nathaniel Hawthorne. These three young men, along with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, of Portland, and Horatio Bridge, of Augusta, would become fast friends at school. Unlike Hawthorne and Bridge, who from time to time violated the school’s rules for acceptable decorum, Pierce, despite his poor grades, and Cilley became pillars of their class. Hawthorne would later describe his friend as a “popular leader,” a “fervid and successful advocate,” and “a young man of quick and powerful intellect, endowed with sagacity and tact.”

These four friends were not interested only in academic pursuits mixed with various adventures and innocent indiscretions. They were also young partisans in a dynamic transformation of American democracy. A case in point was the national elections of 1824, during their final year at Bowdoin. The Democratic-Republican party, which had been in its ascendency since the election of Thomas Jefferson as President, in 1801, was growing larger and more diversified as the country expanded westward. During this critical election, four candidates were vying for the Democratic-Republican nomination for the Presidency. John Quincy Adam of Massachusetts, a former independent Federalist much in the guise of his father, represented the traditional Eastern and New England interests. Henry Clay of Kentucky, the Great Compromiser of 1820 responsible for Missouri and Maine’s admission to the Union, represented the western interests while William H. Crawford of Georgia, who was supported by outgoing President James Monroe and former President Thomas Jefferson, represented the more traditional Southern views. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, supporting the varied frontier interests, found support in all sector of the country.

Franklin Pierce, a strong supporter of Andrew Jackson, enlisted Cilley, Bridge, and Hawthorne to his cause. Bridge and Cilley were plausible converts given the fact they came from the frontier edges of New England. Hawthorne was a different story. A scion of two established Massachusetts families, he would have traditionally fallen into John Quincy Adams’ camp. Perhaps it was Hawthorne’s deep and abiding love for rural Maine, now a state with its own representation in Washington, that allowed him to take up Jackson’s cause. Indeed, Jackson won the popular and electoral vote in 1824 while failing to gain a clear majority. The election of the next President then fell to the House of Representatives which elected John Quincy Adams, the more traditional candidate to whom Henry Clay had thrown his support. Although their candidate lost, the Bowdoin classmates would become life-long Jacksonian Democrats.

One of the more interesting episodes involving Cilley and Hawthorne concerned a wager between the two men during their last year at Bowdoin. The winner of this wager - Cilley’s strong belief that Hawthorne, despite showing little interest in courting while in college, would marry within twelve years of graduation – would receive a cask of fine Madeira wine from the loser. According to Bridge, papers were drawn up on November 14, 1824, signed by the principals, and entrusted to Bridge for safe-keeping until the wager came due, in November 1836. Hawthorne and Cilley did not see each other for years after their graduation, and they seldom corresponded, but they remained friends. “I love Hawthorne; I admire him; but I do not know him,” Cilley would later confess. “He lives in a mysterious world of thought and imagination which he never permits me to enter.”

After graduation, Hawthorne returned home to Salem where he struggled to become the writer he always dreamed he would be. Franklin Pierce was destined for a career in politics, representing New Hampshire in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate before being elected the 14th President of the United States, in 1853. Horatio Bridge went on to become a prominent naval officer, rising to the rank of commodore and serving in appointed positions in several administrations, beginning with that of his old Bowdoin classmate Pierce. Jonathan Cilley, who had nothing waiting for him back in New Hampshire, left Brunswick for Thomaston, Maine, where he studied law under John Ruggles, who had represented Thomaston in the state legislature in Augusta since 1823. Following the completion of his law studies under Ruggles, Cilley was admitted to the Lincoln County bar in 1829, the same year he married Deborah Prince, the daughter of a prominent Thomaston family with whom he resided after leaving Bowdoin. Together they would have five children - three sons and two daughters - born between October 1829 and December 1837. Cilley did not practice law right away; he served as the editor of the Thomaston Register, from 1829 to 1831.

John Quincy Adams’ tenure as President would last only one term. In the election of 1828, Andrew Jackson finally won a clear majority, carrying all sections of the country with the support of Adam’s Vice President, John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, and Martin Van Buren, of New York. John Ruggles, a Jacksonian Democrat in a predominantly Federalist (and later, Whig) district, was not only Jonathan Cilley’s legal mentor, but his political mentor as well. When Ruggles left the state legislature in 1831 following his appointment as a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Maine’s supreme court, he encouraged his young protégé to replace him. With Ruggles’ support Cilley won the 1831 election, taking his seat in the legislature in Augusta in January 1832.

When Ruggles subsequently ran for the United States Senate that same year, he trusted that Cilley would use his newfound influence in the state legislature to assist him. Cilley’s reluctance to do so, however, angered Ruggles, who, with his allies in Augusta tried to prevent Cilley’s reelection. Failing in the attempt, and still rankled by Cilley’s supposed treason, Ruggles also sought and obtained Cilley’s expulsion from the legislature’s Democratic caucus, in 1834. Regardless, Cilley was elected to five successive terms as Thomaston’s representative in Augusta, and was named Speaker of the House in 1835, a position his former mentor had once held.

Despite a Whig majority in Maine’s Lincoln Congressional District, and without the support of the Ruggles faction in the Democratic party, Jonathan Cilley was nominated in 1836 as that party’s candidate in the upcoming election for the United States House of Representatives. Cilley had now allied himself to Vice President Martin Van Buren’s juggernaut to succeed Jackson in the Presidency and thereby continue his Democratic legacy. Cilley, with the support of the superior organizational skills of the Democratic party facing four regional Whig candidates for President, was elected to the 25th Congress on March 4, 1837, and his longtime defense of Jackson and his policies, and his alliance with President Van Buren, would put him at odds with many powerful men in Congress, along with their supporters.

Leaving his wife and young children in Thomaston, Cilley moved to Washington where he assumed his new duties “with real heart felt & active benevolence, mutual simplicity, unaffected humility, manly strength of mind, & everlasting truth.” By all accounts, Cilley took his position in the House of Representatives very seriously and considered himself not only one of Maine’s representatives, but also duty-bound to protect New England’s honor and interests as a gallant and incorruptible public servant.

The wager into which Cilley and Nathaniel Hawthorne entered in 1824, toward the end of their collegiate tenure at Bowdoin, came due for settlement in October 1836, while Cilley was running for a Congressional seat. Horatio Bridge, then residing in Augusta and who remained curator of the records of the wager in the intervening years, notified Cilley that Hawthorne, much like himself, had not yet married and therefore Cilley owed Hawthorne the cask of Madeira as obliged by the wager. Cilley wrote to Hawthorne questioning the validity of his claim to the wine and giving the impression that he had no intention of honoring the wager. Hawthorne complained to Bridge who cautioned: “if a bet grows old it grows cold.” Cilley, ever the politician, offered an alternative resolution to the matter. They would all meet at Bowdoin College at the next commencement ceremony and share the wine with as many classmates as might gather there for the occasion. Bridge suspected Cilley’s true motive: “to pay over the balance after taking a strong pull at it.” The wager remained unresolved when Cilley left Maine in early 1837 for his new duties in Washington.

Upon the publication of Hawthorne’s Twice-told Tales in 1837, Horatio Bridge sent a copy to Representative Cilley, hoping to recruit him to an effort by Franklin Pierce, now a U.S. Senator, to secure for Hawthorne a position as chronicler and historian for a planned expedition to the South Seas. Cilley congratulated Hawthorne on the publication of his book, taking the opportunity to chide his old friend over his failure to find a bride. “What, suffer twelve years to pass away, and no wife, no children, to soothe your care, make you happy, and call you blessed.”

Hawthorne did not get the job, and he visited Bridge at his home in Augusta during the summer of 1837. They spent a great deal of time together, catching up on old times and fishing the local waters. Hawthorne continued on to Thomaston where he visited Cilley in late July, the first time they had seen each other since they graduated from Bowdoin. There is no record of any discussion of the wager, and writing in his journal on July 28th, Hawthorne referred to the visit with his old classmate and friend. “We met like old friends, and conversed almost as freely as we used to do in college days, twelve years ago and more.” Hawthorne found Cilley to be “shrewd, crafty, insinuating, with wonderful tact . . . a daring fellow as well as a sly one.” He could well understand how a man such as Cilley would be successful in politics. “There is such a quality of truth and kindliness and warm affections, that a man’s heart opens to him, in spite of himself. He deceived by truth.”

In Washington, Cilley exemplified the true Jacksonian Democrat, trying to represent his constituents who had intrusted their public interests to his care. He was also baptized in a vicious partisanship and vile journalism the likes of which he had not known at home despite his unpleasant dealings with John Ruggles, his former mentor, and his faction within the Democratic party. “A man,” Cilley confessed, “if he thinks freely and boldly, must take his life in his hand.” In his role of guardian of Northern principles and traditions, Cilley believed that other members of Congress from the North too frequently allowed their esteemed colleagues from the Southern states “to hector and lord it over them” in return for their loyalty and support on key issues. He felt it was his solemn duty, and that of his Northern compatriots, to address these attacks in kind. If they did, such arrogance would cease. It is therefore not surprising that Cilley took great offense when he read in a newspaper account that several of his Congressional colleagues were doing business with James Watson Webb, one of the North’s most virulent opponents of the Abolitionist movement and a prominent Whig editor of two influential New York City newspapers. Cilley perceived Webb to be a corrupt scoundrel and sought to expose him, reading the New Hampshire newspaper’s allegations into the Congressional Record.

William J. Graves, a Whig elected to the House of Representatives from Kentucky and a good friend of the powerful New York editor, came to Webb’s defense and offered to defend his honor by challenging Cilley to meet him at Bloody Run. At first Cilley dismissed the challenge; all he had done was quote something already on the public record. Quickly realizing that the challenge could not go unanswered, the mild-mannered Cilley, unfamiliar with the protocol of dueling and who honestly believed this matter might be satisfied without firing a shot, finally accepted the challenge for “the honor of the New England States.” His inexperience and naivete would cost him his life.

Cilley and Graves met at the secluded ravine on the appointed day. Unlike most duels of the time, which were fought using pistols at a relatively close range, the two principals stood opposite one another at a distance of 80 yards armed with more unconventional rifles. Three separate volleys were fired. Following a customary practice in duels, Cilley fired his first round into the ground only a short distance away. The seconds for both men, as well as a number of prominent Washingtonians who had gathered to witness the duel, urged the two men to call off the challenge, presuming that both men had defended their honor by showing up. Cilley agreed, but Graves demanded satisfaction and refused to abandon his challenge. The second volley also failed to find its mark and once again Graves refused to stand aside. Again the two men raised their weapons, aimed and fired. The smoke hung in the cold February morning air as the rifles’ reports echoed down the ravine. The lead ball from Graves’ rifle had struck Cilley in the upper leg severing an artery, and he fell to the ground and quickly bled to death. He was thirty-five years old.

Cilley’s state funeral was held in Washington at noon on February 27, 1838, when his body was placed in the center aisle of the House of Representatives, in the Capitol. In attendance were President Martin Van Buren, a long time Cilley ally, as well as Vice President Richard M. Johnson, another prominent Jacksonian Democrat from Kentucky. Also attending were members of the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, both houses of Congress, and many other distinguished guests filled the House galleries. The Chaplain of the Senate gave the invocation, but it was the Reverend Levi R. Reese, the Chaplain of the House of Representatives, who spoke out vigorously on the questionable morality of dueling to solve personal feuds at “a service the most painful and delicate I have ever been called upon to perform,” a funeral “fraught with solemn admonition and instruction to us all.” Reverend Reese questioned how it had become honorable to issue and accept challenges that might lead to the death of one or both men involved; “there is no righteous principle that will justify such a course . . . they fight, the ball is received, and the unhappy man falls a lifeless corpse on the earth.” He ended by challenging Cilley’s Congressional colleagues to do everything in their power “to change this wicked and ruinous state of public opinion” and put an end to “this awful relic of barbarism.”

Following the funeral service in the Capitol, the cortege and all in attendance made their way to the Washington Parish Burial Ground (the present-day Congressional Cemetery), that “grand and gloomy cemetery” on a hillside above the Eastern Branch of the Potomac (now the Anacostia) River, and there Cilley was laid to rest temporarily in the Public Vault. His body was eventually returned to his family in Thomaston where he now lies buried in the family plot in Elm Grove Cemetery. A cenotaph (literally “empty grave”) in his honor remains to this day in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington.

Condemnation of the duel and Cilley’s senseless death was swift and harsh. Several newspapers and journals ran editorials denouncing Webb and his Congressional cronies for provoking the duel, and there were a number of published satirical cartoons portraying the events surrounding Cilley’s brutal “murder.” One of the loudest voices condemning the duel was that of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who noted that such a challenge “was never given on a more shadowy pretext,” and that his friend had been “slain for an almost impalpable punctilio.”

In the September 1839 issue of Democratic Review, Hawthorne penned a glowing tribute to his old friend whose loss obliged him to “write with a blunted pen and head benumbed.” Describing his college friend as an “Active and Efficient Partisan,” he reminded the reader that Cilley had fallen victim to an unjust cause. “Alas, that over the grave of a dear friend, my sorrow for the bereavement must be mingled with another grief - that he threw away such a life in so miserable a cause! Why, as he was true to the Northern character in all things else, did he swerve from his Northern principles in this final scene?” Cilley may have been a strong voice and a man of action for his native New England, yet Hawthorne believed his loss would be felt far beyond those precincts; the entire country had “lost a man who had the heart and the ability to serve her well.”

Perhaps some good came from this senseless act. A Congressional committee, of which Senator Franklin Pierce was a member, conducted a long investigation into the circumstances surrounding Cilley’s death which resulted in a number of censures and dismissals. Subsequent inquiries eventually led to ending the practice of dueling - not just at Bloody Run - and the making or accepting of a challenge became a criminal offense throughout the United States.

Deborah Prince Cilley survived her husband by only six years, passing away in Thomaston in August 1844 at the young age of 36. Their eldest surviving son, Greenleaf Cilley, who was nine when his father was killed, later served in the Navy, rising to the rank of commander, and eventually became a prominent businessman in Thomaston. Jonathan Prince Cilley, who was only two in 1838, would grow up to follow in his father’s footsteps and attend Bowdoin College where he graduated in 1858. Commissioned an officer in the First Maine Calvary, he was wounded several times during the Civil War and rose to the rank of general in the Union Army. After the war he served in the Maine Senate. Daughter Julia, who never knew her father, grew to adulthood, married, and raised her family in Maine.

Bloody Run, in Bladensburg, Maryland, is now preserved as a county historical site situated between a strip mall and a cemetery, an almost forgotten patch of grass in a small ravine adjacent to a concrete culvert where the stream once flowed. There is a small historic marker nearby and from time to time one can see a reenactment of the famous 1820 duel between Stephen Decatur and James Barron. Nothing is said of that duel on a cold morning in February 1838 that claimed the promising life of a young politician from Maine, and forever ended legalized dueling in the United States.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jonathan Cilley, Horatio Bridge, and any number of fellow classmates never did convene at Bowdoin College to take strong pulls from that elusive cask of Madeira. With the publication of his glowing tribute to his old friend Jonathan Cilley, Hawthorne put that youthful chapter of his life behind him. Their 17-year friendship was based on a mutual admiration while recognizing that mysterious world that ultimately separated them.

NEXT WEEK: A Visit to the Banks of Plum Creek