Tea at Trianon: The Ross Cabin

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, May 14, 2021

The Ross Cabin

Harriet Tubman's childhood home has been found. From Smithsonian:

“She would’ve spent time here as a child, but also she would’ve come back and been living here with her father in her teenage years, working alongside him,” says Schablitsky in a statement. “This was the opportunity she had to learn about how to navigate and survive in the wetlands and the woods. We believe this experience was able to benefit her when she began to move people to freedom.”

Per Brian Witte of the Associated Press (AP), Schablitsky and her colleagues returned to the site last month to search for additional artifacts. They uncovered a number of objects dated to the 1800s, including nails, glass, bricks, fragments of dishes and a button.

“This gives us insight into a time and place in Tubman’s life we know very little about,” biographer Kate Clifford Larson tells the Times. “The community really created this woman, and we can’t fully understand her until we understand the place she came out of.” (Read more.)

From NPR:

In November 2020, archaeologist Julie Schablitsky and a crew of experts waded through a muddy (and very buggy) portion of marshland on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

With rubber boots on their feet, mosquito nets on, and shovels in hand, the group searched near Blackwater River in Dorchester County for evidence that could possibly point to the location of "Ben's Ten" — 10 acres of property left to Ben Ross, the father of abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman. Historians believe Ross acquired the property when Anthony Thompson, the man who enslaved him, died in 1836.

According to Schablitsky, a dozen archeologists dug and dug through the area along the Blackwater River — eventually digging 1,000 holes in the search for clues that might link the area to Ross' property.

When the digs brought up nothing, Schablitsky's frustration grew, and she turned to using a metal detector. She uncovered up a 50-cent coin from 1808 — the year Ben Ross and Harriet Tubman's mother, Harriet "Rit" Green, were married and started their family. As the search continued into March 2021, more discoveries— pipe stems, buttons from shirts, and old ceramics — pointed to Ross' past. (Read more.)

More HERE.