OCR Text |
Show II SALUTE TO SAMUEL WILSON, THE ORIGINAL "UNCLE SAM" By LOUISE M. COMSTOCK MEN variously serve their country. Some live, others die for it. Samuel Wilson rendered ren-dered the United States of America a service no other individual in-dividual has yet been able to duplicate. He gave his country that symbolic personality which embodies all the traits popularly popu-larly attributed to its people; the name by which it has been praised and reviled, revered and ridiculed the world over. He did it uniquely, simply by being- himself. Samuel Wilson was Uncle Sam. For this service Samuel Wilson Wil-son recentlv received his na tion's thanks. At the impressive upright oblong of granite which marks his grave in Oakwood cemetery, in Troy, N. Y., a new flag climbed its pole, a stiff, fresh wreath tipped against the stone, a band played and state troopers fired a military salute. The New York department of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, convening at Troy, thus paid homage to an early Trojan. But, "We are not in the final analysis honoring a single individual," indi-vidual," said National Comman- Veterans of Foreign Wars, Members of the Ladies Auxiliary, V. F. W., and a Firing Squad of State Police Stand at the Grave of "Uncle Sam" Wilson in Oakwood Cemetery in Troy, N. Y., as Tribute Is Paid to His Memory. local situation. Already the more substantial citizenry of Albany was advertising its substance by living in brick houses, their materials ma-terials imported, like the urge to own them, from its native Holland. Hol-land. The Wilsons bought a farm on Mount Ida and went into the brick business. There are buildings standing in .Troy today constructed of WiVson bricks. For that matter the whole country is rich with evidence of their lives there. At one time Sam ran two farms, one of which he used for a summer and one a winter t t. '" ' , 1 i X b(li: j 4 i,4t1.VilJ I r 1 ' ' "-4 j llva.. 1i8 Vft! If- f " J ''I i If llllll,;,ls ; y i- ' I I ? f t , 11 loWO"' t ' : I - ; ' ; If . l I- -j I I ' ' lrs" V -) I I ( " t ft i;1 Memorial Over the Grave of "Uncle Sam" Wilson, Erected by His Daughter, Mrs. Marion Wilson Sheldon. der-in-Chief James E. Van Zandt. "Rather we are dedicating dedicat-ing this program to our country itself, to the spirit of Americanism American-ism which prevails in our relations rela-tions with one another and with the world." Had Samuel Wilsoi. been aware during his lifetime that he was to become all that, it is probable he would have thought his metamorphosis a hugi joke. That, we gather, is the sort of person he was. Kindly, shrewd, humorous, scrupulously honest: the best of New England broadened broad-ened a bit by its first adventurous adventur-ous step westward. A Bay State Scot He was born in 1766 at Meno-tomy, Meno-tomy, now Arlington, Mass., eighth of thirteen children in a Scotch family which could claim early and influential connections in Boston but never rose to the dignity of a coat of paint on its own shack! In 1780 the family moved to Mason, N. H. And in 1731 the youthful Samuel, having hav-ing attained the advanced age of fifteen years, did his duty as he saw it by enlisting as service boy in the American Army of the Revolution. Had he been even a drummer boy, history might have caught him early. But he was merely a service boy. In 1789, at the comparatively mature age of twenty-three, Sam left Mason with his brother, Ebenezer, and followed the trend of the times westward. Not very far west, except as measured by the near-sighted eyes of 1789. What is today the city of Troy was then but a raw settlement on the banks of the Hudson river. Early Trojans Sam and Ed Wilson were among the first to settle there. They chose well. Beiund the settlement set-tlement rose two small hills, named in accordance with that region's taste in classical nomenclature, no-menclature, Mounts Ida and Olympus. Their western slopes, where is today Troy's pleasant Prospect park, contained clay suitable for making bricks. Sam and Eb had learned about bricks back in New Hampshire. They had also sized up shrewdly the home. He and his brother left their mark on their holdings in such local terms as "Wilson's Bowl" and "Wilson's Hollow." Betsy Wilson was a New Hampshire girl, daughter of a veteran of the Battle of Bunker Hill. In 1797, tne brick business well under way, Sam returned to Mason to marry her and bring her back to Troy. She bore him four children, two of whom reached maturity. Benjamin became be-came a lawyer. It was his daughter, daugh-ter, the late Mrs. Marion Wilson Sheldon, who erected to her grandfather's memory the monument monu-ment which marks his grave today. to-day. Her son, Carlton Wood Sheldon Shel-don of Kansas City, his daughter, Mrs. Helen Marion Brockett, and her daughter, Betty Sheldon Brockett, are Uncle Sam's and Aunt Betsy's only living descendants descend-ants today Early Packers The brick business well in hand, the Wilson brothers extended ex-tended their efforts. Adjoining one of Sam's farm houses was a large field suitable for grazing, watered by two ponds. Here the Wilsons undertook to raise stock. Their cattle flourished. The Wilsons Wil-sons erected a slaughter house, and entered the meat business. As early as 1805 they could advertise ad-vertise in the local papers: "Two large and convenient slaughter houses," where could be "killed, cut and packed 150 head of cattle per day." When times were at their best, the slaughter houses required employment of 200 men. Still the Wilsons expanded. At the foot of what is now Ferry street they built a dock. They purchased their own sloops. Out from the firm of S. and E. Wilson at Troy and down the Hudson to Albany and points east came Wilson meats and Wilson bricks by the shipload. And what is so noble in that? What to warrant flags and wreaths and military salutes? Nothing at all. Uncle Sam was simply being himself, working shrewdly but with honor for his own interests. The War of 1812 created urgent demand for provisions for the troops saving the United States from the British. One Elbert Anderson Jr. of New Jersey obtained ob-tained a government contract for rationing the New York and New Jersey troops stationed near Albany. The contract, still to be examined in the War Department records at Washington, specifies "2,000 barrels of prime pork and 300 barrels of prime beef in full bound barrels of white oak." In those days there were no refrigerated refrig-erated freight cars. Elbert Anderson Ander-son took stock of the local sources of supply. He advertised in the Troy papers. As a result the slaughter houses of S. and E. Wilson were commissioned to furnish a goodly portion of the meat required, and Sam Wilson was additionally appointed United States inspector to pass upon its "prime" condition. On every barrel thus approved he stamped the letters U. S. for United States and E. A. for Elbert El-bert Anderson. And now comes the crux of the story, muffled as such crisis usually are by legend, by hearsay and by local imaginings. imag-inings. What actually took place may be as clearly deduced de-duced from its most dramatic version as from any other. It begins like an old familiar, with an encounter between an Irishman and an innocent bystander. by-stander. Asked the bystander, nodding his head toward one of the certified barrels, "And what does the U. S. stand for?" "Uncle Sam," said the Irishman. Irish-man. (You can supply your own brogue.) "Oh, come now, Uncle Sam who?" "Why, don't you know? Uncle Sam Wilson. He owns nearly all about here and he's feedin the army!" So much for the acorn from which grew the mighty oak. For the nourishment which sped that growth to colossal proportions, one must examine the temper and morale of the troops which fought the War of 1812. It was probably not much different from that of any troops in any war. For physical and mental torture so long continued that they have themselves become monotony, laughter is a wonderful though perverse panacea. Perhaps you think the Irishman's retort in this case not particularly funny. Maybe so. But the troops to which the story wended its way were composed of boys from in Sam's these-them-and-those war they were fighting? It is a fact that by 1813 the term was in common use among the troops stationed near Albany to designate desig-nate -the United States of America. It was first printed in this connotation con-notation in the papers of that region. The Troy Post in an editorial edi-torial of September 7, 1813, referred re-ferred to the hard luck which had lighted "on Uncle Sam's shoulders", and added in a footnote foot-note "this cant term for our government gov-ernment has got almost as current cur-rent as John Bull." Shortly thereafter there-after Uncle Sam's teams, his troops and payroll were mentioned men-tioned in several northern New York and western Vermont papers. pa-pers. The Columbia Sentinel in December, 1814, printed an editorial edi-torial entitled "Uncle Sam and John Bull," contrasting the niggardly nig-gardly pay in the American Army with tlfat in the British. Finally, in Nile's Register for 1315, we find a definition: "U. S. or Uncle Sam a cant term in the army for the United States." It was time and the cartoonist, cartoon-ist, of course, who promoted Uncle Sam from a "cant term" to a definite personality. It was done by the conventional methods of caricature. The first known picturization of the new synonym for the United States appeared in Punch, London, in 1844. It showed a long, lean Uncle Sam in long coat tails and stove pipe hat. According to those who should know, Samuel Wilson was long and lean and wore a high beaver hat, though how the news reached London is beyond conjecture. con-jecture. First American cartoon was drawn in 1852 by F. Bellow for the New York Lantern, a comic weekly of the period. It added, whether to the London version or to the original we shall never know, the familiar tight trousers; low-cut waistcoat, high collar and bow tie. It was Thomas Nast, famous American cartoonist, who embellished the figure further with chin whiskers, whis-kers, striped his trousers, starred his waistcoat, and otherwise brought it up co what is today accepted as standard. Nast began be-gan his drawings within a year or two of Samuel Wilson's death. But there is no evidence that he drew from life. There are Tro- The Thomas II. Nast Version of Uncle Sam Columbia Chides Him for the Increased Coinage of Silver Dollars. (From Harper's Weekly, 1878.) and about Troy. They had known Samuel Wilson all their lives, they knew him as Uncle Sam, and they found it funny. That was enough. Began as a Joke Whatever the psychology involved, in-volved, the joke stuck. So Uncle Sam Wilson was feeding the army, was ne? Well, if it was Uncle Sam's meat they were eating, eat-ing, why not Uncle Sam's so-and-so uniforms they were wearing, Uncle Sam's lousy blankets they slept under, Uncle Sam's this-and-that hospitals to which they carried their wounds, and Uncle jans who will loudly deny that their hero ever wore whiskers! Tailleur, however, is one thing, personality another. And while it is as certain as Monday morning that Samuel Wilson would have as soon submitted to one of his own butcher knives as worn stars and stripes, it is equally certain that the kindly smile behind the fictitious whiskers, the shrewdly twinkling eye, the thoughtful brow and the big, capable hands of the cartoon were his. We must give due credit to the acorn. Samuel Wilson was Uncle Sam. Western Newspaper Union |