Amos Adams Lawrence and The Jayhawks

No, this isn't the cool name of some new band -


Amos Adams Lawrence (July 31, 1814 – August 22, 1886), born in Groton, Massachusetts and educated at Harvard College, was an important figure in the United States abolition (anti-slavery) movement in the years leading up to the Civil War.

He entered business as a commission merchant and eventually became owner of Ipswich Mills, the largest producer of knit goods in the country.

In addition, he was a member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Boston, where he met and married his wife, Sarah Appleton, as well as a trustee of Massachusetts General Hospital and president of the Young Men's Benevolent Society.

He contributed large amounts of capital to the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company, a company that supported the settlement of 1,200 people in what was to become Lawrence, Kansas, and John Brown's abolitionism. He played a major role in the crucial border state of Kansas although I don't believe he actually ever went to Kansas.

Lawrence also contributed to funds for the colonization of "free negroes" in Liberia, Africa. Liberia was founded as a colony by the American Colonization Society in 1821-22. It was created as a place for slaves freed in the United States to emigrate to in Africa, on the premise they would have greater freedom and equality there.

Lawrence financed the founding of the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. He also founded a college in 1849 that evolved into Lawrence University on 5,000 acres of land that he purchased in the Fox River Valley, which became Appleton, Wisconsin (so named for his wife).

His farm outside of Boston became the campus for Boston College. In 1857-1862 he was treasurer of Harvard College.


Jayhawkers is a term that came to prominence just before the Civil War in Kansas, where it was adopted by militant abolitionist groups. These groups, known as "Jayhawkers", were guerrilla fighters who often clashed with pro-slavery irregulars, as well as Missouri militia units.

Jayhawker miliary bands invaded Missouri with the intent of freeing slaves and killing slave owners. In the course of their mission they committed some of the most unjustifiable acts of the Civil War, including a massacre at Osceola, Missouri, in which the entire town was set aflame and at least 9 male residents were killed.

The sacking of Osceola inspired the 1976 film The Outlaw Josey Wales, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.

With the admission of Kansas as a free state in 1861, "Jayhawker" became synonymous with the people of Kansas. In more recent years the term "Jayhawker" has been applied to people or items related to Kansas, similar to the term "Hoosier" for Indiana, "Sooner" for Oklahoma, and "Buckeye" for Ohio.

The term refers to the mythical Jayhawk, a cross between two common birds—the noisy blue jay and the quiet sparrow hawk.

End of the Boating Season

For me, autumn starts when the boating season ends. Some years, it's possible to prolong the "summer" into the first week of November as the boat is "down south" in Maryland. But this year, due to a full weekend calendar in October, the season had to end a bit sooner.


I will miss the long walks on Rolph's Wharf Road past the tree farm, and soybeans, and the many large dogs that have come to know me and bark in excited greeting with wildly wagging tails.

I'll miss the deer and the ducks on Schrader Road...and the ice cold Arizona Ice Tea from the Farm store.


I will miss seeing Chester the Boating Peacock. Next spring he will be a grownup and have his full plumage - and be strutting about to attract a peahen's attention. He most likely will not be coming back to the boat for anymore fishing, crabbing, and sunset cruises.

I wish him the best of all things fowl and a full and happy life.


I enjoyed all of my the weekends there this summer - rain or shine - and even when it was hot and humid - and when I fell of the dock in the dark and lost my boat shoes in the mud - and when the pool was crowded with little dweebs that splashed me and got my glasses wet.

It's time to turn the lights out. Be back next spring.

My Trip to Prison (Part 4)

Alphonse "Scarface" Capone was an American gangster who led a crime syndicate dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging of liquor and other illegal activities during the Prohibition Era of the 1920s and 1930s.

Born in Brooklyn on January 17, 1899 to Italian immigrants, Capone began his career in Brooklyn before moving to Chicago and becoming the boss of the "Chicago Outfit" – although his business card described him as a used furniture dealer.

In 1929, Bureau of Prohibition agent Eliot Ness began investigating Capone and his businesses. By shutting down the many breweries and speakeasies Capone owned, Ness slowly brought Capone down. To lie low, Capone allegedly arranged to have himself jailed in a comfortable cell at Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary for nine months beginning August 1929.

Although he was never convicted of racketeering charges, or his undoubted role in ordering the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre and other murders, Capone's criminal career ended in 1931, when he was indicted and convicted by the federal government for income-tax evasion, [Begin sarcasm font]a crime more heinous than rape or murder in the eyes of the U.S. Government[End sarcasm font].

In May 1932, Capone was sent to Atlanta U.S. Penitentiary, but he was able to obtain special privileges there, just as he had in Philadelphia. He was then transferred to the then brand new Alcatraz Prison (in the San Francisco Bay), where tight security and an uncompromising warden ensured that Capone had no contact with the outside world.

At Alcatraz, his health declined as the syphilis he caught as a youth progressed. He spent the last year of his sentence in the prison hospital, confused and disoriented. He was paroled on November 16, 1939, spent a short time in a hospital, then returned to his home in Palm Island, Florida.

On January 21, 1947, Capone suffered a stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve but contracted pneumonia on January 24. He suffered a fatal cardiac arrest the next day.

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Al "Scarface" Capone got his first taste of prison life in Philadelphia. He stopped in Philadelphia while traveling from Atlantic City back to his home in Chicago in May, 1929. He was arrested outside a movie theater for carrying a concealed, unlicensed, .38 caliber revolver. The Philadelphia courts were tough. They handed Capone the maximum sentence: one year in prison.

Capone served eight months of that sentence in a cell nicknamed "Park Avenue".


While the regular inmates had a cell like this one - often doubled up with a bunk bed -


Al (C-5527) Capone's "Park Avenue" cell looked like this - with fresh paint, of course -

Capone was reportedly quite pleased with his new quarters. An article published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, August 20, 1929, described his cell in an article’s whose headline read, "'Very Comfortable' says Capone from Luxury Cell at Eastern Pen.":

The whole room was suffused in the glow of a desk lamp which stood on a polished desk.... On the once-grim walls of the penal chamber hung tasteful paintings, and the strains of a waltz were being emitted by a powerful cabinet radio receiver of handsome design and fine finish....

Al even got fresh flowers daily from the prison's green house and use of the Prison Warden's telephone.

Al Capone was an international celebrity in 1930. His release from Eastern State Penitentiary drew movie cameras, hundreds of on-lookers, and maybe even a few enemies. They gathered outside the prison's only door, all hoping for a glimpse of the famous Chicago gangster.

But warden Smith had other plans. Prison officials feared the crowd in front of Eastern State on March 17, 1930 might include some of Capone's enemies, waiting for his rare public appearance. When warden Smith announced that Capone had already been released the day before, many in the crowd did not believe him and waited for up to five hours later.


Note: Al Capone was sentenced to one year. He served several months in Holmesburg Prison, in Northeast Philadelphia and also a grim looking place, before being transferred to Eastern State, where he served 8 months.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a Bear

Like a bad case of Herpes... I'm back.

I want to thank all of your for well wishes and "hurry backs". I don't know what I'd do without you - your support and encouragement means so much to me.

I'll be brief today, much to do, so little time and much to catch up on, things that I let sit when I wasn't "up to par."

Ever since I was able to, I've had a beard. It covers a hideous scar on my chin that I got somewhere along the line - I remember I needed a bunch of stitches but, perhaps mercifully, not how it came to be that I needed them.

I'm kind of fuzzy that way.

Being a red-head perhaps, the beard took a long time to "fill in", so it looked rather fuzzy for the longest time.

Hence my nickname - Fuzzy. Fuzzy as in the scraggly beard - Fuzzy as in absented-minded professor - take your pick.

I had something happen yesterday for those that favor the absented-minded theory - something that rather upset me at the time but this morning I'm just kind of smiling at myself about it:


Earlier in the day yesterday, my Mother stopped in where I work and gave me a new cap - It says Long Island Lighthouse Tour - It's a pretty neat cap. I regularly wear a cap anyway, to keep the sun out of my eyes after a long day at a computer monitor - so yesterday I had two caps - and a briefcase and a bunch of loose stuff to carry out to my car - so I put on my regular cap and then the brand new one on top of it so I didn't have to carry it in my hands.

I then went to the Home Depot, to get some paint mixed up for the office maintenance guy to use today. The young woman at the paint counter was impressively efficient. She had nicely filled blue jeans, red hair, freckled face, a warm wonderful smile and vivid blue eyes. I gave her the color mix sample and she looked at me kind of oddly but bustled about and soon produced two gallons of semi-gloss "Orchid Blue Colonial" (whatever color that is...) As she handed the paint cans over the counter, she broke out with a delightful, trying to "choke it down" laugh and again looked at me oddly. I think I fell in love with her except for that odd laugh thing she did.

As there were three guys waiting impatiently in line, I couldn't dilly-dally - and I so much wanted to talk to her but regrettably, I went to the checkout line where another young woman rang me up and started snickering into her sleeve. I was starting to feel like Rodney Dangerfield or something...

I got out to the car and put the paint in the back and when I got in to drive home, I bumped my head slightly and a cap fell into my lap.... I had forgotten all about having two caps on my head.

Sigh. Well, I'm sure I made a lasting impression.