Historical Figures

For several years we've talked about doing a Birthday Calendar for Green-Wood's permanent residents. Here's our first effort: July. Among Green-Wood Cemetery’s permanent residents whose birthdays occurred in the month of July are:

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) 

About fifteen years ago, I visited Louisiana with my family. I wanted to see a few special things down there: New Orleans streets, restaurants, and cemeteries, of course. I wanted to eat crayfish. And I wanted to visit Morgan City, Louisiana. Why Morgan City? Well, Morgan City is named for Charles Morgan, a shipping and railroad magnate.

In Saturday's New York Times, in a front page article about Attorney General Andrew Coumo's announcement of his candidacy for New York's governorship, this was found: "Appearing in front of the former Manhattan courthous

About ten years ago, I purchased a copy of Nehemiah Cleaveland's walking tour of Green-Wood Cemetery, written about 1860. Cleaveland was Green-Wood's first historian; I am its second. Now, I learned a few things from his walking tour about Green-Wood. I also learned some things about writing a walking tour.

Whenever I visit Washington, D.C., I try to visit my favorite museums there: the National Portrait Gallery, National Building Museum, the American Art Museum, and the National Museum of American History. Sometimes I find "old friends," items I've seen many times, on display; sometimes I come across things I've never seen before.

In the early years of our Civil War Project, circa 2003, we started Volunteer Research Days, in which our Historic Fund Volunteers came to the cemetery conference room one Saturday every month or so to search the cemetery records for information that might result in the identification of Civil War veterans who are interred at Green-Wood.

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.

Today is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charlie Ebbets, former owner of the beloved Brooklyn Dodgers.