A Lady of No Reputation Who Was Simply Amazing, Part II

Map Showing the Sites of Major Battles

In Hugh O'Neill's Rebellion

Clontibret, 1595

Yellow Ford, 1598

Kinsale, 1601-1602

As all of the Irish thought, "Why are they here?," in the early 1590s the English continued to extend their control over the whole of Ireland from Ulster in the northeast.

As they did so, Hugh O'Neill of the Tyrone Clan of Ulster, tolerated by the English as loyal to the crown, began organizing a powerful Irish army.

In 1591, the English murdered an Irish lord for opposing the appointment by the English of a sheriff over the lord's region.

Filled with fear and rage, the Irish resisted appointments of even more sheriffs. As battles broke out, O'Neill gave up any effort to achieve sovereignty and freedom by guile, and joined the rebellion. In 1595, the Irish inflicted an embarrassing defeat on an English army at Clontibret, Ireland, and the English suddenly found themselves in the largest war of the Elizabethan period.

In 1598 the Irish repeated their success, at Yellow Ford in Ulster. A large English army, comprising a substantial portion of the English army in Ireland, was marching to relieve a fort in Ulster, when the Irish attacked the English army after it had become bogged down in the rear by a cannon slowed by mud, and bogged down in the front by a large trench. About half of the English army was annihilated.

In 1599 the English responded to Yellow Ford with a huge army for the time -- 17,000 men. A large contingent was sent to relieve an embattled Gaelic chieftain loyal to the crown. At Curlew Pass, the English attempted to advance up a "road" comprised of huge stones and bog between them, littered with trees felled by the Irish. The Irish savagely harassed the advancing English from nearby woods. The English soldiers, hungry and exhausted, began to panic, and retreated. Colliding with their comrades, the English army was thrown into chaos. The main body of the well-trained Irish charged, and soundly defeated the English. The Earl of Essex was executed by the English for his military failure, his subsequent parley with the Irish, and his unauthorized return to London and attempted coup d'etat there.

The Earl's successors thereafter employed a mix of conciliation, guile and force to retake English forts in Ireland, amidst an occasional Irish victory. At Kinsale in 1601-1602, after surrounding a Spanish army landed at Kinsale in the south of Ireland and bombarding them around the clock, the English force became desperate when surrounded by a large force of Irish irregulars and Scots under Hugh O'Neill. After a long seige, when the English were on the point of surrendering, the Irish foolishly attacked, and were defeated. The Irish retreated, and ther Spanish allowed to return home. In 1603, O'Neill and his allies fled to Spain in search of renewed Spanish support. The Spanish declined. The British, discovered the absence of O'Neill and his allies, seized all of their lands and people, securing the north for the English, who then colonized the land with a large contingent of Presbyterians from Scotland.

Over the next 40 years, the English completely failed to do anything but hate and oppress the Irish clans.

A Lady of No Reputation Who Was Simply Amazing, Part I

Dermot MacMurrough,

The Man Whose Actions

Caused Centuries of Sadness

And Suffering for the Irish

"Dawson" is one of the "John Smith" names of Britain. The role of our family in history has not been great.

Even less significant to the world, and even to members of our family today, is our father's father's mother, Annie Fuller Mallon of Ireland.

To fully understand Annie's story, it is best to have at least a sketchy knowledge of the history of Ireland.

In the middle of the 12th century, before England "knew about" Ireland -- before she began to actively covet control of and exploitation of Ireland as a national policy, King Tiernan O'Rourke ousted King Dermot MacMorrough from his throne and lands. MacMorrough struck back, not only taking back his throne and lands, but also taking O'Rourke's probably-willing wife. In 1166, O'Rourke returned in force, easily retaking his throne and lands -- but the wife stayed with MacMorrough. MacMorrough then made an error for which the Irish would pay a terrible price for three quarters of a millenium -- he went to King Henry II of England for assistance, in exchange for accepting English sovereignty over Ireland. Henry jumped at the opportunity, and in 1169 enabled MacMorrough to conquer Ireland with English soldiers, and then reconquered Ireland again in 1171.

Over the next century, Norman rule based in England weakened, until the native Irish badly defeated the Normans at the Battle of Callann in 1261. English control and influence shrank until, in the 1300s, especially after the Plague made its landfall in Ireland in 1348, the English crown controlled only Dublin.

In 1487, the Irish foolishly allowed themselves to be the launching point of a Flemish and Burgundian army supporting a pretender to the English throne. Greatly disturbed, Henry VII began to reassert control over Ireland. The Irish did not much like resubjugation to the English, especially after Henry VIII began to lead the English out of the Catholic Church. And so, in 1534, Silken Thomas Fitzgerald commenced his famous rebellion, and, after his defeat and capture, despite English guarantees of safe conduct he was murdered on Henry VIII's order, in 1537.

In the two Desmond Rebellions, from 1569 to 1573 and 1579 to 1583, the English responded to Irish efforts to throw off English rule with terrible brutality. In the first Desmond Rebellion, Humphrey Gilbert, appointed Governor of Muenster, terrorized the Irish by murdering civilians at random and lining the roads to his camps with severed Irish heads -- somewhat reminiscent of that pathway of Jewish tombstones in "Schindler's List." One of Gilbert's successors William Drury broke the peace entered into after the first rebellion by simply arresting and murdering 700 of the participants.

In the second Desmond Rebellion, the Irish killed English soldiers and property. The English destroyed everything in sight by fire -- including the Irish families. They burned and murdered the Irish into submission. The enormous destruction by the English generated severe famine. Many thousands died of hunger.

The 1188 Battle of the Cutting of the Elm

Supposedly the following is a true story. I turned this into a bedtime story for my sons when they were young.

In the Middle Ages, it became customary for the Kings of England and France to try to avert war by meeting and negotiating under an 800 year old elm tree in the middle of a large field near Gisor, France. The elm was enormous, and provided the only shade in the vicinity.

In the year 1188, the English under Henry II and the French under Philippe II made arrangements to negotiate under the tree. It was a terribly hot day. The small English army arrived first and gathered under the tree in the shade, following a kind of "first come, first served" rule. The French army arrived shortly afterwards, and waited in the sun, while the leaders negotiated.

The hours dragged on. As the sun rose higher and higer in the sky, the the French army sweltered, while the English enjoyed the cool breeze under the elm. The French soldiers grew impatient and demanded their turn out of the sun, in the cool shade under the boughs of the tree. The English army refused to budge.The negotiations were going nowhere fast.

Finally, a cocky Welshman in the English army responded to the anger of the sizzling French in a singularly unwise fashion. He loaded an arrow onto his bow, fired it over the heads of his English friends, and, THUNK, it pierced the chest of a French soldier.

That was too much, of course. The two armies exploded. The French began to yell, "Cut down the tree! Cut down the tree!," and they began to hack their way through the English army with swords and axes, to gain access to the tree trunk.

The English soldiers began to strip off their armor and wrapped it around the tree's trunk, to protect it.

The angry, disgusted French soldiers succeeded in getting to the trunk, and they began to chop away, while the English fought to save the tree. Suddenly, the trunk groaned loudly, and the tree fell.

The two armies, exhausted, and thoroughly disgusted, packed-up and went home.

Who Was the Pied Piper?

Last night my wife and I attended a children's performance of Pied Piper in Collingswood, New Jersey. It was well done by the kids.

The performance gives rise to an interesting question. Just as many of the old English nursery rhymes, and playing cards, have significant historical events and persons underlying them, I wondered if the same is true respecting the Pied Piper.

Most of us know the Grimm's Fairy Tale version of the story. The town of Hamelin, Germany, is heavily infested with rats. The Pied Piper appears and offers to eliminate the rats for 1,000 gold pieces. The deperater Mayor agrees. The Pied Piper then plays a tune on his flute which induces every single rat to follow him to the river, where the rats all drown. When the Pied Piper comes to collect his pay, the Mayor and townspeople decline to pay the Piper (thus the figure of speech) and drive him away. The Piper then plays another tune tune on his flute which induces all but a few of the children of Hamelin to follow him out of town, to a mountain where they disappeared.

There are various theories vying for acceptance as the explanation for the origin of the story. The soundest theory -- the one which seems to have the most support -- is that in the 13th century, primogeniture -- the right of the eldest son to inherit a lord's feudal holdings -- was widely accepted in Western Europe. In prior centuries, the Crusades had provided opportunity for the disinherited younger children to find noble employment. However, beginning with the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 A.D., the Crusades began to be less and less popular among the Christians of Europe, until the Ninth and last Crusade, which ended in failure in 1271 A.D.

As a consequence, Europe once again began to be flooded with disinherited lesser nobility.

As this was occurring, the Mongol hordes of Asia began attacking and utterly devastating Europe to the east and south, mostly in the Balkans, but also farther north. Their advances were merciless and utterly scoured sections of Eastern Europe of liofe and property.

In response, the bishops and political leaders of Western Europe sent out recruiters, inviting the disinherited gentry -- including the "children" of Hamelin, actually disinherited younger nobility -- to travel east to the devastated lands to settle, carrying with them their German family names, their Catholic religion, and their Western European cultures. And so there arose, in Eastern Europe, in the later half of the 13th century, from the Balkans northward to the Baltic coast, a large number of fortified German towns whose populace had the same surnames as those of the section of the German states which included the kingdom in which we find the town of Hamelin.

The Pied Piper would have been the recruiter visiting Hamelin, seducing large numbersd of the town's primogeniture-disinherited young adults to embark on an eastern settlement effort. It may be that a story that a "Decan Lude" possessed a 1384 book recording the event may be a displaced reference to the recruiter, himself, a "Deacon Ludwig" dispatched by the local bishop.

There are several "cultural fossils" pointing to an historical reality underlying the story.

The oldest appears to have been a now-lost stained glass window in the Catholic church in Hamelin referred to as "Marktkirche," or "Market Church." There, around 1300, church authorities installed a wonderful, colorful window commemorating the loss of the children, looking something like this...

Then, in 1384, a chronicler recorded in the town chronicles, "It is ten years since our children left."

A 15th century work, called the Lueneberg Manuscript, records,

In the year of 1284, on the day of Saints John and Paul on 26 June130 children born in Hamelin were seducedBy a piper, dressed in all kinds of colours,and lost at the place of execution near the koppen.

In Hamelin there is the "Rat-Catcher's House," so-called because of the plque commemorating the event reading,

ANNO 1284 AM DAGE JOHANNIS ET PAULI WAR DER 26. JUNI - DORCH EINEN PIPER MIT ALLERLEY FARVE BEKLEDET GEWESEN CXXX KINDER VERLEDET BINNEN HAMELN GEBOREN - TO CALVARIE BI DEN KOPPEN VERLOREN.
In the year 1284 on John and Paul's Day, the 26 of June -- 130 children born in Hamelin were seducedBy a piper, dressed in all kinds of colors,and lost at the place of execution near the koppen (probably a hill).

Supposedly, that street to the right of the building, called Bungelosenstrasse, meaning "Drumless Street," or "Street without Music," is one where law has long prohibited the playing of music there, presumably to preserve the sanctity of the site.

GGGGGGGG GF Garrett Van Swearingen, Part II

There are portraits of Garrett Van Swearingen and of Barbara DeBarrette Swearingen, available online and picture here. Since Barbara DeBarette died when she was 34, probably in childbirth, then both Garrett and Barbara were 34 years of age of younger in those portraits.

Garrett looks a li-i-i-i-ittle bit older than 34 in his portrait.





But Barbara's portrait is another story. Let me be PERFECTLY frank: She look's like somebody's aging mother, in the portrait!





What happened to them, after their 1659 marriage in Fort Casimir, is probably the best explanation.





Perhaps because the French and Indian War was raging around them, the Dutch were extremely sensitive to the need toi treat the Algonquians tribes around them with carefully-administered justice.





So, on March 1, 1660, Garrett Van Swearingen was appointed to very carefully judge a case involving the murder of an Indian, probably by a Dutchman.





At around the same time, something else was happening in New Amstel which might or might not have been connected to the case of the dead Algonquian.





Very early in 1660, a Dutchman named Jan Gerritsen van Marcken traveled from Stuyvesant's New Amsterdam to collect a debt from one of the people living in or around New Amstel.





With the approval of d’Hinoyossa, President of New Amstel, Garrett Van Swearingen, as "Schout," or Sheriff, of New Amstel, arrested van Marcken, and charged him with an impressive list of criminal violations. Van Marcken was convicted of "just about everything in the book."





On June 7, 1660, Stuyvesant, the overall Governor, reversed the judgment, and ordered Garrett Van Swearingen to pay costs of suit and damages for False Arrest!





A chronicler of the era tells us....





"On August 30, 1660 Garrit van Sweringen and his wife sailed for Amsterdam without obtaining a passport from Stuyvesant. He took with him 31 skins, which he declared, and another 100 skins that he did not declare. He had bribed the supercargo of the ship. In Amsterdam he used the extra 100 skins to bribe the Directors of the West Indies Company."





Lo and behold, "On December 24, 1660, the directors of the Dutch West Indies Company sent Stuyvesant a letter chastising him for overruling Garrit van Sweringen’s case against Jan Gerritsen van Marcken, saying it was politically unwise for him to interfere with the affairs of the City of Amsterdam’s colony at New Amstel."





Was it just a case of "bribery"?





The French and Indian War was a political powder keg. The English, who hated the Dutch, would have loved a pretext for turning the Algonquians upon the Dutch, to accomplish their murder for them.





In light of such considerations, the words to Stuyvesant -- that "it was politically unwise for him to interfere with the affairs of the City of Amsterdam’s colony at New Amstel" -- have a special significance.





The lives of every citizen of New Amstel may have been "in the sling."





I think that, under the circumstances, we should judge Garrett Van Swearingen with special charity, here.





One genealogist says that Garrett and Barbara's first child, Elizabeth, was born to them in 1661. If she was, she was either born in Holland or on board the ship ‘Purmerlander Kerck’ which sailed for America in November, 1661, arriving on February 3, 1662.





While Barbara was pregnant with their second child Zacharia, or shortly after Zachariah's birth, in 1662, something terrible happened. Garrett Van Swearingen murdered a Dutch soldier.





"On the evening of June 20, 1662 three of Stuyvesant’s soldiers were in New Amstel enjoying drinks at Fop Johnson Outhout’s Inn. They went out for a stroll and were having a great time singing. Their path took them near Garrit van Sweringen’s home. He took exception to their singing and after a few shouts fired on the soldiers. His shot killed Hermen Hendricksen van Deventer.



"Stuyvesant’s South River (the Delaware River) deputy, Willem Beeckman, was furious and collected affidavits and interrogatories from witnesses that he forwarded to Stuyvesant. The affidavits and interrogatories were taken in the home of Johan Andersson Stalcop. Perhaps it was considered as the nearest neutral site.



"The Governor of the Colony of the City, d’Hinoyossa, did nothing about it other than temporarily suspending van Sweringen as schout. Stuyvesant felt helpless to do anything about it. He wrote to Amsterdam that he thought the burgomasters of the City of Amsterdam should hear the case.



"Van Sweringen was never tried. Instead his superiors in Amsterdam decided the killing had been done in 'self-defense.' The soldiers were completely unarmed. Garrit van Sweringen was officially pardoned."





On May 1, 1663, Garrett Van Swearingen was reinstated as Fort Sheriff.





In 1664, the world turned upside-down for the Dutch and for Garrett and Barbara Van Swearingen and their family. Relationships with the local Indians finally exploded, and Van Swearingen was dispatched to patrol the vicinity and kill Indians. One chronicler wrote, "He had fought the Mohegan Indians in the forest beyond Beverwych, driving the war bands before him, consuming their villages until the savages begged for mercy. His days went by with battle and nights with watchfullness. Van Sweringen and his company came down from the hills through the forest of Beverwych, to find the city of New Amsterdam had been taken by the English."





Thje English, it turned out, had invested New Amstel and simply stolen it from the Dutch while Van Swearingen was off fighting Indians in the French and Indian War. Here is the Chronicler's full account, including Lord Baltimore's miraculous offer to Garrett and his wife and children...





"Colonel Nicols of England, sent by His Majesty, Charles II, and his deputy Sir Robert Carr were to take over the Dutch colony at New Amstel

"Van Sweringen said wearily, 'Without a blow they took Amsterdam, as if there were no one near.' Then drawing his sword from the scabbard, he kissed its long, straight, splendid blade, and, with sudden of anguish, broke it across his knee, and standing as high as he could in his stirrups he threw the pieces over the wall into the dusty meadow grass. 'Farewell good blade, forever more!, he said, 'forged in honor, honorably brave, shall never be drawn in dishonor. Thou wast wrought to strike for the Netherlands, and thou mayst not strike for the Netherlands. Thy steel was for the Netherlands, my hands are for van Sweringen.' Then he stretched his hands out before him, saying in a piteous, chocking voice, "They are all that is left, I am ruined!' For at first he was thinking of himself, but now he thought of his wife and daughter. He rode through the gate to the house where his wife and daughter were staying, he went quickly. His wife was sitting at the window. 'Barbarah,' he said, 'I am ruined!' and there he stopped, he was chocking. She looked up quietly, 'Yes Garrett,' she said, 'I heard of it. They can not say that I married thee for thy money anymore,' and with that she laughed very softly. Garrett said , 'I have not a guilder to my name, I am brought to beggary.' Barbarah said, 'I am just as rich as thee, dear heart, as ever I was. To be ruined without fault is no disgrace.' She said, 'it matters not to me for I gave up home and everything to go with thee.' His wife was sitting on one side, Elizabeth, his daughter, on the other, sitting upon a foot stool and leaning against his knee. 'Father,' said Elizabeth, 'We don't mind it terrible for us. We shall take a little house, and mother shall do the weaving, and I shall do darning and spin, oh how I can spin, and I shall gather wild hops for the brew, and nuts and berries in the woods. We woman will cook, and thee shall work by the day, and we shall save stuiner by stuirer untill the stockings are full again.'

"About this time there was knock at the door, it was Lord Calvert. Needless to say Garrett van was in no mood for English humor, which he misunderstood. The governor actually came to offer Garrett a position of sheriff in Maryland. 'There are pretty posies hanging their heads in rows for the lass to come and pick. Carr is a dirty scoundrel, I have just told him so to his thieving face.' said Master Calvert. 'Let me make good the wrongs he has done. Then ye shall need no more to curse the English for a pack of thieves and perjurers. Come down to Maryland, van Sweringen, you and all that be yours. Man it will be a happy day! Mistress van Sweringen,' he said, with a laugh and half a choke, 'Prevail with me against this dear, honest fool of thine. He is the most obstinate , argumentative person that I ever stood against. Lord Bal timore had told him you can take up 1,000 acres, at twenty shelling a year. Ye may believe as you please and say what you will, so you be Christian and speak no treasons, and if you will teach us to keep our own lawns as you have kept of the Dutch, you will confer a precious favor on the next Lord Baltimore.' As his long speech ended, he silently bowed, and stood there quietly. Meinheir van Sweringen got up from his seat turning said simply, 'My friend, my good and true friend, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, you have put a new light in the world for me.'

"Van Swearingen later testified, ‘Sir Robert Carr did often protest to me, that he did not come as an enemy, but as a friend; demanding, only in friendship, what was the King's own, in that country. There was taken from the City and the inhabitants thereabout, to the value, so near as I can now remember, of four thousand pound sterling, likewise arms, powder and shot in great quantity. Four and twenty guns were, the greatest part, transported to New York.

"The Dutch soldiers were taken prisoners, and given to the merchantmen that were there, in recompense of their services; and into Virginia, they were transported to be sold, as was credibly reported by Sir Robert Carr's officers, and other persons there living in the town.



"All sorts of tools for handicraftsman, and all plough gear, and other things to cultivate the ground, which were in great quantity; besides the estate of Governor Debouissa and myself; except some household stuff and a negro I got away; and some other movables, Sir Robert Carr did permit me to sell.'"





And so, in 1664, our GGGGGGGG GP Garrett Van Swearingen and and Barbara DeBarette Swearingen and their children and Barbara's father and brother moved to St. Mary's County, in southern Maryland, and began a new life there.





Who can blame Barbara DeBarrette for looking 20 to 30 years older than her husband?




More to come.

GGGGGGGG GF Garrett Van Swearingen

Great great great great great great great great ("G8") grandfather Garrett Van Swearingen, a Dutchman, really is one of our more intriguing ancestors.

He is our mother Eleanore Anne Eitelman's (and therefore Uncle Eddie's and Uncle Mike's)...

father Edward Decatur Eitelman's
mother May Katherine Pitman's
father Decatur Pitman's
mother Eleanore Amanda William's
father Congressman Jared William's
mother Anne Swearingen's
father John Swearingen's
father Thomas Swearingen's

father.

Garrett was born to David Janse Swieringh and Hester Jacobs in Beemsterdam, Holland on February 4, 1636. (A few sources say "Reemstwerdam," but this is almost certainly a typo copied from one fastidious chronicle writer by another. Beemster is a section of Noord Holland County. "Beemsterdam" or "Beemsterwaal" refers to the section of Beemster closer to the inland sea, next to the dike. It is possible that "Reemstwerdam" is a reference to "Amsterdam" a short distance to the south, but I find no geographical precedent for the "ee" instead of "a" between the "r" and the "m" of "Ramsterdam.")

In the 1500s, the Netherlands, especially the Holland counties on the west, were a hotbed of economic and religious and political rebellion. The Holland counties became the most densely-urbanized section of all of Europe in the 1500s, and generally well-to-do. However, as the nation-state concept gained preeminence in the thinking of the people, increasing awareness of the idea of Separation of Church and State, as it did in Germany, and as the Princes of the Church in Europe wenched and taxed their way to disgust and infamy, the people of Holland started getting "itchy." After Holy Roman Emperor Charles V began to back-off Inquisition-style repression and executions in the Netherlands -- and there were a lot of executions in the Netherlands -- and began to grow lax in tax collections, his son Phillip II, inheriting the Netherlands as his share of the Holy Roman Empire, tightened the Catholic noose while reaching into purses with renewed vigor.

This made the Netherlanders, both those known to be sympathetic to Herr Luther and those who remained loyal to the Church, crazy people. The Protestant AND Catholic nobles asked for relief, and Margaret of Perma, Regent in Phillip's absence, was very intimidated by the unanimity of the support for relief, and, being small-minded, responded in exactly the wrong way, at a pivotal moment in history: She called the nobles "gueux," "beggars," and kicked them out of the room!

And thus began the Eighty Years War, one of the Reformation Wars which devastated Europe, in 1568.

Street gatherings led to armed mobs led to an attack on the walled town of Veurne. Called to respond, the militias -- the "Dutch National Guard" -- declined to repress the attack. Regent Margaret made late concessions to try to quell resistance. But she was closing the barn door after the animals escaped. Resistance continued. A noble loyal to Phillip led an army against the disorganized Calvanist rebels, crushed the revolt, and executed all of the leaders.

Phillip, alarmed at all of this, sent the Duke of Alba and a large army of Italian mercenaries to Holland. Alba proceeded like a political moron. He arrested 9,000 Hollanders, Catholic and Protestant, and executed 1,000 of them, and drove the rest into exile, seizing their property.

"Sea Beggars" -- Calvanist pirates authorized by Letters of Marque from William of Orange as Count of Holland, with a name snidely referring to Regent Margaret's unkind words dismissing the nobles of Holland -- preyed on Holy Roman Empire trade.

William of Orange invaded the Netherlands at the head of an army of 30,000 Germans, mostly Protestant. but he began to run out of money, and therefore began to lose his ability to feed his soldiers, who began to melt away.

But Islam, of all things, came to the rescue. Phillip was too distracted by the ferocious war with Turkish Islam at the Battle of Lepanto to oppose even William's weakened army.

And then the Duke of Alba was doubly stupid. He frightened even his most ultra-loyal ultra-Catholic supporters in the Netherlands with his brutal tax collections, and destroyed all local support.

The Dutch, Catholic and Protestant, suddenly wanted independence.

William of Orange proved himself even more harebrained than Alba, when he joined an invasion of the Netherlands, to promote respect for unity and public order in France!

At the same time, as all pirates do, William's Sea Beggars got out of hand, and began to prey upon 100% Catholic-but-neutral Hanseatic League ships, profitable to all.

Two negatives multiplied-out to a positive, here, though. Alba withdrew his Catholic army from a port named Brill to oppose Orange. The Calvanist pirates of William, having disgusted Queen Elizabeth by their profit-threatening anti-Hanseatic activity, were met with fierce opposition at sea. They took refuge at Brill. The pro-rebel militia in Flushing seized their port and invited the Sea Beggars there, too. William sought the support of these two ports and the surrounding provinces, and got it. Suddenly, he had his own united Catholic/Protestant rebel kingdom!

For the next 60 years, the battle went back-and-forth, back-and-forth. In all of the chaos, by 1635 the relatively-religiously-neutral Dutch had generated a stable, habitable republic which saw its way to entering into a Treaty of Alliance with Catholic France to divide-up the Spanish Netherlands, generating more warfare.

During this time, the Dutch East India Company and Dutch West India Company began to become extremely prosperous, generating a navy larger than that of any other in the world.

William of Orange's rebellious little state had become a world power.

This was the context of Garrett Van Swearingen's birth. At least one of his parents -- we can't tell which -- had him baptized Roman Catholic, and he remained Catholic to the end of his days. His Catholic faith, which he tended to "wear on his sleeve," makes his biography all the more notable, in several ways. We will see that, despite his Catholicism, he was at all points implicitly trusted by the Dutch West India Company. Despite his Catholicism, he will win a fierce political battle over the fate of a murderous debt collector visiting a colony for which Van Swearingen was sheriff and a judge. Despite his Catholicism, Van Swearingen will literally get away with murder, himself. Finally, despite his Catholicism, the English, in an attack upon Swearingen's little American colony, let him live, and probably because of his Catholicism Lord Baltimore gave Van Swearingen a wonderful tract of land in Maryland.

One biographer credits Garrett Van Swearingen with being well-educated, based on his knowledge of French, German and English. One gets the sense, in viewing his life panoramically, that he was indeed deeply intelligent. But in fact his knowledge of the three languages may simply be the result of his roots and exposure to cosmopolitan Holland.

Probably after several years' exposure to the shipping industry in Holland as a teenager, in December, 1656, at age 20, Garrett Van Swearingen secured employment as "super cargo" -- superintendent of cargo -- on board the Dutch West India Company's "Prince Maurice." His subsequent actions, bold, tending to take control in a responsible fashion, ratify the wisdom of his appointment, and verify a supposition that even at age 20 Garrett Van Swearingen had considerable experience even at age 20.

West India Company archives related the following...

"Sailed from Amsterdam December 21, 1656, left Texel December 25, 1656, arrived at Long Island March 8, 1657; wrecked.

"Jacob Alrichs, director
Alexander D'Hinoyossa, Lieutenant
Evert Pietersen, comforter of the sick
Gerrit van Schweringen, Supercargo
Jan Barents, chief boatswain
Jan Gerritsen, sailor
Joost Theunissen, sailor
129 persons including Colonists, free mechanics, soldiers and attendants.

"J. Alrich reports: 'We proceeded with them on the proposed voyage, and after some storm and other obstacles, reached the vicinity of the Manhattans. ...[T]hrough ignorance of the skipper and pilot who were never on this coast, having neared the shore in the evening, [the Prince Maurice, on March 8, 1657] immediately grounded, and so shoved, which continued afterwards harder and harder, that we were not for a moment, sure of our lives, and seeing no escape in the morning, we unanimously resolved to save ourslves on a broken coast, which we, some days later, understood to be Long Island. An agreement was made with the skipper of the Beaver to charter the passengers to the Colony on the South River. The Beaver set sail from New Amsterdam on April 16 to the South River, arriving at New Amstel, April 25th, with about 125 persons for the Colonie from the ship Prince Maurice, including 50 persons who arrived on other ships. Thirty-eight soldiers, with the Captain and Lieutenant, marched over land because there was no room in the Beaver to allow of their coming by water. The ship experiencing contrary wind, the soldiers, on that account, started somewhat later from the Manhattans, and therefore arrived at the fort six days later."

Other details which have come down to us are that Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant, hearing from some Indians that a vessel had run aground on some rocks just outside Fire Island Inlet, sent a small boat to investigate; that Garrett Van Swearingen was carried by that boat to Peter Stuyvesant and introduced to him, and that Peter Stuyvesant, after receiving a full report from Van Swearingen, released him to allow Van Swearingen to hire a somewhat smaller boat, the "Beaver," to ferry "Prince Maurice" passengers and crew ashore and off-load the valuable cargo.

New Amstel, their ultimate destination, was Fort Casimir, now Newcastle, Delaware on the South River, now Delaware River.

Fort Casimir was no impregnable fortress. A sketch and a model illustrating that it was little more than a small walled compound containing the fort's residential headquarters make it clear that it was a place Dutch colonists would only retreat to in the event of an emergency...

On April 25, 1657, Garrett Van Swearingen, his superiors, the colonists and the soldiers demanded surrender of Fort Casimir by the occupying Swedes. The Swedes duly surrendered the fort, without violence, perhaps because the Dutch comprised a vastly superior force. The Dutch renamed the fort New Amstel.

Garrett Van Swearingen rose up steadily through the ranks, from Clerk in the Fort Store, to Chief Commissary, to Second Councilor, to First Councilor (Executive Officer), to Captain -- the military commander-in-chief -- and "Schout" or Sheriff, and judge

In January, 1659 (the most-commonly-cited date), GGGGGGGG GF Garrett Van Swearingen, at 23 years of age, married GGGGGGGG GM Barbara DeBarette, also 23 years of age, daughter of GGGGGGGGG GF Isaack DeBarette, probably a wool merchant from Valenciennes, Nord Pas de Calais, France, who brought Barbara and her brother Peter to Fort Casimir, perhaps at Garrett Van Swearingen's invitation.

In December, 1659, Garrett Van Swearingen reported by letter to a sponsor in the Dutch West India Company...

'New Amstel, December 8, 1659

'NOBLE, WORSHIPFUL, WISE, RIGH, PRUDENT SIR: --

'With due respect and reverence, have I hereby taken the liberty to greet you, though bound in duty of gratitude, to devote to you all the days of my life. ...I cannot neglect, hereby to communicate my promotion. About a year and a half, after my departure from Patria (my native country), with your Honor's faborable recommendation, I have been appointed Sheriff here subject to the approbation of the Honorables the Principals. Previously, I have taken care of the store as clerk; and after J. Rynevelt's death, as Commissary, from which I have not requested to be discharged, as I have, though unworthy, been recently made Second Councilor, with Sir Alexander Hinojossa, First Councilor, and Captain of the military here, who intends to go over in the Spring, to represent this miserable place.

'If things become worse, I, individually, am ruined, for I have received here, some goods from my brothers, all of which I have laid out in a house, horses and mules, which cost me full, four to six thousand guilders, Holland currency.

'Besides that, I am also married. ...

'Herewith I commend your Honor to the mercy and protection of the Most High God, and remain.

'Your obedient, humble servant,

'G. Van Sweringen'

More to come.

The Story of Squanto, Told with Appropriate Emphasis

Beginning any kind of enterprise is a difficult task.

For the Pilgrims at Plymouth, that great rule of life was no different. And they arrived in the New World at precisely the wrong time of year for easy success -- November 11, 1620. And the Pilgrims did not actually select and begin settling into the site for their new colony until late December -- the beginning of the New England Winter.

That first winter was viciously cold. Little of the work planned was actually accomplished. Most slept on board the Mayflower at night. While the deeply religious people prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed for help from God, half of their number died, from malnutrition, cold and disease.

While the Pilgrims were religious people in their own way, "religious" does not necessarily mean "completely moral."

Lo and behold, one of the outstanding characteristics of the Pilgrim's "religiosity" was fierce, undying anti-Catholicism. They despised "popery."

And God frequently gives us what we need, in answer to our prayers -- not necessarily what we pray for.

So, how did God answer their prayers?

One day, an Indian walked out of the woods at Plymouth and introduced himself to the Pilgrims. He smiled and, in the King's English, he said something like, "How do you do. My name is Squanto."

And, shortly thereafter, Squanto did something that astonished the Pilgrims even more -- he made the Sign of the Cross, and identified himself as a Catholic!

In answer to their desperate prayers for divine assistance, God sent the Pilgrims an English-speaking Roman Catholic Native American !!!

So, how did God pull this one off?

Many years before, in 1605, when Squanto was about 20 years of age, he was captured by one of the boats of the Protestant English sea captain George Weymouth, engaged in an exploration of the coast of Maine. Brought back to England as a "trophy" of his expedition, Squanto was trained in the English tongue apparently to serve as a translator for future explorers of the North American coast. Captain John Smith released Squanto to the New England coast in 1612.

In 1614, Squanto was re-captured by another Protestant English sea captain, Thomas Hunt, and this time, despite Squanto's English-speaking skills, he was put up for sale as a slave in the slave markets of Catholic Spain !

There some Roman Catholic friars saw Squanto, felt pity for him, purchased him, and offered him the choice of freedom, or staying with them. Squanto preferred to stay with the friars. It was at this time that Squanto was taught the Christian faith and baptized into the Roman Catholic Church.

After a time, Squanto managed to "hitch a ride" back to England, where another English explorer offered to return him to the New England coast.

Returning once again to New England in 1619, Squanto the "English Catholic" discovered that his particular sub-tribe had been wiped-out, probably by European disease (to which the Indians had zero immunity), and so he began living with a neighboring group.

When the Pilgrims settled Plymouth, they built their homes on top of where Squanto used to live.

And the rest is history.

Nursery Rhymes: Not Such a Nice Thing

Most in America have heard that the song that goes with the America children’s game, “Ring Around the Rosie,” is really about bubonic plague, the terrifying disease that killed about a third of England’s population beginning in the 1300s.

Ring around the rosie [referring to a bulls-eye rash on the skin of plague victims, looking like a ring around a rose]

A pocket full of posies [referring to the flowers and herbs frequently carried to try to keep the plague away, by smell]

Ashes, ashes [“Achoo! Achoo!” -- the plague victim sneases, because he is getting sick!]

We all fall down! [Everyone dies of plague]

We all fall down!

It just so happens that many British and American nursery rhymes for children are actually hidden references to horrible, bloody events in history.

Every American child knows this song…

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

It’s not such a happy little rhyming song when we insert the interpretation…

Jack and Jill [French king Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette]

Went up the hill […walked up the steps of the neck-chopping guillotine.]

To fetch a pail of water. [Referring to the pail which caught the heads chopped-off by the guillotine.]

Jack fell down
And broke his crown [Referring to King Louis XVI’s head being chopped-off so that it fell into the pail]

Jack fell down and broke his crown!

And Jill came tumbling after. [Then, Marie Antoinette’s head was chopped-off].

Another very well known nursery rhyme is even bloodier…

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

How could such a nursery rhyme possibly be a reference to bloody events in world history?

Mary Tudor was the only surviving child of Henry VIII of England, when he was still Catholic, and of his Catholic wife from Spain, Queen Catherine of Aragon.

After her Protestant half-brother Edward VI of England died in 1553, Mary Tudor took her seat as Queen of England, and ruled for five years, untill 1558.

Because Protestant leaders despised Mary, they overlooked the tens of thousands murdered by her Protestant father King Henry VIII, and the thousands of Catholics killed by Edward VI, and enormously exaggerated the religion-based murder of a few hundred as Mary Tudor struggled to end the killing. As a consequence, the nursery rhyme growing out of the Protestant hatred seems to mean the following…

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, [“contrary” in the sense that she tried to reverse England’s drift to Protestantism]

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells [a nickname for thumb screws, used for torture by slowly crushing fingertips], and cockle shells [devices for torture applied to certain important parts of a man’s privates],

Silver bells

And pretty maids [the nickname for a type of neck-chopping guillotine] all in a row.

Lincoln's Assassin John Wilkes Booth: Surprising Footnotes

President Lincoln's family became personally acquainted with the family of John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln’s assassin, long before the assassination on April 14, 1865.

In 1863 or 1864, President Lincoln's teenage son Robert Todd Lincoln was on a train station platform in Jersey City, New Jersey, waiting for the train which would carry him to Washington, D.C.

Robert Todd Lincoln

Walking through the crowd on the platform only a few feet away from Robert was renowned Shakespearean performer Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth, talking to John T. Ford, owner of Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. where Robert's father would ultimately be assassinated.

Edwin Booth, brother of

John Wilkes Booth

As Robert stood near the edge of the platform, a crowd gathered nearby surged toward him, squeezing him against the car of a train stopped on the track next to the platform. At the same moment, that train began moving forward, pulling Robert off balance, and throwing him down into the space between the platform and train, where death was near certain.

Before Robert fell all of the way, a powerful hand reached down from above, gripped his jacket and pulled him up, onto the platform. Astonished at this turn of events, Robert turned and found himself face to face with his savior, the famous actor, whom he recognized immediately. He said something like, "Mr. Booth, sir, thank you! You saved my life!" And so, many months before John Wilkes Booth took President Lincoln from us, Lincoln's most precious possession, his son, for whom Lincoln would gladly have given his own life, was saved by Booth's own brother, as his brother talked to the owner of the theatre where Lincoln would be shot!



In early 1865, after Lincoln gave a speech in which he indicated that he favored extending the right to vote to African American citizens, John Wilkes Booth reacted explosively, declaring that that would be the last speech Lincoln ever gave. As he and a club of Southern sympathizers planned Lincoln's assassination, Booth was allowed to sleep in a bed of Union Army Pvt. William Clark in the boarding house of William A. Petersen, across the street from Ford's Theatre, in Washington, D.C.

Lincoln's assassination

On April 14, 1865, after Booth mortally wounded President Lincoln in Ford's Theatre with the shot to the head, Lincoln was carried across the street to Petersen's boarding house, taken to Pvt. Clark's room, and laid in the bed Booth had only recently been sleeping in!

Lincoln, after his assassination, in the bed which

had been occupied by John Wilkes Booth

History books record that Booth, Lincoln's assassin, after he injured his ankle as he jumped from Lincoln's balcony box in Ford’s Theatre, was pursued and finally cornered in a barn near Bowling Green, Virginia, 12 days later. Soldiers set fire to the barn and one of them, Sgt. Thomas "Boston" Corbett, disobeying orders, shot Booth, killing him.

The porch of house where John Wilkes died after

Thomas "Boston" Corbett disobeyed orders,

shooting him

That, in any event, is how the story has come down to us.

Research into the details, however, immediately discloses that the evidence is almost as confused as that connected to Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of President Kennedy nearly 100 year later. There was no agreement as to which ankle Booth injured in his escape. There was no agreement on which of his wrists bore Booth's tattooed initials. In other words, the most basic facts were not available to confirm the identity of the man killed by Corbett. Sgt. Thomas Boston Corbett, the soldier named as Booth's killer, was disobeying orders when he shot the man later identified in an autopsy as Booth, thus preventing the man he, himself, identified as Booth from ever being questioned to verify identity, just as Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, thus preventing Oswald from ever being questioned. Finally, there is evidence that Corbett, after he was ordered released on orders of Secretary of War Stanton, whom some have accused of conspiring to kill Lincoln, ended up being buried in Enid, Oklahoma.

Thomas "Boston" Corbett, alleged killer of

John Wilkes Booth, ended up dying

in the same obscure Oklahoma town, Enid,

David George, the man claiming to be

John Wilkes Booth, lived and died in

The significance of this burial site will become apparent as we review the story of another man.

In 1870, a man calling himself John St. Helen -- a surname which had become synonymous with "exile," on account of Napoleon’s exile to St. Helena island after his defeat at Waterloo -- appeared in Glen Rose, Texas and began working as a bartender, while he exhibited an encyclopedic knowledge of Shakespeare as he engaged in acting, in Glen Rose on the side. After about a year, Mr. St. Helen left suddenly, just before the arrival in town of a number of federal dignitaries, some connected with the investigation of the Lincoln assassination who had been invited to a wedding there.

Next Mr. St. Helen turned up in Granbury, Texas, where he became gravely ill, and, fearing death, he confessed to lawyer and friend Finis Bates, "My name is not John St. Helen. I am John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln."

Mr. St. Helen, however, recovered, and fled.

John Wilkes Booth,

a/k/a John St. Helen,

a/k/a David George

Years later, in 1903, a drunken derelict calling himself David George -- the first names of Booth's two co-conspirators David Herrold and George Atzerodt -- died in Enid, Oklahoma, confessing to his caretakers, again, before his demise, that he was John Wilkes Booth.

On being informed of the derelict's dying words, Bates rushed to Enid and, recognizing his friend John St. Helen, claimed the body, had it embalmed, put it in storage, and offered it to federal authorities, who denied having any interest in the corpse.

Bates held the body for some time, and eventually sold it to a traveling circus, who featured the corpse in a sideshow as that of John Wilkes Booth.

The corpse, at this juncture, is lost.

The bottom line is a question: Is it a coincidence that the man accused of disobeying orders by shooting and killing the man thought to be John Wilkes Booth, who after his arrest for killing Booth was released by Stanton, the Secretary of War believed by a few to have been "in on" Lincoln's assassination, ended up dying in the same obscure town the man who claimed to be Booth died in?

Is it possible that the man who died at Garrett's barn was a volunteer impostor (dying of some disease) killed by Corbett because Corbett was working with Booth, and was doing what needed to be done to stop the manhunt for Booth by creating the illusion that Booth was dead?

Rose-Colored Glasses

"During the Civil War, glasses with colored lenses were used to treat disorders and illnesses. Yellow-trimmed glasses were used to treat syphilis, blue for insanity, and pink for depression. Thus we get the term, To see the world through rose-colored glasses."

--http://www.coe2ndwis.com/civiliancorner/strangefacts.html

Be Careful What You Pray For

(There are a few versions of this story in circulation. They are all relatively close in their narratives. The basic story is verified by the records of Lloyd's of London.)

In 1829, a lady from Yorkshire, England, Sarah Richey, embarked on a voyage from England to Australia, in search of her long lost son Peter, rumored to be living in Australia. In October of that year, as her ship, The City of Leeds, wallowed in the waters off Australia, and as Mrs. Richey prayed for success in her difficult quest, what at first appeared to be the hand of bad luck began to make life difficult for the crew of another ship.

The sailing ship Mermaid sailed out of Sydney Harbor, bound for the other side of Australia. After 4 days at sea, a terrifying storm drove the Mermaid onto a coral reef. The entire crew managed to scramble onto some rocks.

After 3 days, another ship, the Swiftsure, anchored near the rocks and picked up the crew of the Mermaid. After 5 days at sea, this second boat for the crew of the Mermaid was itself swept onto rocks! The passengers and crew of both ships, however, were stranded at that location for only 8 hours, when another ship sighted them and closed in for the rescue.

When the crew of this boat, the Governor Ready, heard that this was the third ship for the crew of the Mermaid, many began to grumble about bad luck people. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and the survivors of the Mermaid and Swiftsure sinkings were crammed onto the decks of the Governor Ready.

This time, after only 3 short hours, the Governor Ready caught fire and sank! All aboard managed to make it to the lifeboats. There were no casualties.

A mere 18 hours later, a government boat, the Comet, sighted the life boats, hove to, and picked-up the steadily increasing number of survivors. The Captain of the Comet had to put down a near-mutiny, to keep the survivors of the 3 shipwrecks on board among his crew.

Just 5 days later, whatever force sank the first 3 ships attacked the Comet -- another terrifying storm dismasted the ship. As it leaked badly, the spooked crew of the Comet took to the lifeboats, abandoning the sinking ship to the survivors of the Mermaid, Swiftsure, and Governor Ready sinkings. In short order, they found themselves in the water the fourth time, clinging to flotsam, kicking away hungry sharks.

Within 18 hours, the next victim appeared on the horizon -- the Jupiter. Bursting at the seams with sailors and passengers after retrieving the survivors, the Jupiter managed to sail for only two days more before it, too, slammed into a reef, punching a hole in her hull and sinking.

Mrs. Richey's ship, the City of Leeds, was on-hand, however. Every last man, woman and child of all 5 previous ships were retrieved, and made comfortable, as the boat continued its voyage to Australia.

Mrs. Richey, in the meantime, became deathly ill. As the ship's doctor, Thomas Sparks, kept watch over her, Mrs. Richey called-out again and again for her son, in her fever.

Dr. Sparks, anxious to do something to fulfill the dying woman's last wish, saw a crewman of the Mermaid strolling by Mrs. Richey's door. Dr. Sparks called out to the sailor, and demanded that he pretend to be Mrs. Richey's son. The crewman agreed, and walked over to the bed.

As he stared at the groaning woman's face, and the doctor explained that the dying woman was Sarah Richey from Yorkshire, the sailor went wide-eyed, and burst into tears. "Doctor," he explained, "My name is Peter Richey, and that is my mother!"

The Beale Treasure

Supposedly, in April, 1817, Thomas J. Beale and several others arrived in what is now Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then traveled north into what is now Colorado, in search of buffalo. As they camped one night, one of their party discovered an extremely rich vein of gold, which the group mined for the next 18 months. As sometimes happens, they came across a vein of silver in the same locale, and mined that.

Returning east in 1820, Beale enjoyed "wine, women and song" as a guest in the Washington Hotel in Lynchburg, Virginia, disappearing in the Spring.

In 1822, Beale returned to the same hotel in Lynchburg, and did the same. Before his departure, however, he left an iron box of papers in the custody of hotel owner Robert Morriss.

Morriss was faithful to his duties as a trustee of the papers, but Beale never returned. In 1845, Morriss assumed that Beale was dead, and he broke into the box.

Inside the box was a letter and three sheets of paper bearing numbers. The letter explained that Beale had buried the treasure -- some 3 tons of precious metal -- at an undisclosed location, and that the 3 papers were an encoded explanation of the matter, an encoded list of heirs of the treasure, and encoded directions respecting how to find the treasure, in Beford County, Virginia.

Morriss tried for many years to decode the sheets of numbers, without success.

Before his death he left them to an undisclosed third party, when later published a pamphlet revealing that he had managed to break the code of the least important paper, only. The paper reads as follows...

“I have deposited in the county of Bedford, about four miles from Buford’s, in an excavation or vault, six feet below the surface of the ground, the following articles: ... The deposit consists of two thousand nine hundred and twenty one pounds of gold and five thousand one hundred pounds of silver; also jewels, obtained in St. Louis in exchange for silver to save transportation ... The above is securely packed in iron pots, with iron covers. The vault is roughly lined with stone, and the vessels rest on solid stone, and are covered with others ...”

Since that time, no human being has been able to break the code of the paper revealing the location of the treasure.

A website claims that this has been done, and even purports to show photos of the empty underground treasure chamber, but careful review of a sample of the website's author's interpretation makes it clear that his claim that he has interpreted the numbers is false, and that, in turn, hints that the author is merely buying time for his own treasure hunting.

I have examined a copy of the sheet of numbers ostensibly revealing the location of the treasure, and have discerned enough to see that the sheet comprises a real, breakable code. Here it is...

71, 194, 38, 1701, 89, 76, 11, 83, 1629, 48, 94, 63, 132, 16, 111, 95, 84, 341, 975, 14, 40, 64, 27, 81, 139, 213, 63, 90, 1120, 8, 15, 3, 126, 2018, 40, 74, 758, 485, 604, 230, 436, 664, 582, 150, 251, 284, 308, 231, 124, 211, 486, 225, 401, 370, 11, 101, 305, 139, 189, 17, 33, 88, 208, 193, 145, 1, 94, 73, 416, 918, 263, 28, 500, 538, 356, 117, 136, 219, 27, 176, 130, 10, 460, 25, 485, 18, 436, 65, 84, 200, 283, 118, 320, 138, 36, 416, 280, 15, 71, 224, 961, 44, 16, 401, 39, 88, 61, 304, 12, 21, 24, 283, 134, 92, 63, 246, 486, 682, 7, 219, 184, 360, 780, 18, 64, 463, 474, 131, 160, 79, 73, 440, 95, 18, 64, 581, 34, 69, 128, 367, 460, 17, 81, 12, 103, 820, 62, 116, 97, 103, 862, 70, 60, 1317, 471, 540, 208, 121, 890, 346, 36, 150, 59, 568, 614, 13, 120, 63, 219, 812, 2160, 1780, 99, 35, 18, 21, 136, 872, 15, 28, 170, 88, 4, 30, 44, 112, 18, 147, 436, 195, 320, 37, 122, 113, 6, 140, 8, 120, 305, 42, 58, 461, 44, 106, 301, 13, 408, 680, 93, 86, 116, 530, 82, 568, 9, 102, 38, 416, 89, 71, 216, 728, 965, 818, 2, 38, 121, 195, 14, 326, 148, 234, 18, 55, 131, 234, 361, 824, 5, 81, 623, 48, 961, 19, 26, 33, 10, 1101, 365, 92, 88, 181, 275, 346, 201, 206, 86, 36, 219, 324, 829, 840, 64, 326, 19, 48, 122, 85, 216, 284, 919, 861, 326, 985, 233, 64, 68, 232, 431, 960, 50, 29, 81, 216, 321, 603, 14, 612, 81, 360, 36, 51, 62, 194, 78, 60, 200, 314, 676, 112, 4, 28, 18, 61, 136, 247, 819, 921, 1060, 464, 895, 10, 6, 66, 119, 38, 41, 49, 602, 423, 962, 302, 294, 875, 78, 14, 23, 111, 109, 62, 31, 501, 823, 216, 280, 34, 24, 150, 1000, 162, 286, 19, 21, 17, 340, 19, 242, 31, 86, 234, 140, 607, 115, 33, 191, 67, 104, 86, 52, 88, 16, 80, 121, 67, 95, 122, 216, 548, 96, 11, 201, 77, 364, 218, 65, 667, 890, 236, 154, 211, 10, 98, 34, 119, 56, 216, 119, 71, 218, 1164, 1496, 1817, 51, 39, 210, 36, 3, 19, 540, 232, 22, 141, 617, 84, 290, 80, 46, 207, 411, 150, 29, 38, 46, 172, 85, 194, 39, 261, 543, 897, 624, 18, 212, 416, 127, 931, 19, 4, 63, 96, 12, 101, 418, 16, 140, 230, 460, 538, 19, 27, 88, 612, 1431, 90, 716, 275, 74, 83, 11, 426, 89, 72, 84, 1300, 1706, 814, 221, 132, 40, 102, 34, 868, 975, 1101, 84, 16, 79, 23, 16, 81, 122, 324, 403, 912, 227, 936, 447, 55, 86, 34, 43, 212, 107, 96, 314, 264, 1065, 323, 428, 601, 203, 124, 95, 216, 814, 2906, 654, 820, 2, 301, 112, 176, 213, 71, 87, 96, 202, 35, 10, 2, 41, 17, 84, 221, 736, 820, 214, 11, 60, 760

The Money Pit

In 1795, a boy living on the Atlantic coast of Canada rowed his small boat out to an uninhabited island, known as Oak Island, to explore it.

There he found a big oak tree with a rope hanging from a limb over a hole in the ground filled with dried mud. The teenage boy thought, “Treasure lowered into a hole by pirates!” He hurried home and returned to the island with two friends, to help him dig for treasure.

The three boys dug down to 10 feet, and found a layer of oak logs, and thought, “Treasure!” and pulled-up the logs, but only found a small empty space and below that some more dirt. At 20 feet down and 30 feet down, they found the same thing -- layers of oak logs over a small empty space and more dirt.

The boys thought, “There must be treasure down here! If there is not, why would someone do all of this work?” But, more than 30 feet down was too much for teenagers. So, they filled-in the hole with the dirt they had taken out, and promised to return as adults.

In 1803, the three boys, all more than 20 years old, now, purchased the part of the island with the hole, formed a company with their money and the money of friends and bought much equipment to dig down to treasure. They dug again down to 30 feet, and then to 40 feet, 50 feet, and so on, each time finding the same kind of layer of oak logs, as before, which they pulled up.

But then, at 90 feet, they found a flat stone, with a code chiseled into it, looking like this…


The code easily translates to these English words: “Forty feet below two million pounds are buried.” “Two million pounds” in those days were equal to about $500,000,000, or about 5,000,000,000 pesos.

The young men began digging like crazy people! They pulled up the oak logs beneath the message, and dug deeper, but soon they were taking out one bucket of sea water for every two buckets of dirt. The Sun was setting. So they hammered metal rods into the mud, and were certain from the sounds they heard while hammering that a few feet down into the mud, at the 98 foot level, their rods struck two wooden boxes filled with metal! Treasure! They all went to bed that night, thinking that when the Sun came up in the morning they’d climb down their ladders and find pirates’ gold!

In the morning, the money hole was filled to the top with mud and water! All of their work was ruined! They did not know it then, but a few feet below the 100 foot level were two tunnels, filled with coconut hair, bringing water from the nearby ocean to protect against someone digging that deep. The young men tried to pump out the water and mud, but the hole just kept filling again. They gave up.

In the years after that, one company after another was formed to try to get down to a treasure in the hole. It is said that, over the years, machines for drilling wells brought to the surface a single gold coin, and 3 links in a gold chain. At 154 feet drillers reached what sounded in the drill pipe like a box made of concrete containing a wooden box filled with metal. At 196 feet drillers cut into pieces of wood which scientists dated to 1575. In the early 1970s, drillers got the biggest shock of all -- drillers drilled through a brick ceiling into empty space! A room, beneath the island, over 200 feet down!

They lowered a television camera down the hole they had drilled, and saw what looked like 3 large wooden boxes, a human hand floating in water flooding the tunnel from the drilling, and a dead human body, in a sitting position!

Drillers drilled hole after hole into the ceiling of the underground room and -- surprise, surprise! -- the roof of the room suddenly collapsed, and the 200 feet of dirt and mud above it sank down, and form a huge crater on the surface!

Since that disaster, a company has been slowly sinking a giant metal tube into the ground, hoping that someday men may climb 200 feet down a ladder in the tube and bring up an enormous treasure.

No matter what, the Oak Island Money Hole is amazing. More than 400 years ago, someone managed to dig more than 200 feet down into the mud of an island surrounded by ocean, build a treasure room with a brick ceiling, and then build a vertical tunnel above it protected by a trap -- tunnels filled with sea water!

Arrest that Car!

Because we trust science too much, Americans stopped believing in things like curses -- something evil hanging over a person or object, usually at the request of someone filled with hate.

The true story of a particular car, and of the curse which hung over it, warns us that curses are very real.

On June 28, 1914, a car known as a 1914 Graf and Stift Double Phaeton carried Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Countess Sophia through the streets of Sarajevo, in Bosnia.

Suddenly, a revolutionary ran up to the car and fired his gun several times at the Archduke and his wife, killing them both.

The assassination started World War I. 20,000,000 people died.

The next owner was General Oskar Potiorek, commander of Austrian forces in Bosnia. Shortly after receiving the car, his army was defeated, Potiorek was removed from his job, and he became insane and died in a poorhouse.

The next owner was an Austrian Army captain. Exactly nine days after getting the car, he drove it into two farmers, killing them, and then he smashed the car into a tree, killing himself.

The next owner was the Governor of Yugoslavia. Within four months he crashed the car four times. In the last crash, he lost his right arm. The Governor believed that the car was cursed. He ordered that it be destroyed.

The next owner, Doctor Srkis, bought the car before it could be destroyed. In six months, the car rolled over, crushing him.

The next owner was a jeweler who committed suicide in a year.

The next owner was another doctor whose patients all stopped going to him, because they were afraid of the car. The doctor sold the car.

The next owner was a race car driver. During a race, the car smashed into a stone wall. The driver was thrown over the wall, and he died on hitting the ground.

The next owner was a farmer in Bosnia. One morning, the car simply stopped. Another farmer tied the car to the back of his horses and wagon, and began to tow it to a repair shop. Suddenly, the car started by itself, smashed into the wagon and horses, and chased the owner down the road, running over him and killing him.

The next owner was a mechanic who fixed the car and painted it. As he drove six friends to a wedding, there was a crash. The mechanic and four passengers were killed.

The next owner was a museum in Vienna. During World War II, a bomb from a plane bombing the German army fell onto the museum, crashed through the roof, and exploded next to the car.

The museum has not yet learned its lesson. The car and the museum room were repaired, and it sits there today.

Was That Dinner, or the Holy Spirit?

Once when I was sitting in my yard, reading a book, a large, beautiful, white dove landed in the yard of the family from Vietnam living next door.

Later I told the wife from Vietnam about the dove. I said, “In the Catholic Church, the dove is the symbol of the piece of God we call the Holy Spirit!”

The wife from Vietnam answered, “Peter, when you see a white dove flying, you say, ‘There goes the Holy Spirit!’ In Vietnam, when people there see a white dove flying they say, ‘There goes dinner!’”

One of the very interesting stories in the Catholic Church concerns how a man referred to as “Fabian the Manure Shoveler” became Pope.

In the year 236, the Pope named Anterus had just been killed by the soldiers of the government of Rome. The Christians of Rome gathered to elect a new Pope.

A short distance away, Fabian, the slave of a Roman prince, was buying cow manure for his master’s gardens, and shoveling the manure into his wagon.

As the Christians of Rome prayed for a sign from God which would tell them who to elect to the position of Pope, they saw a large white dove fly from the roof of a building, down the street and land on the head of Fabian, as he shoveled manure!

The crowd took this as a sign from the Holy Spirit. They ran down the street and grabbed the slave Fabian and elected him Pope!

Perhaps the dove was the Holy Spirit, and not dinner. Fabian was one of the great Popes of the Church.