Alan E. Hunter

death-at-white-house Original publish date: October 20 2013

121 years ago this Friday, America lost it’s first lady, Benjamin Harrison lost a wife and two weeks later, he lost the Presidential election. Caroline Scott and Benjamin Harrison were married on October 20, 1853. The newlyweds lived at the Harrison family home at North Bend, Ohio for the first year until Benjamin completed his law studies aand they moved to Indianapolis and set up his first practice.
During the first few years of their marriage, the couple rarely spent time together, as Benjamin worked to establish his law practice and became active in fraternal organizations to help build a network. In 1854, their first child Russell Benjamin Harrison was born. Not long after, a fire destroyed the Harrison home and all their belongings. Benjamin took a job handling cases for a local law firm and the family managed to recover financially. In 1858, Caroline gave birth to Mary Scott Harrison. In 1861 she gave birth to a second daughter, who died soon after birth.
While Benjamin Harrison’s star rose rapidly in his profession, Caroline cared for their children and was active in the First Presbyterian Church and Indianapolis orphans’ home. Benjamin’s long hours at the law office and his pursuit of a living drove a wedge between the young couple and although Caroline did not complain, the strain showed.
At the onset of the Civil War, both Harrisons sought to help in the war effort. Caroline joined Indianapolis groups that raised money for supplies to help care for wounded soldiers. In 1862, when President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for more troops, Benjamin recruited a regiment of over 1,000 men from Indiana. When the regiment left to join the Union Army at Louisville, Kentucky, Harrison was promoted to the rank of colonel, and his regiment was commissioned as the 70th Indiana Infantry.
In May 1864, the 70th Indiana regiment joined General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign and moved to the front lines, and Harrison was promoted to command the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the XX Corps. Harrison’s brigade participated in the brutal Battle of Nashville in December 1864, considered by historians to be the “Gettysburg of the West”. On March 22, 1865, Harrison earned a promotion to the rank of brigadier general.
The horrors of the Civil War taught General Harrison what was really important in his life and the tone of his letters to Caroline during the war are filled with a deep passionate tone. When he returned home, she would never again reproach him for neglect. His law practice and his fame grew, and he became a political force.
71035-004-D5F69C40 After the war, Benjamin Harrison spent the next decade practicing law and getting involved in politics. He ran for governor of Indiana in 1876, but lost. The Harrison home on North Delaware Street was built in 1874-75, and soon became a center of political activity. Her husband’s election to the Senate in 1880 brought Caroline to Washington, DC, but a serious fall on an icy sidewalk that year undermined her health. In 1883, she had surgery in New York that required a lengthy period of recovery. She had also suffered from respiratory problems since a bout with pneumonia in her youth, and did not participate much in Washington’s winter social season.
In the fall of 1887 Harrison was nominated for President by the Republican Party. In the campaign, Caroline was a definite asset. Her natural charm and open manner offset her husband’s chilly reserve (He often wore gloves to protect him from infection from others, and it bothered him to shake the hands of White House visitors), and the press loved her. In November 1888, Harrison defeated the incumbent Grover Cleveland.
Caroline Harrison was 56 years old when she became first lady. Historians regard her as one of our most underrated First Ladies who, in contrast to her husband’s conservative policies, was earnestly devoted to women’s rights. She became known for her many “firsts” as First Lady. Caroline was the first first lady to deliver a speech she had written herself after she became the first president of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Caroline’s sister died in early December 1889 at the executive mansion and Mrs. Harrison decided to have the funeral in the east room of the White House. It would be the first funeral in that room since Abraham Lincoln in 1865. In spite of the family tragedy, Caroline went ahead with her plans to raise the first Christmas tree in the White House that same month. She had John Phillip Sousa and the Marine Band play and, for the first time since Sarah Polk was First Lady, there was dancing in the White House.
Perhaps her biggest first came when she had electricity installed in the White House, even though she was terrified by the new technology. Seems that President Benjamin Harrison received a shock from an Edison dc current light switch, after which his family feared touching the switches. Mrs Harrison rarely operated the light switches herself, choosing instead to sleep with the lights on when neither she nor her husband were willing to touch them for fear of electrocution. Servants were often made to turn the lights on and off for the Harrison family.
Caroline_Harrison_cph.3b20942 The First Lady was noted for her elegant White House receptions and dinners, but she is most remembered for her efforts to refurbish the dilapidated White House. She was horrified at the filth and clutter and thought the White House was beneath the dignity of the Presidency, describing it as “rat-infested and filthy.” She brought in ferrets to eat the rats, and lobbied to have the White House torn down and replaced with a more regal Executive Mansion. Instead the old building was refurbished from basement to attic, including a new heating system and a second bathroom. The old, sagging worn-out floors were replaced.
She hated the crowded living area and the tourists made it impossible to use the first floor. In 1889 Caroline Harrison found fault with the “circus atmosphere” in the mansion when she found visitors wandering uninvited into the family quarters. Harrison complained about the lack of privacy on the White House grounds, saying, “The White House is an office and a home combined. An evil combination.” She was the first to suggest the addition of office space to the Executive Mansion when she made up very detailed plans to add an East and a West Wing so that the original mansion could be used for entertaining and the family’s living area. Caroline Harrison’s plan was the first to move the office spaces out of the house.
As she worked to remodel the White House, Caroline was careful to inventory the contents of every room. She cataloged the mansion’s furniture, pictures and decorative objects, working to preserve those that had historical value. Caroline unearthed the chinaware of former presidential administrations found hidden away in closets and unused attic and basement spaces. She personally cleaned, repaired and identified which pieces belonged to which past President. She used their items to create a popular museum display case that remains in the White House to this day.
Artistically talented, Caroline taught classes in painting to anyone who wanted to learn and became the first First Lady to design her own White House china. She wanted new china that would be “symbolic and meaningful to Americans.” The first lady placed the Coat of Arms of the United States in the center ringed by a goldenrod and corn motif etched in gold around a wide outer band of blue. The corn represents Mrs. Harrison’s home state of Indiana and 44 stars, one for each state in the Union at the time, made up the inner border.
In the winter of 1891-1892 while she tried to fulfill her social obligations, Mrs.Harrison was frequently ill with bouts of bronchial infections. In March of 1892 she developed catarrhal pneumonia, followed by hemorrhaging of the lungs and was moved to a three-bedroom cottage on Loon Lake in the Adirondack Mountains in July. Following a brief rally, her doctors diagnosed her condition as tuberculosis, which at the time had no known cure or treatment other than rest and good nutrition. Although she briefly recovered at the mountain retreat, she suffered a setback in September and asked to be returned to the White House.
On September 20, she returned to her favorite pale green and silver bedroom in the White House. It was sometimes used as a music room, furnished in pale green plush. One account states that Mrs. Harrison’s bedroom was: “Daintily appointed in pale green and silver, it stands just as Mrs. Harrison left it, and like the rest of the beautified White House, is a memorial to her refined and artistic taste.” Caroline must have been fond of the pale green palate as many of the multi-colored fabric pieces are done in green tones.
Caroline did not live to see her husband’s defeat for a second term as President. On October 25, 1892, Caroline died at the age of sixty of Typhoid fever. It was an election year, and out of respect for the president’s lady, after her death neither Harrison nor Cleveland actively campaigned for the presidency. Two weeks following her death, Harrison lost his bid for reelection. Daughter Mary Harrison McKee was already living at the White House with her family, and she took up the responsibilities of first lady for the last few months of Harrison’s term.
After private services were held in the East Room, the family brought her back to Indianapolis for interment. An official funeral service was held at the First Presbyterian Church. After the service, the cortege proceeded past the Harrison’s Delaware Street home before going on to Crown Hill Cemetery for burial.
Caroline Harrison’s legacy has proved to be historically important. The current architectural plan of the White House, in particular the East and West Wing, reflects the plan suggested by her in 1889, and the White House china room is certainly a testament to her historical sensitivity in rescuing, repairing and identifying artifacts from previous administrations. Caroline Harrison was not able to use the china she had ordered. She died before it was delivered. It arrived at the White House in December of 1892.
You can honor Caroline Harrison’s memory with a visit to the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site at 1230 North Delaware Street. The home offers tours daily. Another option, perhaps more consistent with the season, would be to visit her final resting place at Crown Hill Cemetery at 3402 Boulevard Place. Tour Guide and historian Tom Davis will be reprising his popular “Skeletons in the closet” tours (there are 2 different) on October 24, 25, 26 and November 2. Check their web site for specifics. Although I don’t think Caroline’s gravesite is particularly featured on Tom’s tours, I’m pretty sure he’ll take you there if you were to ask him. After all, Tom knows where all the bodies are buried.

Music, Pop Culture, The Beatles

Close Encounters: The Beatles John Lennon and UFO’s.

April 24, 2018April 24, 2018 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

lennonnyc-ufo Original publish date: August 18, 2013

If you haven’t noticed, I like trivia. In my lifetime, I’ve watched as trivia has leapt from the pages of obscure library books to become popular board games and highly rated TV game shows. I try hard not to replace or confuse trivia for history, but I think trivia has a place in our history books nonetheless. Sometimes, trivia about a historical person or event helps rationalize or humanize that person, place or thing allowing us to relate to it in a more down-to-earth fashion. So, since I can’t find anything else to write about this week, I’ll share with you a trivial story that I’m betting you’ve never heard of before.
39 years ago this Friday (August 23, 1974) was a typical hot summer night in New York City. Beatle-gone-solo John Lennon was on what he would later call his “Lost Weekend”, an 18-month-long fling with former assistant May Pang during his break-up with Yoko Ono lasting from the summer of 1973 to the winter of 1975. John and May had just returned home to their East 52nd street apartment, after spending the day at the Record Plant East recording studio, where John was in the final stages of his Walls and Bridges album. Lennon loved the location of the 52nd street address as it was only one building away from the East River. The view from his top floor apartment, overlooking Brooklyn’s navy shipyard docks, reminded him of Liverpool. Another draw for Lennon was the fact that reclusive actress Greta Garbo also lived on the block and he counted himself among the legion of her fans who tried daily to catch glimpse of her.
Lennon-Pang That August night began no differently from any other evening for John and May. John made and received phone calls, watched TV and listened to the day’s recorded studio work while making notes. The 52nd Street apartment was hot that night, but by 8 O’ Clock the air had cooled off enough for May to turn off the air conditioner and open the windows to catch the breeze coming off the river. Just a few feet off the apartment’s living room was the building’s roof, accessible through a side window. This rooftop acted as the couple’s private observation deck, offering a million dollar view of New York’s Eastside. The haze had now cleared over the cityscape and around 8:30 p.m., May decided to take a shower, leaving Lennon alone in the living room reviewing mock-ups of his new record’s cover. The cover art on the final product would be a painting by a 12-year-old John Lennon.
As May was drying off, she heard John yell from the outside roof, “May come here right now!” Startled, she ran out to find him completely nude standing on the roof and pointing wildly at the southeastern sky. May wasn’t surprised by finding John naked on the roof, (John was a closet nudist: if you need proof, Google “Two Virgins” and you’ll understand), what surprised her was what he was pointing at. Just south of the building was a brightly lit “textbook” circular UFO, hovering silently less than 100 feet away from the couple.
As John Lennon would later describe, “I wasn’t surprised to see the UFO really, as it looked just like the spaceships we’ve all seen on the cinema growing up, but then I realized this thing was real and so close, that I could almost touch it!”. As they watched in astonishment, the UFO glided silently out of sight. May later told a reporter, “the lighting on the thing left us awe-struck, as it would change its configuration with every rotation”. According to May, the object made no sound and the main structure of the craft could be clearly seen for the duration of the event; lit by the dying rays of the setting sun. May ran back into the apartment and grabbed her ever-present 35mm camera (Her mountain of photos of John Lennon and their “lost weekend” are legendary).
Once back on the roof both she and John took numerous pictures of the craft. May recalls how John stood screaming at the UFO, arms outstretched, to come back and take him away. She said, “He was very serious and I believe he really wanted that thing to take him with it back to wherever it came from, but then that was John Lennon, always looking for the next big adventure”. The couple watched as the object glided past the United Nations building and slowly veered left, crossing over the East River, then over Brooklyn before simply blending in with the heavy commercial air traffic found over southern Long Island. The couple climbed back into the apartment and John picked up the phone to call his friend, noted rock photographer Bob Gruen. Lennon told Gruen to get over there as soon as possible as he had some film he needed developed immediately. As they waited for Gruen to arrive, John began drawing sketches of what he had seen, noting its size and distance. John then called Yoko Ono at the Dakota apartment to tell her about the UFO. May remembers that Yoko became upset at John because she hadn’t seen it too and felt that he had “left her out of all the excitement”.
1280x720-z7R Bob Gruen arrived and John excitedly told the photographer what had transpired. Gruen later recalled “I took the film home and put John’s roll between two rolls of film I’d taken earlier that day and developed them”. “My two rolls of film came out perfectly but John’s roll was blank. Later I asked him ” did you call the newspaper?” and he said “I’m not going to call up the newspaper and say, This is John Lennon and I saw a flying saucer last night”… So Bob Gruen called up the local police precinct and asked if anyone had reported a UFO or flying saucer. The police responded with “Where? Up on the East Side? You’re the third call on it”. Then Bob called the Daily News and they said, “On the East Side? Five people reported it”. Finally, Gruen called the ultra-conservative New York Times and asked a reporter if anybody had reported a flying saucer? The reporter hung up on him.
Neither John Lennon nor May Pang would ever forget their UFO experience. John even mentions the encounter in the booklet that accompanied the Walls & Bridges album released in the autumn of 1974. On the bottom right of the back cover it reads “On 23 August 1974, I saw a UFO J.L.”. May Pang has an audio tape of John, recorded just a few weeks after their experience, where Lennon discusses his thoughts on UFO’s in general. Lennon states that he had “no doubt that the craft he saw was from another world” and nixed the idea that it could have been a “secret government test plane”. John Lennon believed the craft he saw was part of a much larger fleet stationed just north of New York City, near the Indian Point nuclear power plant.
In the tape, Lennon expressed his personal theory of how these craft use the earth’s gravitational field and take energy from our nuclear plants to counter the earth’s gravity. John also voiced his opinion and suspicion of a high level conspiracy to cover up verifiable UFO sightings and close encounters with aliens. He continued that “if the masses started to accept UFO’s, it would profoundly affect their attitudes towards life, politics, everything”. He added, “It would threaten the status quo…Whenever people come to realize that there are larger considerations than their own petty little lives, they are ripe to make radical changes on a personal level, which would eventually lead to a political revolution in society as a whole”. 6-25-2015-4-15-07-PM Hand drawn, autographed UFO sketch by John Lennon.

However, John Lennon was not a newcomer to the “UFO Phenomenon”. He was a known subscriber to the British UFO journal “Flying Saucer Review”, aka “FSR”, as far back as his years with The Beatles in the late 1960s. Several copies of “FSR” have been found, and subsequently auctioned off, addressed to John Lennon. May Pang reports, “Oh no, 74 wasn’t John’s first sighting… In fact he told me that more than once he suspected he had been “abducted” as a child back in Liverpool!…She continues, “And he felt that experience was responsible for making him feel different from other people for the rest of his life”. Yes, according to May Pang, John Lennon believed he had been “Abducted” by aliens as a lad in Liverpool, but he didn’t like to talk about it.
The more you know about John Lennon, the less you understand. He was a walking contradiction. He was fiercely anti-Capitalism but lorded over nearly every “Beatle” mass marketing scheme during his early days with the Fab Four. He was deeply spiritual, but averse to organized religion. He was an intensely private person, yet readily greeted and signed autographs for fans outside his Dakota apartment. Those last two contradictions contributed to his untimely assassination by a crazed, mentally disturbed fan in December of 1980. Knowing this, can it come as any real surprise that John Lennon believed he had seen a UFO 39 years ago? I suspect not. When dealing with John Lennon, one need only refer to John’s own words, spoken only hours before his death, to San Francisco DJ David Sholin of RKO radio, “Who knows what’s going to happen next?”

o-LENNONFULLUFOALBUMSLEEVE-570

A drawing of that 1974 sighting, sketched for his “Walls and Bridges” album, depicts what appears to be a classic flying saucer with the word “UFOer” written on the bottom of the object. On the album’s liner notes, the famed musician wrote: “On the 23rd Aug. 1974 at 9 o’clock I saw a U.F.O. J.L.” Drawing was auctioned on March 21, 2017 by CooperOwen Auctions of London. The album sleeve was originally expected to bring in between $1600 to $2500, but ended up selling for just over $16,600.

animals, Disney, Pop Culture

The Feral Cats of Disneyland.

April 24, 2018April 24, 2018 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

disney cats Original publish date: December 7, 2013

At last count, there were 35 official Walt Disney cats. Figaro, Lucifer, Cheshire, Bagheera, Shere Khan, Thomas O’Malley, Duchess, Tigger, Rufus, Oliver, Dinah, Mufasa, Simba, Nala, Scar, all of those Aristocats and who can forget Si and Am from Lady and the Tramp? “We are Siamese if you please.” There’s an ear-worm for the rest of your day. No doubt, some of those cat names sound familiar while others ring silent in your mind. But do you know about the feral cats of Disneyland?
Every night at the California Disneyland theme park, after the bedraggled parents head for the exits with their sunburned children in tow, after the exhausted employees (Disneyland calls them “cast members”) have headed for home, the park fills up again, this time, with some 200 hundred feral cats. Never heard of a feral cat? A feral cat is a domestic cat that has returned to the wild. A feral cat is different from a stray cat, which is defined as a cat that has been lost or abandoned, while feral cats are born in the wild. Although the offspring of a stray cat can be considered feral if born in the wild.
When Disneyland opened over a half century ago in 1955, the location was then a rural suburb of Los Angeles called Anaheim. An area best known for producing oranges for juice and grapes for wine with a population under 15,000 people. It quickly grew to over 100,000 by 1960 and today it’s population numbers over 350,000. As the town quickly became a city the pet population grew accordingly. Almost from the start, feral cats began to gather behind the gates of the Magic Kingdom. Many factors contributed to this frenzied feline phenomenon; safety, shelter, community, but mostly food.
In the earliest days of the park, things were quite different than they are today. True, the park employed dozens of “cast members” to pick up trash back in the day, but the emphasis was on ride cleanliness back then rather than the meticulous state of grounds keeping we can see today. During renovation of the Sleeping Beauty castle two years after Disneyland opened, more than 100 cats were found living in the unused portion. Worse yet, a colony of fleas permeated the area as well.
No doubt, these feral cats were first drawn to Disneyland by the discarded scraps of food left behind on park grounds by guests, but the cat population stayed for another reason: Mice. Ironic when you consider the entire Walt Disney juggernaut was built around a mouse. While Mickey Mouse may have put Disneyland on the map, a colony of feral cats helps keep the famous theme park rodent-free. The cats were first drawn to a long forgotten “lost” land of Disneyland known as “Holidayland.” Operating from 1957 to 1961, Holidayland was a 9-acre grassy picnic area located along the western edge of Disneyland, near the area that is now New Orleans Square.
SteveC_LgT_Holiday1 Holidayland had its own admission gate into Disneyland and could hold up to 7,000 guests for large events. It featured playgrounds, horseshoes, a baseball diamond, volleyball courts and other activities. The centerpiece was billed as “the world’s largest candy-striped circus tent” which had previously been used by the short-lived.Mickey Mouse Club Circus and Keller’s Jungle Killers attractions inside the original Disneyland theme park. Food and concessions were available for purchase in Holidayland including beer, which was not available inside the gates of Disneyland.
Despite providing alcohol for the relief of sun-scorched adults, Holidayland floundered, and eventually failed, after only 4 years due to its lack of shade, absence of nighttime lighting and the unsettling thought that it had no restrooms. Did I mention they sold beer? Today, the former location of Holidayland houses part of the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean rides. But back then, when the picnickers left, the feral cats were now left to meander new regions of the Magic Kingdom.
Holidayland1 At first, the cats were considered to be a bit of a nuisance and a possible threat to the guests. Attempts to control, cajole or coax the cats proved futile. After all, these were non-paying guests and Uncle Walt was simply not going to stand for that. So, rather than try to evict them, Disneyland decided to employ them. Soon, the cats became an integral part of the park’s everyday operations.
But don’t expect to spot one on your next visit as they hide during the daytime. The cats are free to come and go as they please, but only at night. The cats join the 600 custodians, painters, gardeners and decorators who work through the night to ensure that the world’s best known theme park meets the squeaky-clean ideals that Walt Disney himself extolled so many years ago. The cats work alongside a human crew that works 365 nights a year, toiling under portable floodlights sprucing, fixing and adjusting this city that never sleeps.
Siamese Cats Just as the feral cats of Disneyland have their own specific job, every nighttime worker has his own specific task. Three workers are responsible solely for repairing and replacing the 800 umbrellas, 25,000 chairs and about 7,000 tables in the restaurants and snack bars in Disneyland and neighboring California Adventure Park. Four certified divers collect submerged trash and make repairs on water attractions like Finding Nemo and the Jungle Cruise. The work can often be tedious and occasionally bizarre.
All of the recorded music and sounds heard in the rides and throughout the park runs continuously on a loop. Seems that it is more costly for Disneyland to shut the sound off then to restart the system every day. The only time the sound is shut off is when there is an Emergency such as a massive power loss or emergency shut downs. For example, in “It’s a small world” the dolls stop moving, but the music plays on. Inside the Haunted Mansion, the doom buggies stop but the animatronics still move and the voice-over continues. Luckily the cleaning and maintenance crews can turn it down so they won’t go mad, but the feral cats don’t seem to mind.
Seven years ago, reportedly at the urging of former “Price is Right” host Bob Barker, animal care staff at the park took it upon themselves to do right by their feline employees by instituting a preventative health program of Trap-Neuter-Return”. Aided by local organizations including FixNation, Disneyland developed a lasting protocol for the humane care of the resort’s cats. Although Disneyland doesn’t monitor the total number of cats, the program has been quite successful at adopting out kittens and maintaining a balance between cat population and their Disneyland environment.
After the cats are neutered and returned to the park grounds, they receive continuing managed care. Its a pretty good gig to be a Disney-employed mouser. During the day, the feral cats of Disneyland lounge around and dine at five discreet feeding stations hidden throughout the resort strategically situated to minimize interaction with resort guests. During orientation Disney cast members are instructed to never pet the cats.
It’s nice to see such a high-profile park treating all its visitors and employees humanely-not just the human ones. California Disneyland’s “TNR” program proves that organizations and feral cat colonies can not only peacefully share the same property, but also work together in a mutually beneficial relationship to improve conditions for both parties. You may wonder, does Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida have the same problem? Well, although there have been occasional cat sightings at the Sunshine State’s Magic Kingdom, Disney Orlando has one thing Disney California doesn’t: alligators.
A story circulates that Disneyland changed its stance on the interloping cats based on an incident from those first couple years of operation. Those first original Disneyland feral cats supposedly migrated from an adjacent trailer park. During this time there was a sweet cat that hung out at the ranch in Frontierland. Employees nicknamed the female cat “Roofie” as she often hung out on the roof and surrounding landscape of the “Crockett and Russel Hat Co.” storefront. Employees would routinely bring canned cat food for her and she would come out of the tall grass, sometimes even dropping a mouse she had caught since she liked the canned food more. One day employees noticed that roofie was very ill. After work, they placed her in a box and rushed her to a nearby vet’s office. She died on the way. The vet examined her and said she died from eating poisoned mice. Word got back to Uncle Walt and the policy was changed.
Finally, proof that feral cats can be useful and worthy of life; not simply un-tamable animals for our overtaxed shelters to destroy. Many shelters in the Western US give them to ranchers and farmers for use as barn cats and back in the day police stations and college campuses kept a few around to keep their rodent population down without resorting to the use of chemicals and rodent traps everywhere. Maybe in 2014, the world will take the lead of Walt Disney and his feral cats of Disneyland.
If you would like more information on the feral cats of Indianapolis, please contact the good folks at Indy Feral. Give them a call at (317) 638-3223 or check out their website at http://www.indyferal.org/. Their Mission is to reduce the stray and feral cat overpopulation of our fair city through the non-lethal Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) method. They could use your help and support, or they would just love to hear from you. DisneyCats

Abe Lincoln, Auctions, Gettysburg, Pop Culture

The Gettysburg Wax Museum Auction.

April 24, 2018 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Wax Museum Original publish date: March 20, 2014

Seeking escape from the coldest, harshest winter in recent memory, I sought escape by attending a liquidation auction at an iconic baby boomer tourist landmark on the site of America’s greatest battlefield; The Gettysburg Wax Museum in Pennsylvania. Aware of my penchant for tourist traps and knowing that the museum was built the year I was born (1962), despite my reservations, she decreed “You’re going.”
Known as “The National Civil War Wax Museum”, the site at 297 Steinwehr Avenue opened April 19, 1962. That week Walter Cronkite took over as CBS anchorman, Bob Dylan performed “Blowin’ in the Wind” for the first time in Greenwich Village, the Boston Celtics won their fourth straight NBA championship, the Seattle World’s Fair opened and Indy 500 champion Al Unser Jr. was born (on the museum’s opening day). The original Museum featured 35 scenes containing over 150 individual figures highlighting the Civil War and Gettysburg. The museum’s purpose was not only to entertain but to educate.
On Saturday, March 15th the museum’s contents were sold to the public at auction. The sale included 95 Civil War wax figures and the accouterments used to illustrate each scene. In it’s half century of service the museum saw over 8 million visitors walk through the turnstiles, now lot # 265 in this very special auction.
Although I had been in the museum many times over the past 25 years, it was a shock to now see the building gutted and lain bare. Most of the auction lots were arranged in the scenes where they had “lived” for the past half-century. It seemed strange to now step into the scenes to get a closer view of the lifelike depictions from the pages of history. These forms thast were gazed upon by untold generations of visitors including presidents, diplomats, dignitaries and just plain folk from every walk of life.
I met 19-year wax museum employee Stephanie Lightner while walking the halls among the ghostly figures. She is the manager of the new museum that will soon be open there. Stephanie says the building was purchased by a New Jersey man who had grown up in Gettysburg and that the facility was being retooled to better accommodate a new generation of visitors. “We’ll be keeping some of the exhibits to display in the new museum,” said Stephanie. She said that the new owner kept all of the staff from the Wax Museum, always a good thing. The new museum, known as the “Gettysburg Heritage Center”, is set to open in late April but as Stephanie smilingly admits, “It might be Memorial Day at this point.”
As I finished perusing the auction lots, I halted at an area tucked away in a back corner of the hall. This dimly lit crook featured tiered shelves upon which rested approximately 40 disembodied heads. Some of the heads were recognizable to me; Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson. On a shelf nearby lay a pile of arms, legs and hands. Some of these body parts, in keeping with the brutality of the Civil War, were spattered with blood stains. Seeing these, I turned to my wife and said “Now these have the potential to go sky high.”
Officially, the auction featured 335 official lots but that number would balloon to over 400 by close of sale. The crowd quickly ballooned to standing room only. It was a strange mix of Civil War re-enactors, Harley dude’s and local Pennsylvania Dutchmen. I spotted a few ghost hunter types in the crowd as well, no doubt hoping to score a disembodied head, bloodstained arm or broken hand should the opportunity arise. I saw some familiar faces, among them Gettysburg’s former Abe Lincoln, Bill Ciampo, who told me, “I just came to see if there was a market for this stuff. When I sold my Lincoln wax statue, I sold it for $500 just to get rid of it.” Ciampo walked up to the Lincoln figures (the museum had three full Lincoln figures and one head) and said, “See, their chins are already drooping, that’s why I got rid of mine.”
The synchronicity of the moment was not lost on me as, outside just yards away, bulldozers busily cleared out the massive football field sized blacktop parking lot. It had once served the old visitor’s center (torn down in 2008) and Cyclorama building, built the same year as the wax museum and torn down in March 2013. In the past 25 years I watched as other tourist landmarks disappeared from the borough including the Lincoln Room Museum, The National Tower, and now, the Wax Museum.
Also among the crowd was Erik L. Dorr, curator and owner of “The Gettysburg Museum of History” at 219 Baltimore Street. Erik painstakingly maintains his fantastic personal collection of relics from the Battle and the pages of American history within the walls of his ancestral family home. “The house was built in the 1850s and has been in my family for four generations. It was extensively remodeled in 1867 and again in the early 1900s.” said Dorr.
On this day, Mr. Dorr was searching for additions to his massive collection. “I’m running out of room at my Museum now. I actually tried to buy the whole Wax Museum, including the contents, land and building. I thought it would be a fun experiment and I was getting financing in order but it didn’t fall into place fast enough and the museum sold.” says Dorr, “I would have kept the wax museum intact as much as possible while adding my collection to it.” Among the items he bid on and won were the Jenny Wade, George Armstrong Custer and John Wilkes Booth wax statues. He also bought many of the signs including the iconic interior entryway sign that lit up to indicate when the next group should enter.
“I bought most of the Jenny Wade booth with the idea of recreating it in my museum.” Dorr remarked. “As it stands now, I’ll have to display the statues one at a time because of space limitations.” Mr. Dorr reports that he is actively looking for a new space to house his collection, “I could get a place just outside of the town limits, but I want it to stay in the borough of Gettysburg.” Currently Dorr, the consummate historian, is busy making plans to attend the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy in early June as an invited guest. “They’re calling this the last reunion.” he says, “The trip is pretty brutal and most of the vets won’t make it to the 75th.” But that’s a story for a future column.
Seated nearby were a young couple whom I met by taking a photo of them proudly displaying their bidder number. Turns out this couple was Scott and Lori Hilts from Arcade New York. They live on an 1850s dairy farm and Scott has converted the barn into a museum dedicated to the battle of Gettysburg. In a familiar refrain, Scott admits, “I’m running out of room. It’s 40’by 80′, but I might have to expand.”
Scott, owner and operator of 2 funeral homes, proudly traces his roots back to Corp. John Christ of Co. E 136th New York State volunteer infantry who was wounded on the mystical third day at Gettysburg. “I bought the (Robert E.) Lee and (George) Meade figures because I felt they were the ones most identified with Gettysburg,” Hilts said, “but I bought some paintings and signs too. Since I bought the Lee-Longstreet conference painting, I went ahead and bought the General James Longstreet figure too.” He also bought a colorful Zouave soldier to represent the many ethnic troops that fought at Gettysburg and to honor his home state.
I asked Lori about Scott’s Gettysburg obsession and she explained that she was “fine with it and it keeps him out of trouble.” She admitted that when Scott told her of his plans to purchase a wax figure or two, she thought the idea was “strange” and her biggest fear was running into one of them in the middle of the night. “As long as they stay in his man cave, then I guess it’s all right.” Besides, Lori reports that she found a Steiff “center stitched teddy bear” the next day at an antique show in nearby New Oxford so, “It was a good tip for me too.”
Scott, an arduous collector whose specialty is images, letters and diaries of soldiers killed, wounded or held as POWs at Gettysburg, loves nothing better than researching every item he adds to his collection. Over the years I have found that it is often collectors like Scott who are most dedicated to the preservation, protection and promotion of history. Scott Hilts is one of those new breed “collector as curator / preservationists.”
By my count the auction grossed just over $ 100,000, a figure that does not reflect the 10% buyers premium. There were over 350 registered bidders from as far away as Los Angeles. You might think it would be one of the statues that brought the most money at the sale. But the top lot was # 317, a rare Singer sewing machine made in 1846, that brought $5775 and a round of applause from the crowd. The famous General figures, and those of Jennie Wade and Jesus Christ, all landed in the $1000 neighborhood. The Lincoln figures sold for upwards of $2000 each. But many of the lots receiving spirited bidding included the furniture, wall hangings, and artwork that adorned the scenes. Items that went largely unnoticed by museum visitors focused solely on the statues. Civil War military equipment and uniforms used to adorn the wax figures (swords, belts, hats, saddles, and bayonets) all sold well.
A personal favorite was the larger-than-life animated figure of Abraham Lincoln, for years the closing scene for the Museum. This figure moved ever so slightly to the cadence of The Gettysburg Address, or at least it used to. Now the figure looked rather sad, more resembling the Addams family Lurch character than our 16th President. The $ 2200 winning bid came via phone. I couldn’t help but wonder if the bidder would’ve been half as exuberant had they been there to view the statue in person. Oh, and that turnstile I mentioned before, it sold for $ 495. A pittance when you consider the aggregate humanity that hip-checked their way past its mechanical tentacles.
After the last lot was hammered down, I asked Erik Dorr if there were any surprises or regrets at the auction. “I thought most stuff went as expected, but some lots went higher than I would’ve guessed. I knew the Gettysburg lots would go high and recognized many local collectors in the crowd. But it seemed like they waited, bid on the lot they wanted, and left, which might’ve actually helped me.” Dorr said “I wanted to bid on one of the paintings or the Lincolns, but couldn’t justify the high price. I noticed that after the sale, all of the Lincoln statues were grouped together waiting for shipment. I suspect that they were all sold to the same bidder and that they might have actually sold for more had bidding continued.”
When I posed the same question to Scott Hilts, he responded, “I thought things went very reasonably, not cheap, but lower than I expected.” As for regrets, he says, “I wish I’d have bought the George Pickett figure. It only sold for $ 700. I should have bought more of the paintings too.” Scott offers perhaps the most touching observations of the day by saying, “I first came to this museum when I was 8-years-old. I brought my son Derron here when he was the same age. (Scott has 3 daughters too). Now Derron is graduating from Fredonia State University this June. My Great-Great-Grandfather was wounded where those bulldozers are working right now. In fact, he may well have received his wound right here where the museum sits. He was here that’s for sure.” Scott Hilts love for Gettysburg is deeply rooted.
Undoubtedly the happiest person in the room that day was a young woman named Kim Yates. She was hard to miss. Towards the end of the auction she bid on, and won, the last wax figure in the catalog. Suddenly, the previously sedate young lady began to scream wildly and jump around the room. One of the ringmen sidled over to me, after noting the look of obvious surprise on my face, and whispered, “She’s never bid in an auction before.”
Within moments, that same ringman rolled out those uncatalogued body parts. The Lincoln head sold for $330, then Andy Jackson’s head brought $275, followed by several more disembodied heads sporting powdered wigs sold for $ 250 each. Then it was down to the bloodied heads. Suddenly Kim Yates sprang to the front of the room and began bidding on the grisly remains faster than the ringmen could keep up with. After all was finished and the last lot hammered down, Kim told me, “I bought 6 heads, 4 torsos, a sword and a whole bunch of hands and arms.” Turns out that Kim runs a haunted attraction near Baltimore known as “Kim’s Krypt”, scheduled to open that very night. “My only worry is getting them back in time to display them tonight.” Who knew that props from one of Gettysburg’s most esteemed museums would someday end up in a haunted house? I told you those body parts would go crazy.

As you can see in this clip, I nearly owned this sign (the ring-man is pointing at me). Instead, it went to Eric Dorr’s museum in Gettysburg. A suitable place.

Creepy history, Ghosts, Witches

Witch Marks.

April 23, 2018April 23, 2018 Alan E. Hunter- Irvington

Original publish date: July 14, 2010

In the spirit of the approaching Halloween season, I’d like to share a story with you that combines many of the elements that peak my curiosity and fuel my passion for history and folklore. Recently, transplanted British antique dealer and collector Rick McMullen traveled back to his motherland in search of merchandise to sell in his shop or add to his home, which he describes as “virtually architecturally antique.”

Rick journeyed to an antique fair near Lincolnshire County in the Midlands of Great Britain where he found a curious large hand-carved oak panel. The 200 pound panel stood over 7 feet tall and was over 4 feet wide and was made in the “Carolean” style dating to sometime in the 1600’s. He had the panel shipped back to the states along with a Gothic-Victorian Era staircase and a 16th century oak timber frame with the intentions of incorporating all of them into his Virginia home.

However, it was that panel that made Rick’s mind race. What was it? What would he do with it? Where did it come from? When Rick’s wife saw the panel, she thought it might make a good headboard for a bed, but Rick quickly nixed that idea. Instead, the panel was set aside for future consideration while ongoing remodeling projects took precedence. There it would rest in peace until one fateful October evening when Rick was watching the history Channel and he saw something that seemed “hauntingly” familiar.

He was watching a documentary about witches and soon a segment flashed across the screen that told about the superstitious markings made by ancient people used to ward off witchcraft. The program talked about an English estate called “Kew Palace”, built in 1631. The owners were particularly superstitious, and believed that evil influences or witches could enter the house disguised as cats or frogs and cast spells on people while they slept. To ward this off, the original carpenters who made the roof carved special secret signs near windows, doors, fireplaces and other vulnerable places, to protect themselves from evil. ( Other ways of protecting a house included hiding old shoes, mummified cats and kittens under the floorboards, or ‘urine bottles’ filled with hair and nail-clippings in special, secret cavities.)

Rick immediately realized that he’d seen these very same markings before but couldn’t remember where. He searched his home and inventory looking for something that might jog his memory. He was about to give up when it came to him. It was the panel.

He turned the panel around and discovered about 40 hand carved figures and markings. These hand-cut marks varied in design and structure from interlaced V’s that more closely resemble fancy old English W’s to numerour carved daisy wheels. McMullen learned that these marks were called “ritual marks” or “apotropais”, a Greek word meaning “Intended to ward off evil” and were an important part of the folklore of Great Britain from the 15th to the 17th centuries. They were designed to keep witches, evil spirits and things that go bump in the night out of the home.

Among the Ancient Greeks the doorways and windows of buildings were felt to be particularly vulnerable to evil. On churches and castles, gargoyles or other grotesque faces and figures would be carved to frighten away witches and other malign influences. Those other openings, fireplaces or chimneys, may also have been carved. Rather than figural carvings, these seem to have been random simple geometric or letter carvings.

Contrary to what you may think, these ritual marks were not displayed prominently in the British Isles. It might make sense to put them over doors and above windows, but they were most often secreted away in hidden places to prevent a witch seeing and combating them. There is evidence of these “witches signs” appearing in churches, homes and other stone buildings all over the British Isles dating back to the late Medieval, Jacobean and Carolean Eras.

Rick has no idea where the panel originally came from but he suspects that the symbols were cut into the item by the resident family before being affixed as a softening decoration to an ancient stone wall. That way the marks would be unseen by the casual observer, presumed witch or evil spirit, but still provide protection for the family at the same time. Rick quickly discovered that there has been little formal study of these “witches signs” and historians have offered little support to his theories, choosing instead to dismiss them as silly superstitions.

Rick McMullen surmises that the two sets of deeply carved double V’s invoke the protection of holy Mary, “Virgin os Virgins” and mother of Jesus Christ. He believes that the carved daisy wheels, one of which is 18 inches in diameter, represent the “circle of life” with the petals overlapping each other to effectively become one.

McMullen admits that his theories are based on the scant available research and conjecture on the subject. “It’s quite bizarre,” he says. “But I believe it’s the only one in America…to my knowledge, these ritual marks predate Jamestown (1607, the first English settlement in the United States) and by the 17th century, it’s believed the marks were no longer used.”

However, the tradition can still be found in the often grotesque exaggerated faces carved into pumpkin jack-o-lanterns displayed each Halloween on porches and in windows of houses all over central Indiana. These cute childish symbols of Halloween were originally designed to avert evil and ward off the souls of the dead and other dangerous spirits walking the earth at that time. Today, carved pumpkins are considered to be a wholesome part of the Halloween season shared by children and their parents in kitchens all over the state. A far cry from the origin of the mysterious ancient cravings known as “witch marks.”