On the Road

Last week, I headed out to the Bayard Cutting Arboratum in Great River on Long Island near its south shore, along the west bank of the Connetquot River . This magnificent private estate, home of William Bayard Cutting (1850-1912) and Olivia Murray Cutting (1855-1949), his wife, (pictured here) 

I am just back from Lexington, Kentucky, where I attended the annual Civil War Preservation Trust conference. This is a great organization--since its inception, it has purchased 29,000 acres of Civil War battlefield ground. I attended my first conference last year in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and was so impressed that I decided to head out to Lexington for this year's events.

The Medal of Honor has been awarded only 3,446 times since it was first given in 1863. 

Samuel Sims was described in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle as "one of the bravest and best beloved of all the brave men who went from Brooklyn to fight the battles for the preservation of the Union" and "as brave a man as ever drew a sword." That's Sims above, in his Civil War uniform, early in the war.

On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I visited two sculptures that relate very much to the De Witt Clinton bronze, by Henry Kirke Brown, that is at Green-Wood Cemetery. My first stop was in the Smithsonian’s History Museum, where I visited Horatio Greenough’s sculpture of George Washington.

This is another entry in the Green-Wood-connections-are-everywhere file.

I just got back from California. Sue Ramsey, one of our Civil War Project volunteers, lives out in Santa Barbara, and invited me to come out and give presentations to the Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society and the local Civil War roundtable. I did a slide show on our Civil War Project, one on Green-Wood, and a talk about our Civil War Project. Great thanks to Sue for setting this up.

 Few names are as big in American furniture making as Duncan Phyfe (1768-1854). And, of course, Phyfe is one of Green-Wood Cemetery's permanent residents. For generations, dealers and collectors have tried to attribute American furniture made in the first half of the 19th century to Phyfe. His name was magic--it meant the best.

More from the "if I travel, I can usually find something pertaining to Green-Wood Cemetery" files.

On a recent visit to Philadelphia, we headed off towards the Rodin Museum. As I drove, my friend navigated, with a map on her lap. As we arrived near the museum, she asked me, "Who was Henry George?" The name rang a bell--in fact, he is interred at Green-Wood Cemetery.

It really is hard for me to go anywhere and not find something that's related to Green-Wood. I just got back from ten days in Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina. Really a great time of year to visit those cities--a chance to extend the warm weather a bit before being engulfed in a New York winter.