Posted on 01/17/2006 5:16:05 PM PST by Pharmboy
Never! :-D
And, for the record, there are many nooks and crannies in Westminster as you well know, and to deny that Darwin is buried in a prominent place is really denying reality, whatever your views on evolution, God and creation.
Might be a Da Vinci Code thread.
LOL!! And let the record show that if I ever stumble across an institutional equity, I will not trade it for a Topps 1954 Willie Mays baseball card without Freepmailing you first.
:-)
Institutional equities just means I trade large blocks of stock ... everyday stock. But in lots of 100,000 or more.
I've been trying to bump this worthy thread. I'm not sure why we haven't more interest. I love this stuff!
Yes, Happy 300th Birthday Benjamin Franklin!!!
At any rate, thanks for the pix and pings...I will continue to post this kind of stuff even if it's down to you and me, kid.
But, a few more people have just asked to be placed on the list, so there is interest, not doubt.
You and I are alike, though: I can't get enough of this stuff!
Just down memeory lane:
When I first went to New York City I worked for a couple of days on the New York Stock Exchange and one day on the American just to see how it all worked.
I was going to meet my pals after work to have drinks and dinner at Windows on the World after work. So I had a drink at some questionable bar ... then I wondered down Wall Street.
I had studied about the Reveolutionary War and walked to Trinity Church which was there at the time. The doors were locked. So I bumbled down the stairs and raised my head.
THERE was the grave of Alexander Hamilton. Right there on Wall Street at the entrance to the graveyard at Trinity Church. I was totally agog! I was speechless!
I highly recommend a visit to Wall Street, Trinity Church ... yeah, Ground Zero right nearby ... and a lot of American history!
Next time you're in NYC make sure you visit St Paul's Chapel, just a few blocks north of Trinity Church on Broadway. This building is of the few that remains from the colonial period. It was here that Washington attended mass after his inauguration in 1789 since Trinity was not rebuilt until 1796 (that one collapsed under snow and the present one was then built in 1840).
When you visit St. Pauls, you can stand next to Martha and George's pew and view the first Great Seal of the United States.
And don't forget Fraunces Tavern at Pearl and Broad.
Wow ... but the steeple. It is different? But the graveyard is the same, right?
So much history on tthe east coast!
I notice my pals at UBS (formerly PaineWebber) at in Wawkeekan (spelling) ... where Hamilton met his end.
What does the site look like? Is there a marker?
And again for the record, he's not buried in a particularly prominant place at all -- as my own feet will attest.
Darwin was buried at Westminster because of the political connections of his "bulldog," pallbearer, and the avowed humanist-atheist, Thomas Huxley. The COE actually had little if anything to do with it.
Who said anything about starting a crevo thread? If you choose to splooge Darwin's name rapturously onto a thread about Benjamin Frankiln of all things, be prepared to have someone like me let the air out of your mentally ejaculative love fest with Darwin.
I merely set the record straight about how Darwin happens to be interred and exactly how he happens to be there at all.
Or better still, don't waste time on thread hijackers ;)
"He wasn't very successful, but he sowed the seeds of the Anglo-American special relationship," said Marcia Balisciano, director of the Benjamin Franklin House museum.Yeah, all it took to sprout those seeds was the War of 1812, long after Franklin was dead. :')
Washington was a Geordie? That explains alot! :O)
I visited St. Paul's Chapel on Sept. 11, 2002. At the time there was a well done display on the use of the chapel by 9/11 rescuers. When the chapel was renovated, they refused to paint over the bootmarks left on the white pews by sleeping firemen, as an honor to them. There were marvelous drawings and banners sent from all over the world. At the time, the tall iron fence that surrounds the chapel was crammed with pictures of the missing and dead, and with hats and patches from police and fire departments from all over the country. There were also sweet and touching schoolchildren tributes all over. The fact that St. Paul's Chapel wasn't destroyed on 9/11 is miraculous to me.
...and it was a similar happening that St. Pauls's was not destroyed in the fire that took half of NYC (including Trinity Church) in 1776.
Again, my point was about the English character and the seeming contradictions in their celebrations of individuals. I report, you decide. And, to be buried in the floor of a church or cathedral is an honor (eg, have a walk down the aisle in Christ Church, Philadelphia).
The Washingtons are of unusual antiquity in European terms, let alone American ones. A direct male ancestry has been traced back to William de Wessington or Wessyngton (i.e., Washington, a town in Tyne and Wear, formerly County Durham, in northern England), who was living in the late 12th century. The remoter ancestry is not absolutely certain but a detailed argument has been put forward for William de Wessington's descent in the male line from Eochu Mugmedon, High King of Ireland in the mid-4th century, through his son Niall of the Nine Hostages. Niall reigned as King of Ireland at a time when the Romans had not yet gone home to Italy from across the water in Britain. Indeed he may have been the Irish king who waged war on Stilicho, father-in-law of the Emperor Honorius who was the last Roman ruler of Britain. From Eochu and Niall descend the O'Neills, the oldest family traceable in the male line in Europe. If the link between William de Wessington and Eochu is accepted, it makes Washington the first of many American Presidents with direct male line Irish ancestry, though he must have been the only one not to boast about it to win votes.
In 1264 William de Wessington's grandson (or conceivably son) Sir Walter de Washington fought on King Henry III's side against Simon de Montfort at the battle of Lewes, where he was killed. So far George Washington's ancestors had been the senior male line, but after Sir Walter's son they descend through a junior branch. This branch seems to have maintained the family loyalty to the kings of England. Robert, Sir Walter's grandson, chose as his wife Joan de Stirkeland, a member of a north country family who have supplied several sheriffs of their county, a deputy lieutenant of their county, the bearer of the banner of St George at the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years War against the French and a leader of a royalist infantry regiment at the Battle of Edgehill in the Civil War of the 17th century.
Despite their marrying several heiresses this junior branch of Washingtons could not arrest the decline over the next two centuries of their own younger sons - and George Washington's recent ancestors descended from a younger branch of a younger branch. By the mid-16th century this junior branch of Washingtons was settled at Sulgrave in the English Midland county of Northamptonshire. Even now they enjoyed the status of lesser gentry (Robert Washington in 1584 inherited 1,250 acres, a respectable property). George Washington, however, descends from a fifth son of Lawrence Washington, who predeceased his father, the Robert who had inherited 1,250 acres, after having sold the bulk of the estate at Sulgrave in 1605, perhaps under some financial pressure. This fifth son became a parson but was expelled from his parish as a royalist by the Parliamentarians during the Civil War. It was therefore understandable that the parson's son Colonel John Washington should emigrate to America. There he eventually acquired 6,000 acres (including 700 as his wife's dowry), which was more than respectable by English standards.
Colonel John's son Captain Lawrence Washington, as High Sheriff in Virginia in 1692, continued the long family tradition of supporting the Crown, albeit in an American context. He married Mildred Warner, granddaughter of a one-time acting governor of Virginia and a descendant of the medieval Lords Kyme, whose loyalty to their king was not always total. It would be downright fanciful to trace George Washington's disaffection toward the Hanoverian George III to a remote ancestor's quarrels with the Plantagenets. Yet the link between Washington and Plantagenet high politics was not as tenuous as might be supposed. Because of the vagaries of English peerage law Washington was a potential heir to the Kyme title, which had become abeyant (very roughly, fallen into disuse) in 1381. He was almost certainly not aware of this, although since he remained technically King George's subject till the Treaty of Paris in 1783 (and certainly till the end of 1775, when two thirds of his life was over) and titles of nobility were only dropped in the United States in 1795 after some discussion as to whether to introduce native American ones, the historical might-have-beens are intriguing to say the least...snip
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.