History

Moving Day

/ Jamey / 2 Comments

Since we’ve decided to stay in our lovely little carriage house, it’s only appropriate that I share this with you.

Apparently, New York City used to have a city-wide “Moving Day” every May 1 at 9am. All leases ended on this day and everyone moved. Davy Crocket witnessed it in 1834:

By the time we returned down Broadway, it seemed to me that the city was flying before some awful calamity. ‘Why,’ said I, ‘Colonel, what under heaven is the matter? Everyone appears to be pitching out their furniture, and packing it off.’ He laughed, and said this was the general ‘moving day.’ Such a sight nobody ever saw unless it was in this same city. It seemed a kind of frolic, as if they were changing houses just for fun. Every street was crowded with carts, drays, and people. So the world goes. It would take a good deal to get me out of my log-house; but here, I understand, many persons ‘move’ every year.

Apparently, this tradition continued until World War 2 when there weren’t enough men around to move everyone at once.

Luckily, we’ve got another year or so in our little, inconvenient, heavenly house.

Happenstance

/ Jamey / 3 Comments

Sometimes I read something and I’m amazed at how random the world is.

Something like this:

On Sept. 13, 1862, members of the 27th Indiana Infantry were awaiting orders on a hillside near Frederick, Md., as Robert E. Lee’s Confederate troops approached from the south. One of the men noticed a package on the ground and discovered three cigars wrapped in a piece of paper. The men were rejoicing in their good fortune when a sergeant noticed writing on the paper — it was headed “Headquarters of the Army of Northern Virginia.”

They had discovered Lee’s battle plan. The orders had been issued to Gen. D.H. Hill, but one of his staff officers had apparently dropped them; Hill received a second copy from Stonewall Jackson and had not realized that the first set had been lost.

The plans passed quickly up the line, and that afternoon Union general George C. McClellan was wiring the president, “I have all the plans of the rebels, and will catch them in their own trap.” The battle of Sept. 17, Antietam, was the bloodiest single day of the Civil War. It repelled the rebel army and permitted Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation from a position of strength.

Lee later told a friend: “I went into Maryland to give battle, and could I have kept Gen. McClellan in ignorance of my position and plans a day or two longer, I would have fought and crushed him.”

Futility Closet is one of my favorite sites on the internet. Great for a few minutes to get my mind moving again.

So the Battle of Antietam was lost because a staffer lost the plans in the street… crazy, huh?

I haven’t got a very good way of making this about Claire and I. I suppose I could go on for a little bit about how everything had to align perfectly for us to meet and be where we are now, but I tend to think that that level of navel-gazing reeks of hubris.

Mostly, I just think that’s a crazy little story and wanted to share it.

A Different Commute

/ Claire / 3 Comments

These days, my commute to work has been pretty horrible.

The walk to work - pretty horrible, right?

Cobblestones, lush ferns, historic buildings – clearly, this kind of walk is not miserable by any means. In reality, the fact that I can walk to work is such a luxury that I’m happy enough to leave the house in the mornings (well, almost). I argue that it’s better than Jamey’s commute, which still has its fair share of red lights and too much traffic despite the breathtaking view the Ravenel Bridge offers of the Charleston Harbor in the mornings and evenings. Continue reading →