Troy’s Oakwood Cemetery: Burial Place of Uncle Sam

Photography by George Cassidy Payne

While getting lost trying to find the Herman Melville house in Troy, NY, my father and I stumbled upon a cemetery that I had read about but had no intentions of visiting prior to my trip. Boy am I glad that we got lost!

Surrounded by dense foliage and rolling lawns, Oakwood Cemetery is one of America’s largest rural cemeteries. In addition to its beautiful natural landscapes, Oakwood is the final resting place of many of the area’s most prominent citizens, including “Uncle Sam” Wilson, progenitor of the famous Uncle Sam icon, Emma Williard, a pioneer of the women’s rights movement, Russell Sage, the railroad executive and partner of Jay Gould, and Civil War medal of honor recipient William Henry Freeman.

But the real jewel of the cemetery is the Earl Memorial and Chapel, which is arguably the most architecturally and technologically sophisticated of the nation’s early public crematoria. Trust me, it’s well worth a stopover if you are anywhere near the Capital District. Not only is the stone masonry a superb example of the Romanesque style, it boasts extraordinary views of the Hudson River Valley.

Uncle Sam (initials U.S.) is a common national personification of the American government or the United States in general that, according to legend, came into use during the War of 1812 and was supposedly named for Troy resident Samuel Wilson. The actual origin is by a legend.

The Jewel of Oakwood, and a National Historic Landmark

“A stunning example of Romanesque architecture, the Gardner Earl Memorial Chapel is Oakwood Cemetery’s most significant structure, providing an elegant setting for memorial services, weddings and special events. Opened in 1890, this gorgeous edifice celebrates the Victorian notion of grandeur in death—and offers a window onto the unthinkable affluence of a select few. 

The chapel’s namesake, Gardner Earl, was the son of a fabulously wealthy Troy shirt-collar maker who died young and left a bequest that he be cremated. Cremation as a form of final disposition was then nearly unknown in the United States, though it was popular in Europe, where Earl had learned of it during his travels. 

After taking their son’s body to Buffalo to be cremated, the Earls decided to build the historic chapel and crematorium, sparing no expense. They gave Albert Fuller, a well known Albany architect, a free hand to design the chapel. They asked him to make the building the most modern, artistically beautiful and enduringly strong crematory in the world. 

The building’s exterior is faced with pink-tinted Westerly granite. A loggia of three massive arches connects the chapel with its towers, from which one can view a magnificent 100-mile view of the Hudson River Valley. The sumptuous interior, virtually unchanged in its 120 years, features eight Tiffany stained-glass windows. Marble mosaics in delicate tints adorn the floor and altars. Wainscoting is crafted of pink African marble. The ceilings and pews are all hand-carved quarter-sawn oak. 

In the reception room, there are two breathtaking Maitland Armstrong stained glass windows. The walls are covered with Siena marble from Italy, and the lower walls covered in marble mosaics. Columns are cut from green Brazilian onyx. 

The Earl Chapel and Crematorium has been designated a National Historic Landmark, and is listed in its own right on the National Register of Historic Places.” 

http://oakwoodcemetery.org/wordpress/index.php/the-gardner-earl-chapel/

Oakwood is one of New York State’s most distinguished and well-preserved 19th century rural cemeteries.

Established in 1848, Oakwood is a pinnacle achievement in the rural cemetery movement.

14 members of the House of Representatives are buried here

“Freeman was employed as a brass molder before enlisting in Company B of the 169th NY Volunteer Infantry (known as “The Second Troy Regiment”) in early 1863. Among other campaigns, that regiment participated in the 1864 operations against Fort Fisher, NC, which was an immense sand fortification that guarded the inlet to Wilmington, NC, the last major open Confederate port on the Atlantic coast. At the final attack on that fortress on January 15, 1865, Alonzo Alden, the Colonel of the 169th NY was acting as commander of the brigade that was attacking the land wall of the fort. After the bearer of Alden’s personal flag was shot down, Private Freeman threw down his weapon and carried the brigadier’s flag through the remainder of the battle, making himself a prominent target. 

Returning to Troy after his discharge, Freeman resumed his career as a molder, and was later employed as a janitor in the Post Office. On May 27, 1905, more than 40 years after the fact, Private William Freeman was awarded a Medal of Honor for his service at Fort Fisher. The official citation reads “Volunteered to carry the brigade flag after the bearer was wounded.”


https://oakwoodcemetery.org/wordpress/index.php/william-h-freeman/

The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Tiffany glass

“Many historically important sculptors are represented on the grounds of Oakwood. Robert E. Launitz, creator of the memorial urn for A.J. Downing on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., sculpted the memorial for Major General George H. Thomas.
William Henry Rinehart‘s final work, a life-size sculpture of Julia Taylor Paine, resides in Oakwood. J. Massey Rhind, known for his statue of Crawford W. Long in the National Statuary Hall Collection is the artist behind the Robert Ross Monument. 

One of the most significant monuments is that to Major General John E. Wool. The 75.5-foot (23.0 m) monolithic obelisk which was a technological marvel in its day is constructed from granite quarried and shaped by the Bodwell Granite Company, and at 650 tons was believed to be the largest shaft quarried in the United States up to that time.”


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakwood_Cemetery_(Troy,_New_York)

View shed from the top of Oakwood Cemetery

“The Troy Cemetery Association claims that the view offers the “most concentrated and complete overview of American history anywhere in America”. It shows evidence of paleolithic rocks, Native Americans, the Dutch, the British, the French and Indian Wars, the American Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the “Way West” movement resulting in the creation of the Erie Canal. “

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakwood_Cemetery_(Troy,_New_York)

“On March 6, 1894 during an election riot between pollwatchers and operatives of the local Democratic political ward boss who were engaged in repeat voting, a young poll watcher, Robert Ross, was shot and killed. His brother, William, was also shot but survived.

Bartholomew Shea and John McGough were at the polling booth of the third district of the Thirteenth Ward. William and Robert Ross were present as poll watchers. “The row started when one of the Shea gang sought to vote upon another citizen’s name and in a twinkling clubs and revolvers were flourished. Many shots were fired and when the fight closed it was found that Robert Ross had been fatally shot, that his brother, William, [sic] received a bullet in the neck and that Shea and McGough, who fled from the scene, had each been slightly wounded.”
Shea and McGough were caught and arrested, at which time McGough initially claimed he had fired the shot that killed Ross, but later apparently withdrew this claim, only to repeat the claim years later, after Shea’s execution in 1896.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Robert_Ross

Melville’s Mighty Theme: A Visit to Herman Melville’s Home in Lansingburg, NY.

The career of Herman Melville fascinates me. His first two books were popularly read but did not make very much money. Published four years later in 1851, his magnum opus was Moby- Dick, a book that many consider to be “the great American novel.” However, when Melville wrote Moby- Dick he was struggling to make ends meat as an author. What should have been his big break turned out to be a complete disaster commercially. Even worse, the book was widely criticized by his peers, and for all intents and purposes it spelled the end of his notoriety as a professional writer.

Sadly, he would be forced to take a job as a U.S. Customs Inspector in New York City-a post that he held for 20 years. Although he wrote several more novels and worked on an epic poem for years, he eventually faded away from public view.

Thirty years after his death, a Melville revival took place. For the first time all of his works were being reread and reappraised. A writer who died in obscurity was suddenly being seen as an innovator of the fictional autobiographical genre and a master storyteller of romantic adventure.

It was during this revival that his saga of a sea captain battling a giant whale became a great metaphor for the conflict between nature and humans. It was also during this period when his first two books-namely Typee and Omoo, were read not just as interesting descriptions of island life in Polynesia, but as precursors to the most extraordinary novel of the 19th century. Indeed, these early works are more than just travel literature. They reveal an author with a unique gift for blending fiction, natural history, and anthropology. Melville exploited all of these elements to heroic effect in his masterpiece.

What I didn’t know is that Herman Melville lived for a time in the city of Troy, NY. It was here that he penned some of his earliest writings; these books may not have matched the quality of work which was to come, but they provided him a creative outlet for his many sea adventures, and they put his name out there in the literary world. What is more, they gave him the encouragement and motivation he needed to write Moby- Dick.

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

Herman Melville

“A New York State historic marker commemorates the nine years that Herman Melville lived there and wrote his first two novels, Typee and Omoo. Melville was a graduate of The Lansingburgh Academy and taught in the area. The furnishings at the headquarters reflect the various architectural changes the building has undergone during its two centuries of existence. The society’s collections includes maps, photographs, diaries, business records, town and village records, and the Burleigh panoramic views.”


“Melville completed Typee, his first book, in the summer of 1845 while living in Troy. His brother Gansevoort found a publisher for it in London, where it was published in February 1846 by John Murray and became an overnight bestseller, then in New York on March 17 by Wiley & Putnam. Inspired by his adventures in the Marquesas, the book was far from a reliable autobiographical account.

Melville extended the period his narrator spent on the island to three months more than he himself did, made it appear that he understood the native language, and incorporated material from source books he had assembled. Scholar Robert Milder calls Typee“an appealing mixture of adventure, anecdote, ethnography, and social criticism presented with a genial latitudinarianism that gave novelty to a South Sea idyll at once erotically suggestive and romantically chaste.”

An unsigned review in the Salem Advertiser, actually written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, called the book a “skilfully managed” narrative, “lightly but vigorously written” by an author with “that freedom of view … which renders him tolerant of codes of morals that may be little in accordance with our own.” The depictions of the “native girls are voluptuously colored, yet not more so than the exigencies of the subject appear to require.” Pleased but slightly bemused by the adulation of his new public, Melville later complained in a letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne that he would “go down to posterity … as a ‘man who lived among the cannibals’!” The book brought Melville into contact with his friend Greene again, Toby in the book, who wrote to the newspapers confirming Melville’s account. The two corresponded until 1863, and sustained a bond for life: in his final years Melville “traced and successfully located his old friend.”

In March 1847, Omoo, a sequel to Typee, was published by Murray in London, and in May by Harper in New York. Omoo is “a slighter but more professional book,” according to Milder. Typee and Omoo gave Melville overnight renown as a writer and adventurer, and he often entertained by telling stories to his admirers. As the writer and editor Nathaniel Parker Willis wrote, “With his cigar and his Spanish eyes, he talks Typee and Omoo, just as you find the flow of his delightful mind on paper.” 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville


“War being the greatest of evils, all its accessories necessarily partake of the same character.” 
– Herman Melville, Omoo

Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

Herman Melville

In 1973 the society established “Melville Park” directly across First Avenue from the Melville House. The park is located on the site of the early 19th century shipyard of Richard Hanford.

Saturday, August 3, 2019 – Herman Melville Bicentennial Celebration – Details are still being worked out, but it will involve something very different for LHS, Stephen Collins portraying Herman Melville in the one-man play “Sailing Towards My Father.” It will be presented in the Gardner Earl Chapel in Oakwood Cemetery – a rare opportunity to see a play performed there. The amount requested will not be prohibitive – we hope you’ll attend, after all! There will also be refreshments, and a sale of reasonably-priced used Melville books.

https://lansingburghhistoricalsociety.org/

The Melville House and Museum is located at 114th Street and 1st Avenue. Built in 1786 by Stephan Gorham, the first postmaster of Rensselaer County.

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
Herman Melville

Period design

A view of the Hudson from the front porch of Melville’s home.

Is there some principal of nature which states that we never know the quality of what we have until it is gone?

Herman Melville

The Hudson River behind Melville’s house.

A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

Herman Melville

View of Melville’s high school from the Oakwood Cemetery viewshed. Lansingburg High School also graduated U.S. President Chester Arthur.

Stillwater, NY

Saratoga: Turning Point of the Revolutionary War

Photography by George Cassidy Payne

The word Saratoga is shorthand for two battles that gave the coup de grace to the 1777 British invasion from Canada during the American Revolutionary War. 

The Battle of Saratoga proved to be a crucial victory for the Patriots during the American Revolution and is considered the turning point of the Revolutionary War. The Battle was the impetus for France to enter the war against Britain, re-invigorating Washington’s Continental Army and providing much needed supplies and support.

https://www.saratoga.com/aboutsaratoga/battle-of-saratoga/

The Grand Strategy of the British

“The turning point in the Revolutionary War began as a plan by the British to strategically control Upstate New York and isolate New England from the Southern colonies in an effort to decisively put an end to the Revolution. It ended as an opportunity the Patriots were waiting for. British troops led by General John Burgoyne, planned to drive south from Montreal to Albany, NY along the historic water route of Lake Champlain, Lake George and the Hudson River. Once in Albany, they would join forces with two other British commands, one coming north from New York City and the other coming east along the Mohawk River valley. “

https://www.saratoga.com/aboutsaratoga/battle-of-saratoga/

Woodland area in Stillwater, NY.

“…one of the Greatest battles that Ever was fought in Amarrca…”
Major Henry Dearborn

“On September 19, 1777, Burgoyne had split up his 7500-man army into three columns to sweep around where he believed the Americans might be. One column of British troops would move west about 2 miles inland and begin to move south. A second column of British troops moved about a mile inland before moving south. The third column, made of German troops, moved along the river road and defended British supplies.

About noon on the 19th, scouts from the center column encountered Colonel Daniel Morgan’s American light infantry and riflemen at the farm of John Freeman, a loyalist who had gone north to Fort Edward to meet up with Burgoyne’s army. Thus began the fighting, which grew very fierce, as the battle swayed back and forth, each side taking and retaking the field.

As evening drew closer, Burgoyne ordered about 500 German soldiers to move from the river and reinforce the British center column. When the Americans heard and saw them coming, they left the field and returned to their own lines. The British held the field, but were unable to proceed.

On September 22, Burgoyne got word from Clinton that he could send troops north from New York City at any time. Burgoyne expected assistance, and ordered his troops to dig in and await it.

By the first days of October, Clinton’s men had moved northward, capturing a few American forts. Part of their number also attacked Kingston, and a small number got about 30 miles south of Albany. By mid-October, Howe had ordered Clinton back to New York City to supply reinforcements for Philadelphia. Clinton had to turn away.

Burgoyne’s army grew short on time, supplies, and manpower; their now 6800-man army had been on half-rations for the last two weeks, and winter wasn’t far away. On October 7, he sent out a 1500-man “reconaissance-in-force” with several cannons to probe and bombard the American left. The group was delayed in the Barber Wheatfield, as some of the soldiers were tasked with harvesting the much-needed ripened wheat.

Around mid-afternoon, the Americans, aware of the British movement, attacked. Their now 13000-man army was able to push the British back. As the British withdrew, one of their beloved Generals, Simon Fraser, was mortally wounded by one or more of Morgan’s riflemen.

British forces hastily fell back to one of their defensive positions, the Balcarres Redoubt. It was strong, well defended, and able to deter the Americans.

Several hundred yards north, the Breymann Redoubt was not as well suited to the defense. It was also defended by less than 200 German soldiers and officers –no match for the nearly 1300 American soldiers attacking it.

As some of the American troops began to circle around the left side of the Breymann Redoubt, American General Benedict Arnold arrived on the scene. Caught up in the flow of American soldiers, he rallied the men, and was seriously wounded in the left leg.

By nightfall, the Americans held the Breymann Redoubt. As it was at the far right of the British lines, they could then get behind the British anywhere else from behind. They did not press the advantage, but the British still fell back to their own river fortifications, the Great Redoubt.

Simon Fraser having been buried in the Great Redoubt the morning of October 8, and having packed up what supplies they could, Burgoyne’s army began a hasty retreat north. They trudged through cold rain, mud, and hunger until reaching the village of Saratoga. Finding themselves boxed in by American militia soldiers north, west, and east of the village, they set up a fortified camp and waited. Two days later, the Americans had completely surrounded them.”

https://www.nps.gov/sara/learn/historyculture/index.htm

When the Americans beat their British foes at Saratoga, it marked the first time in world history that a British Army ever surrendered. 

One American soldier declared, “It was a glorious sight to see the haughty Brittons march out & surrender their arms to an army which but a little before they despised and called paltroons.”

A Hero Turned a Traitor

“Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) was an early American hero of the Revolutionary War (1775-83) who later became one of the most infamous traitors in U.S. history after he switched sides and fought for the British. At the outbreak of the war, Arnold participated in the capture of the British garrison of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. In 1776, he hindered a British invasion of New York at the Battle of Lake Champlain. The following year, he played a crucial role in bringing about the surrender of British General John Burgoyne’s (1722-92) army at Saratoga. Yet Arnold never received the recognition he thought he deserved. In 1779, he entered into secret negotiations with the British, agreeing to turn over the U.S. post at West Point in return for money and a command in the British army. The plot was discovered, but Arnold escaped to British lines. His name has since become synonymous with the word “traitor.” “


https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/benedict-arnold

Colonel Daniel Morgan and his regiment of Virginia riflemen were instrumental, especially in the fighting which occurred in a clearing called Freeman’s Farm.

Burgoyne’s Surrender

The Surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga, New York. 17 October 1777. Painting by John Trumbull and taken from the Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. Burgoyne earned the nickname “Gentleman Johnny” for his love of leisure and his tendency to throw parties between battles. Burgoyne had lost 86 percent of his expeditionary force that had triumphantly marched into New York from Canada in the early summer of 1777.

“The Battle of Saratoga also had a direct impact on the career of General George Washington. Without the victory at Saratoga, American forces would likely not have received critical assistance from the French, and faith in the war effort would have been weakened. But the victory of General Horatio Gates at Saratoga also led to a serious but ultimately unsuccessful effort to replace Washington with Gates as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.”

https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/battle-of-saratoga/



TOTAL ESTIMATED CASUALTIES
1,465

killed
530

Life of a Revolutionary Soldier

“Although many Americans turned up from miles away to fight the British, the Continental Army had continual trouble keeping its enlistment up. In times of need, the army might resort to recruiting slaves, pardoned criminals, British deserters, and prisoners of war. The lack of enthusiasm for enlisting occurred for a number of reasons. The colonists’ previous experience with a regular army was that with the British, who were not very well liked, as the Boston Massacre had shown. Farmers did not want to leave their fields untended for long periods of time. States competed with the Continental Congress to keep men in the militia. The pay was low and uncertain, especially in a period of inflation. No pension system existed to compensate a soldier or his family for injuries or deaths in the line of duty.

Life as a soldier was not very pleasant, either. Disease was common; it would often spread through entire camps. The soldiers often slept under the stars, or when they did have tents, the soldiers might not have a blanket. They sometimes awakened from a night of sleeping only in their summer clothing and would see frost on the ground. Food was frequently scarce. Salt and other seasonings were amenities soldiers would almost always do without. When there was no food at all, soldiers went hungry for days at a time before finding turnips, nuts, or other subsistence. When soldiers did receive real beef or other meats, they rarely had cooking utensils to use. Nevertheless, raw meat was preferable to nothing at all. It is a wonder that the American side won the war at all. “

https://www.saratoga.org/tourism/battle-of-saratoga/

“With the American victory, later, the Spanish and Dutch entered the fray.
This multi-national alliance turned a civil uprising for the British into a world war, as they would have to then fight not only in North America, but in the Caribbean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, North Africa, South Africa, and India –among other places.
Because of the incredible impact caused by the American victory in the Battles of Saratoga, they are known as the “Turning Point of the American Revolution”, and are considered by many historians to be among the top 15 battles in world history. “


https://www.nps.gov/sara/learn/historyculture/index.htm

A facsimile of Thomas Pain’s Common Sense.

To celebrate the American victory at Saratoga, the Continental Congress issued a proclamation for a national day “for solemn Thanksgiving and praise,” the first official holiday observance with that name.

A Museum is Born

“Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, different individuals and organizations attempted to preserve the memory of the events of 1777. The Saratoga Monument was completed in the Village of Victory in 1882, commemorating the campaign and American triumph. Nineteen twenty six, with the sesquicentennial of the Battles approaching, saw the preservation of the Saratoga Battlefield under the aegis of New York State. The following year, over 160,000 people visited the newly established park. They viewed great pageant with a cast of thousands held on the fields in Stillwater and visited the 1777 home of John Neilson and a newly constructed “Blockhouse” museum.

With improved roads, and a staff of guides at the museum, Saratoga Battlefield became a popular site to visit. National figures such as Admiral Richard E. Byrd, foreign dignitaries and descendants of many who fought at Saratoga, visited over the years. One particularly interested visitor was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Governor of New York State and later, President. During his term as governor, Roosevelt conducted guided tours for governors of five states that were his guests in New York.”

https://www.saratoga.org/tourism/battle-of-saratoga/

Voyage to Illium: Scenes from Kurt Vonnegut’s Schenectady and Troy

When I read Breakfast of Champions as a senior in high school my expectation for literature was turned upside down. For the first time I realized that a writer can do anything they want with words as images. There were no boundaries anymore. The ceiling had collapsed and the possibilities were endless.

Breakfast of Champions may not rank as one of Vonnegut’s masterpieces-certainly it’s nowhere near Slaughterhouse- Five, Mother Night, or Cat’s Cradle-but it was my first introduction to the imagination of Kurt Vonnegut. I have admired and shared his work with others ever since.

The scenes in this montage capture some of the buildings and natural landscapes familiar to Vonnegut while he lived in the Capital Region during the late 40s. Not only did Vonnegut work as a publicist for General Electric in Schenectady, he also served as a volunteer firefighter with the Alphaus Fire Department. He was such a beloved figure among his fellow firefighters, that when he passed away they honored him with a full firefighter memorial service.

As in life, Vonnegut still riles intense emotions. After I posted on social media a picture of the GE building as a tribute to Vonnegut, a University of Rochester librarian sent me the following response: ” George, I’m inclined to consider Kurt Vonnegut something of a mixed bag.  The literary merits of his books like Slaughterhouse-Five stand on their own, but I took a dim view of his thoroughly intemperate attack on physicist and human rights champion Andrei Sakharov after Sakharov’s commencement address to the College of Staten Island in 1987.  The Sakharov address was reported in The New York Times in June of that year, and Vonnegut’s comments (which were in part erroneous) were published in his book Timequake (Putnam, 1997).  I know something about Andrei Sakharov — subject of my graduate thesis at the University of Illinois. He lived out thoroughly humanitarian principles and suffered mightily at the hands of the Kremlin for having done so.  There was no cause to attack a man like him.  Shame on Vonnegut for having had the temerity to do so. “

Well said. Vonnegut was a complex man. He was a survivor of Dresden and he never forgot how depraved humankind can be. Vonnegut was also an outspoken critic of almost every system under the sun. No one or no organization escaped his merciless wit. But more than anything, Vonnegut was a great writer, perhaps the greatest American writer of his generation.

Self portrait in Breakfast of Champions

The General Electric plant in Schenectady, NY.

Before Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wrote the bestsellers Slaughterhouse Five and Cat’s Cradle, he lived near Schenectady, New York, and worked as a GE publicist. According to Vonnegut’s biographer Charles J. Shields, he was hired in 1947 as part of GE’s drive “to get some real journalists on board to hunt for stories at the Schenectady Works and keep a steady drumbeat of good news issuing from the plant.” Shields writes:

“Thus it happened that Kurt received a call in late August from George W. Griffin Jr., a General Electric public relations executive. Griffin explained that [Vonnegut’s brother] Bernard had recommended his younger brother as the kind of man they might be looking for: someone with a science background who was also a reporter. Would he be interested in interviewing for a job in Schenectady?”
(https://www.ge.com/reports/post/78009878650/kurts-cradle-kurt-vonnegut-was-ges-pr-man/

Viewshed of Troy, NY. Photo taken from the top of the historic Oakwood Cemetery.

Ilium is a fictitious town in eastern New York State. The name refers to Troy, New York (“Ilium” was the name the Romans gave to ancient Troy), although Troy is mentioned as a separate city in Vonnegut’s novel Player Piano.

Graphic from Vonnegut’s Man Without a Country

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. – Kurt Vonnegut

“In Vonnegut’s Galápagos, Mary Hepburn was a high school teacher in Ilium, and in Cat’s Cradle, it is the former home of Dr. Felix Hoenikker—one of the fathers of the atomic bomb—thus, it is the town that John visits to interview Dr. Asa Breed, Hoenikker’s former supervisor. In Player Piano, it is where most of the action takes place. In Slaughterhouse-Five, it is also the home town of the book’s primary protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Ilium is also where the events of the short story “Ed Luby’s Key Club” (from “Look at the Birdie”) take place.
(Taken from Wikipedia)

Vonnegut, who stayed at GE until 1950, died in 2007.

Cover of Man Without a Country

Schenectady City Hall

Vonnegut’s trademark cartoon drawings from Breakfast of Champions

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
Kurt Vonnegut

The Hudson meets the Mohawk.

This photo was taken outside of Herman Melville’s home in Troy, NY. Vonnegut called Melville America’s greatest writer. In Player Piano, Cat’s Cradle, and Slaughterhouse Five, the Mohawk River is referred to as the Iroquois River.

The time spent working at GE was extremely fruitful for Vonnegut. It was there where he cultivated a unique appreciation for the process of scientific methodology and the potential for technology to be a focal point in literature. His most memorable characters and successful stories were birthed while he was employed at GE.

Albany After Hours

Photography by George Cassidy Payne

More expensive than the U.S. Capital in Washington

“Sitting majestically atop Albany’s State Street hill, the New York State Capitol has served as the seat of government for New York since the 1880s. The building is a marvel of late 19th-century architectural grandeur. Under the direction of five architects, the Capitol was built by hand of solid masonry over a period of 32 years. By 1899 its cost had exceeded twenty-five million dollars.” Take a Guided Tour – learn more at http://www.empirestateplaza.org.

The longest continually occupied European settlement in the eastern United States.

Henry Hudson first claimed this area for the Dutch in 1609. Fur traders established the first European settlement in 1614; Albany was officially chartered as a city in 1686. It became the capital of New York in 1797.

The gigantic Department of Education building.

“The Education Building was designed by renowned architect and New York City native Henry Hornbostel. The Education Building was the first major building constructed in the United States solely as a headquarters for the administration of education. Construction of this magnificent building was completed in 1912.” http://www.nysed.gov/nysed-building

“Designed by John Eberson, the world’s foremost theatre architect of the time, the Radio Keith Orpheum (RKO) owned facility spared no expense in its design and boasted an ornate Austrian Baroque design with “atmospheric” elements in the auditorium.  Though many changes have taken place since its opening, the Palace has retained most of its original design features, including an impressive brass chandelier in the main lobby, original murals painted by Hungarian artists, Andrew Karoly and Louis Szanto and plaster beams in the fore-lobby painted to resemble carved wood. ” https://www.palacealbany.org/about/history

“The Renaissance Albany is the first and only lifestyle luxury Marriott brand located in downtown Albany. The hotel is conveniently located at the corner of Eagle and State over looking the beautiful NYS Capitol building. The Renaissance Albany features 203 spacious over sized guest rooms along with a full service restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. ” https://www.albany.org/listing/renaissance-albany-hotel/1526/.

* On a personal note, my father told me that Uncle Sam put him up in the Renaissance the night before he was shipped off to basic training and then Vietnam.

The Albany night life is both eclectic and long lasting. Bars in the city stay open until 4:00 am.

“The state capitol’s ground floor was built in the Classical/Romanesque style. Lieutenant Governor William Dorsheimer then dismissed Fuller in favor of Eidlitz and Richardson who built the next two floors in a Renaissance Classical style, noticeable on the exterior two floors as light, open columnwork. The increasing construction costs became an ongoing source of conflict in the legislature, and it was difficult to secure the necessary funding. Eidlitz and Richardson, were dismissed by Grover Cleveland upon his election to governorship and his review of the increasing costs of construction. He hired Perry to complete the project.^[ The legislative chambers, the fourth floor and roof work were all finished in Victorian-modified Romanesque that was distinctively Richardson’s design. It “was Richardson who dominated the final outcome of the grand building, which evolved into his distinguished Romanesque style” (which came to be known as Richardsonian Romanesque.” (Taken from Wikipedia)

View of Albany skyline from highway.

One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.

Georgia O’Keeffe

The Nott Memorial: Centerpiece of Union College

During a recent excursion to the Capital District, I paid a quick visit to Union College in Schenectady, NY. Known as the “Mother of Fraternities”, as three of the earliest ones were established there, Union has grown to be one of the nation’s truly outstanding liberal arts institutions. Union is also unique because it started as the first non-denominational college in America.

At a time when rival schools such as Harvard and Yale were heavily influenced by the denomination of their founders (Baptist in their case) nearly 13 sects in this growing city on the Mohawk River came together to found a college free of any specific religious affiliation. For the time, that declaration of educational freedom was revolutionary in the United States. The school quickly became a bastion of free thinking, one that pioneered the teaching of science alongside and within the humanities.

No single individual better represents the core mission of Union than Eliphalet Nott, the school’s imaginative and illustrious president from 1804-1866. And no other building on the sublime campus is as splendid as the memorial named after him.

Situated in the center of Rugby Field, the 16- sided Nott Memorial is one of the most stunning Victorian buildings in the country.

Photography by George Cassidy Payne

“The Nott Memorial is 89 feet in diameter and capped with a ribbed dome. The dome is sprinkled with 709 small colored glass windows, or “illuminators.” Girding the lower portion of the dome is a band of red slates bearing a modified inscription from the Talmud. In its simplest translation, the phrase says, “the day is short, the work is great, the reward is much, the Master is urgent.” (Union website)

“The memorial is dedicated to Eliphalet Nott, president of Union College and pioneer of the liberal arts in America. Nott’s many innovations included a scientific curriculum and the first introduction of engineering at a liberal arts college.” (Union website)

“This National Historic Landmark is home to the Mandeville Gallery, which exhibits nationally recognized contemporary artists. The Wikoff Student Gallery(pictured above) showcases student works as well as the annual campus-wide LGBTQ+ exhibit.” (Union website)

“The Nott Memorial was conceived by President Nott in consultation with the French architect Joseph Ramée, who created the master plan for Union’s campus. His plan included a circular building originally envisioned as an alumni hall. Construction finally began on the building in 1858, based on designs by Edward Tuckerman Potter, grandson of President Nott.” (Union website)

The Nott Memorial makes an ideal setting for college addresses, lectures, speeches, seminars, and the like.

“The Nott Memorial is a living, breathing part of Union, a witness of our past, present and future. In the stillness of the Nott, you can hear your own thoughts, and with light shining through the stained glass windows, it is breathtakingly beautiful.”
– Shayna Han ’15

Memorial Chapel: “Memorial Chapel was constructed between 1924 and 1925 to serve as the central College chapel and to honor Union graduates who lost their lives serving during wartime. The names of Union alumni who died in World War I and World War II appear on its south wall, flanked by portraits of College presidents.” (Taken from Wikipedia)

I love how the reflection in the ice came out in this photograph.

“Under the laws of Minerva, we all become brothers and sisters.”
Union’s motto

Old Chapel: “The building now generally known as Old Chapel is located at the east end of South Colonnade / Hale House and was an element of the original campus plan by Ramée. It was built between 1855 and 1856 according to plans developed by College President Eliphalet Nott and Treasurer Jonathan Pearson (class of 1835) in consultation with Albany architect William L. Woolett.” (Taken from Wikipedia)

Schenectady City Hall

“In March 1953 Jimmy Carter began nuclear power school, a six-month non-credit course covering nuclear power plant operation at Union with the intent to eventually work aboard USS Seawolf, which was planned to be one of the first two U.S. nuclear submarines. However, Carter’s father died two months before construction of Seawolf began, and Carter sought and obtained a release from active duty to enable him to take over the family peanut business.” (Taken from Wikipedia)

Chester A. Arthur, 21st President of the United States, graduated from Union in 1848.

Map of Union College

Title work inside the Nott Memorial

Union is ranked 38th by U.S. News & World Report

Historically included among the Little Ivies, Union has a reputation for having one of the most selective admissions processes in the country.

If Not For My Neighbors: Why I Care What Happens to the Children of Yemen

I

For nearly six years I lived next to a family from Yemen. Today it is impossible for me to see people from that country as the nameless victims shown on TV. Whenever I see a starving baby from that country, even if it is a standard three second picture of them suffering in a sparse hospital room, I instantly remember my friends Rad, Halamad, Ghada, and Batoule. I think of them playing soccer in the street after dark. I think of them getting up early to help their dad out at the Amazing Meat Market before school. I think of them swimming in their pool on hot summer afternoons. I often found myself admiring the way they lived their lives with dignity and their faith with conviction; they were always willing to teach me more about Muslim customs such as Ramadan and ʾifṭār.

So it makes me sick to my stomach to see how my country is conspiring to wage a near genocidal war against the people of Yemen. According to a joint statement by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP), “As many as 20 million Yemenis are food insecure in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” In fact, “already 15.9 million people wake up hungry” in Yemen, it said, citing an analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a food security survey. And Save the Children has reported that 85,000 infants under the age of five have died in this war since 2015.

For me, these numbers are not faceless. They have the face of children laughing and chasing my cats around the backyard. For me, these are not senseless statistics that can be reasoned away as collateral damage; they are hearts and souls of children with dreams. The children I knew from Yemen want to be scientists, singers, soccer players, and successful business owners. One of the youngest daughters told me that she was the best math student in her class. The oldest boy worked at his father’s store stocking shelves and running the cash register until 10:30 pm every night.

Excuse me if I sound angry, but when I hear that President Trump has already spent over 13.5 million on trips to Mar-a-Lago, I immediately think about how many lives in Yemen are on the brink of being snuffed out because of a lack of medicine, supplies, food, and water. How many children could be saved if that money was used to host a summit between the warring factions in Yemen? How many babies could be rescued from the agonizing death of starvation if Trump demanded an end to Saudi Arabia’s ruthless campaign of terror? Trump’s silence is bad enough. Trump’s apathy is worse. But Trump’s complicity in this war is unforgivable.

Before the Senate voted to stop the US’s involvement in Yemen, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote a scathing article published by CNN. “For three years, the United States has supported a coalition led by Saudi Arabia that is waging war inside Yemen, trying to oust a rebel government made up of members of the Houthi tribe. Our role in the coalition is significant – we sell bombs and weapons to the Saudis, we help them pick targets inside Yemen, and until recently, we refueled their planes in the sky … it’s clear that the US is engaged in a war in Yemen. And yet this war has not been authorized by Congress… US involvement started quietly under Barack Obama, and increased under Donald Trump, with more than 10,000 civilians killed in the Saudi-led bombing campaign since the beginning of the civil war….Targets have included schools, hospitals, weddings, a funeral party and recently a school bus carrying 38 children to a field trip.”

Even more despicable, President Trump appears ready to evade the Congress’s deadline to verify who ordered the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi amid new revelations that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince spoke of threatening the journalist with a “bullet.” Shame on Trump for putting money ahead of international justice. Shame on all of us for letting him get away with a cover up that not only makes the United States look like mobsters, but ensures that the war continues unabated. 

And shame on the Democrats and the mainstream media. Enough already about blackface! Every minute spent talking about what type of shoe polish the Virginia governor wore on his face in college, is a minute that could have been spent talking about children with real black faces in Yemen. Where is the outrage over the death of 85,000 children? Where are the protests on the lawns of statehouses? Yemen had more people displaced last year due to conflict than any other country on earth. Who cares? Maybe I wouldn’t either if not for my neighbors. 

Independence River

There is a forest that I return to

when I can’t get away from the pulsations

of thinking. A forest of tombs as still 

as dead tree trunks and melodious as raindrops

on red pine needles. The paths of my ancestors.

In this forest, I am not alive like I usually am.

 Stepping in mink tracks, I know this place in

my tendons like a ghost knows the temperature of

fog. Here, the Independence River runs like a lovely

ribbon until it pounds into a ravine of crumbling shale. 

And I know that old hunger returning from vanished glaciers. 

In this forest, my arms, as I meander, wave like prayer flags

hung out to the ragged border between life and death- a place

where I can survive outside the womb. A place where I can

become a wilderness dancer touching the mud softer than ivory. 

Photo by George Cassidy Payne

Trump’s Omission of Yemen from SOTU is Telling

According to the Government Accountability Office, President Trump’s early trips to Mar-a-Lago cost 13.8 million dollars. The Defense Department and Homeland Security incurred a majority of those costs, approximately 8.5 and 5.1 million respectfully. 

Meanwhile, the nation of Yemen is embroiled in a ghastly war, one that has claimed the lives of at least 85,000 children. As Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children’s country director in Yemen, said in a statement: “For every child killed by bombs and bullets, dozens are starving to death-and it’s entirely preventable…Children who die in this way suffer immensely. As their vital organ functions slow down and eventually stop.”

In 2017-18, Doctors Without Borders treated 101, 500 patients in Yemen for cholera. Those are just the patients treated. The actual deaths from cholera are reaching near unspeakable levels of human suffering. 

In his SOTU, Trump addressed everything from manufacturing jobs to tax codes to NASA missions to prison reform to infrastructure to partisan politics to NATO and ISIS. But one topic the president totally ignored was Yemen. On his watch, an entire generation of children are at risk of starving to death. Yet he does nothing. 

Chris Murphy, a Democrat senator from Connecticut, has used his platform to call attention to the Trump administration’s complicity in this crime against humanity. In an article written before the historic Senate vote to end aid for the war, he wrote: “For three years, the United States has supported a coalition led by Saudi Arabia that is waging war inside Yemen, trying to oust a rebel government made up of members of the Houthi tribe. Our role in the coalition is significant — we sell bombs and weapons to the Saudis, we help them pick targets inside Yemen, and until recently, we refueled their planes in the sky. To anyone paying attention, it’s clear that the United States is engaged in a war in Yemen. And yet this war has not been authorized by Congress. Our involvement started quietly under President Barack Obama, and now President Donald Trump has increased our participation. And it’s not as if our participation in the Yemen conflict hasn’t come with serious consequences. Yemen has become a hell on earth for the civilians caught within its borders. More than 10,000 innocents have been killed in the Saudi-led bombing campaign since the beginning of the civil war. Targets have included schools, hospitals, weddings, a funeral party and recently a school bus carrying 38 children to a field trip.”

Tragically, Trump’s unassailable relationship with the Kingdom provides little hope for those starving children. Instead of trying to stop the carnage by ceasing arms sales to Saudi Arabia and using his political capital on the international stage to break the humanitarian assistance blockade, the president remains silent. Worse than that, as if to accentuate his apathy, he spends millions on vacations while babies starve to death. 

I think my father said it best, “What is it about our human condition that fails to see children as our most precious assets? There is no greater crime against humanity, indeed against all creation, than the disrespect of the next generation of citizens in such brutal fashion.”