Difference between revisions of "Chapter 39: 391-398"

Revision as of 16:12, 9 October 2009

Page 391

Squire Haligast predicts an end...
Which indeed does seem to be what happens; see pages 389, 373 & 366.

mephitic
of, relating to, or resembling mephitis : foul-smelling <mephitic vapors>

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Henry the Eighth
Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was also Lord of Ireland (later King of Ireland) and claimant to the Kingdom of France. Henry was the second monarch of the House of Tudor, succeeding his father, Henry VII. Henry VIII was a significant figure in the history of the English monarchy. Although in the great part of his reign he brutally suppressed the influence of the Protestant Reformation in England, a movement having some roots with John Wycliffe in the 14th century, he is more popularly known for his role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. From WIKI

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Annapolis
Annapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. It is situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, 26 miles (42 km) south of Baltimore and about 29 miles (47 km) east of Washington D.C. Annapolis is part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. The city was the temporary capital of the United States in 1783–1784. From WIKI

York
York, Pennsylvania is one of many cities that lay claim to the title of First Capital of the United States, although historians generally consider it to be the fourth capital, after Philadelphia, Baltimore and Lancaster. The claim arises from the assertion that the Articles of Confederation was the first legal document to refer to the colonies as "the United States of America". The argument depends on whether the Declaration of Independence, which also uses the term, would be considered a true legal document of the United States, being drafted under and in opposition to British rule. From WIKI

Baltimore
The Maryland colonial General Assembly created the Port of Baltimore at Locust Point in 1706 for the tobacco trade. The Town of Baltimore was founded on July 30, 1729, and is named after Lord Baltimore (Cecilius Calvert), who was the first Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland. Cecilius Calvert was a son of George Calvert, who became the First Lord Baltimore of County Cork, Ireland in 1625. Baltimore grew swiftly in the 18th century as a granary for sugar-producing colonies in the Caribbean. The profit from sugar encouraged the cultivation of cane and the importation of food. From WIKI

Calvert Connections
See pages 225 & 301

Hogsheads of Tobacco
A tobacco hogshead was used in American colonial times to transport and store tobacco. It was a very large wooden barrel. A standardized hogshead measured 48 inches (1220 mm) long and 30 inches (760 mm) in diameter at the head (at least 550 L, depending on the width in the middle). Fully packed with tobacco, it weighed about 1000 pounds (450 kg). From WIKI

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my own Surveillor might be secreted anywhere
Armand is crossing into some Kafkaesque territory here...

Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg is the historic district of the independent city of Williamsburg, Virginia. It consists of many of the buildings that, from 1699 to 1780, formed colonial Virginia's capital. The capital straddled the boundary of two of the original shires of Virginia, James City Shire (now James City County), and Charles River Shire (now York County). For most of the 18th century, Williamsburg was the center of government, education and culture in the Colony of Virginia. It was here that Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Monroe, James Madison, George Wythe, Peyton Randolph, and dozens more helped mold democracy in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States. From WIKI

Williamsburg is now also the place where you will hear this phrase more times than you can count: "This isnt the original... but this is the way that it would have looked."

Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands. A person from Glasgow is known as a Glaswegian, which is also the name of the local dialect. Glasgow grew from the medieval Bishopric of Glasgow and the later establishment of the University of Glasgow, which contributed to the Scottish Enlightenment. From the 18th century the city became one of Europe's main hubs of transatlantic trade with the Americas. From WIKI

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The Stamp Act
The Stamp Act of 1765 (short title Duties in American Colonies Act 1765; 5 George III, c. 12) was a tax imposed by the British Parliament on the colonies of British America. The act required that many printed materials in the colonies carry a tax stamp. These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and practically all forms of paper used throughout the colonies. Like previous taxes, the Stamp tax had to be paid in valid British currency, not in colonial paper money. The purpose of the tax was to help pay for troops stationed in North America following the British victory in the Seven Years' War. The British government felt that the colonies were the primary beneficiaries of this military presence, and should pay at least a portion of the expense. The Stamp Act met with great resistance in the colonies. From WIKI

western Black-Boy
The Black Boys, also known as the Brave Fellows and the Loyal Volunteers, were members of a white settler movement in the Conococheague Valley of colonial Pennsylvania sometimes known as the Black Boys Rebellion. The Black Boys, so-called because they sometimes blackened their faces during their actions, were upset with British policy regarding American Indians following Pontiac's Rebellion. When that war came to an end in 1765, the Pennsylvania government began to reopen trade with the Native Americans who had taken part in the uprising. Many settlers of the Conococheague Valley were outraged, having suffered greatly from Indian raids during the war. The 1764 Enoch Brown School Massacre, in which ten school children had been killed and scalped, was the most notorious example of these raids. From WIKI

May Session of the Burgesses
The Virginia House of Burgesses was the elected lower house in the legislative assembly in the New World established in the Colony of Virginia in 1619. Over time, the name came to represent the entire official legislative body of the Colony of Virginia, and later, after the American Revolution, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia. From WIKI

Mr. Patrick Henry
Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799)[1] served as the first post-colonial Governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779. A prominent figure in the American Revolution, Henry is known and remembered for his "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech, and as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Along with Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, he is remembered as one of the most influential (and radical) advocates of the American Revolution and republicanism, especially in his denunciations of corruption in government officials and his defense of historic rights. From WIKI

Virginia Resolutions
In United States history, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (or Resolves) were political statements in favor of states' rights and Strict Constructionism. They were written secretly by Vice President Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. From WIKI

Raleigh's Tavern
Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg, Virginia, gained some fame in the pre-Revolutionary War Colony of Virginia as a gathering place for the Burgesses after several Royal Governors officially dissolved the House of Burgesses, the elected legislative body, when their actions did not suit the Crown. Such dissension became more common between the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 and the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1776. From WIKI

"Vine"
Vine charcoal is created by burning sticks of wood (usually willow or linden/Tilia) into soft, medium, and hard consistencies. From WIKI

Colonel Byrd
William Byrd II (28 March 1674 – 26 August 1744) was a planter and author from Charles City County, Virginia. He is considered the founder of Richmond, Virginia. From WIKI GoogleBooks Google

tall red-headed youth... "Tom"
This is Thomas Jefferson. Dixon toasts "to the pursuit of Happiness" and a young man named Tom asks if can use that phrase some time, which Thomas Jefferson did in the Declaration of Independence. The passage continues to confirm that this is Jefferson by discussing his interest in surveying, which was a very real interest of Jefferson's.

As a political philosopher, Jefferson was a man of the Enlightenment and knew many intellectual leaders in Britain and France. He idealized the independent yeoman farmer as exemplar of republican virtues, distrusted cities and financiers, and favored states' rights and a strictly limited federal government. Jefferson supported the separation of church and state and was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779, 1786). He was the eponym of Jeffersonian democracy and the co-founder and leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, which dominated American politics for 25 years. Jefferson served as the wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781), first United States Secretary of State (1789–1793), and second Vice President (1797–1801). From WIKI

Professor Fry
Colonel Joshua Fry (1699-1754) was a surveyor, adventurer, mapmaker, member of the House of Burgesses, and soldier. Born in Crewkerne, Somersetshire, England, he moved to Essex County, Virginia as a young man to marry the wealthy widow Mary Micou Hill, who bore him five children who grew to adulthood, viz., John, Henry, Martha, William, and Margaret. In 1743-1744 Fry and his family moved to the not-yet-established Albemarle County, Virginia to claim unclaimed plots of land and take advantage of surveying opportunities. There he built a house called Viewmont that sat on a 800-acre (3.2 km2) plantation bordering the Hardware River. Fry, along with fellow member of the Loyal Land Company, Peter Jefferson, created the famous Maryland-Virginia Fry-Jefferson Map in 1752. From WIKI

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Quoiting
A game similar to horseshoes played with quoits (from the middle english coyte, flat stone) particular to the Northeast. (source: thefreedictionary.com)

Is there a significance to the choice of quoiting over a pistol dual between Dixon and Fabian, which is independent of Dixon's religious pacifism?

Superficially, the game resembles the West Line: an invisible line defined by staked points along which objects (stones) fly. One could note the same, of course, about a duel -- so perhaps there is some other significance in the choice of quoit?

Ah, perhaps one point is that quoiting might be more 'civilized' a resolution since no one can be killed? MKOHUT 11:55, 16 September 2007 (PDT)

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