Heroic WWI Nurse Edith Cavell – shot by German Firing Squad

Edith, Cavell, British Red Cross Nurse during World War I, 1914
Edith Cavell, British Red Cross Nurse during World War I, 1914

Edith Cavell was a pioneering British Red Cross nurse, working in German-occupied Belgium during the World War I. Despite the risks, she secretly helped hundreds of wounded British, French and Belgian soldiers escape from German custody into Holland.  She was arrested and executed in October 1915 by a firing squad of German soldiers. Who was this courageous woman you likely never heard of?

Edith Louisa Cavell was born in 1865 in the English village of Swardeston, Norfolk. She was the daughter of a vicar and the eldest of four children. As a child, she raised funds for a new Sunday School room by selling her own artwork. Her favorite pastimes were tennis and dancing, and she once danced till her feet bled in a new pair of shoes. Educated in the UK, Cavell spent five years working as a governess with the Francoise family in Belgium and became fluent in both French and Dutch.  She returned home in 1895 to care for her ill father. Nursing her father back to health  inspired Cavell to completely change professions and become a nurse instead.

In 1896, she began her nursing training at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel. Her instructor remarked that she was not punctual and therefore ‘not a nurse who could be relied upon.’ Edith took it as a challenge and would prove her wrong.  She worked in hospitals in Shoreditch, Kings Cross and Manchester before moving back to Belgium. She came close to marriage, but never had a husband or children, devoting herself to her nursing passion instead.

In 1907, she accepted a position in Brussels as Matron in Belgium’s newly established training hospital and nursing school, ‘L’Ecole Belge d’Infirmieres Diplomees’ with Dr. Antoine Depage. There was no established nursing profession in Belgium at the time.  Until then, nuns had been responsible for the care of the sick and, however well intentioned, they had no training.

Due to her pioneering work in new nursing techniques, she is considered the founder of modern nursing in that country. By 1910, she had so advanced the nursing profession in Belgium that she began a professional nursing journal, L’infirmiere.  In 1911, she was a Training Nurse for three hospitals, 24 schools, and 13 kindergartens. By 1914, she was giving four lectures a week to doctors and nurses alike.

She was in Norfolk on holiday, visiting her mother in 1914, when World War I exploded across Europe. On hearing of the threat to Belgium from the advancing German troops, she felt it was her duty to not run from war but return to Brussels. Over her mother’s protests, she declared, “At a time like this, I am needed now more than ever.”

Edith Cavell headed back to the front line in Belgium.

Cavell worked in hospitals treating all soldiers who needed help, regardless of their nationality. When war was declared on Germany by England in August 1914, Cavell’s training school for nurses in Brussels was taken over by the Red Cross, treating casualties from the trenches on both sides, as well as civilians.

In November, the Germans occupied Brussels and it came under German military law. The Red Cross Journal later reported in November 1915: “Edith Cavell might have saved herself and left Brussels, but she elected to stay at her post. 60 English nurses were sent home. She remained.”

Edith ended up doing far more than nursing.  She soon began to work with the Belgian underground intelligence network, La Dame Blanche. They smuggled Allied soldiers into neutral Holland and Edith stepped up to help. Knowing how dangerous this was, Cavell kept her work secret from her fellow nurses. She became part of a network of people who sheltered Allied soldiers, arranging their escape.

Edith Cavell, center, with her Belgian Red Cross nurses in Brussels, 1914
Edith Cavell, center, with her Belgian Red Cross nurses in Brussels, 1914

In December 1914, La Dame Blanche asked Edith to help two wounded British soldiers trapped behind German lines following the Battle of Mons. She treated the men in her hospital and then arranged to have them successfully smuggled out of Belgium into the neutral Netherlands. She gave one of the men her Bible with a letter to her mother in Norfolk.

Cavell then began harboring other British and French soldiers and smuggling them out of occupied Belgium.  She provided them with false papers created by La Dame Blanche. They were then conducted by guides, often to her own house and others who were secretly a part of her cause.  The men were then furnished with clothes, money, and led to the Dutch border.

Over the next 11 months, she helped over 200 British, French and Belgian soldiers, sheltering them first in the hospital or her home ,and arranging for guides to shuttle them to the border. She often heard back from the soldiers she helped, thanking her when they arrived safely in Britain.

This was a clear violation of the German military law now in effect in Belgium.

German authorities became increasingly suspicious of Edith Cavell as the source of the missing wounded prisoners.  Adding to that suspicion was Cavell’s outspoken opinions about the cruelty of the German occupation.  She did not shy away from speaking up publicly in Brussels.

The Germans arrested two members of the escape team on 31 July 1915. Under interrogation, they revealed Edith’s name.  She had also been betrayed by a Frenchman, later convicted in French court as a German collaborator. After an investigation, on 5 August 1915, she was arrested by German military police and placed in solitary confinement in St Gilles Prison in Brussels. Edith was charged with harboring enemy Allied soldiers – a crime punishable by death. 

She was held in prison for almost 3 months.  When German authorities interrogated her, she proudly told truth.  She was responsible for harboring and transporting out of the country, 80 British soldiers, 25 French soldiers, and about 100 French and Belgian citizens.  Edith was tried at a court martial on 7 October 1915, along with 34 other people involved in or connected to the secret network.

She freely admitting at her trial that she had “successfully conducted allied soldiers to the enemy of the German people,” Edith willingly signed a written statement, confirming her involvement, though never named her co-conspirators.  She offered no defense of her actions other than she was simply doing her duty as a nurse.

According to German law, such an offense was punishable by death, a law that also applied to foreigners.  Ordinarily, the Geneva Convention protected medical personnel.  The German court stated that Cavell’s actions were belligerent and that she had thus forfeited such protection. Most of the 34 were sentenced to hard labor – but not Cavell.

Edith Cavell was found guilty and sentenced to death.

British  government officials stated that they were sadly powerless to assist Miss Cavell.  There was an international plea for mercy. The United States had not entered the war yet but they did apply diplomatic pressure on Germany, stating that if Germany executed Cavell their already sullied reputation would be irrevocably damaged.  The German civil governor was told that, along with the sinking of the Lusitania, the execution of Cavell would cause disgust in the civilized world.

The German civil governor recommended that Cavell be pardoned because of the humanitarian work she did as a nurse.  The military governor, however, ordered her execution. The Germans worried that if they gave her lenience, an upsurge of resistance would occur because they would have no fear of retribution.

The night before her execution, she told a British minister, who provided her Holy Communion that, “I expected my sentence. Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity. Patriotism is not enough.  I must have no hatred or bitterness to anyone.”  These words are inscribed on a statue of Cavell in Trafalgar Square in central London.  Edith’s most treasured possessions during her incarceration were the roses sent by her nurses, which she kept in her cell long after they wilted.

Her final words, spoken to a German priest the next day, were “Tell my loved ones that my soul is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country.”  Edith Cavell was shot dead by an 8 member firing squad at six paces at the Tir National, the Brussels firing range, at 7 am on 12 October 1915. She was buried in Brussels next to the prison. She was 49 years old. German Private Rimmel is said to have thrown down his rifle when ordered to fire at Nurse Cavell, and to have been shot by a German officer for refusing to obey orders.

Her execution caused outrage in Britain and the United States.

She became a symbol of the Allied cause.  Her memory was invoked in recruitment posters and messages in Britain and around the world. News about her death caused British recruiting to double for 8 weeks after her death. Edith’s dying played an important role in further forming American opinion about Germany.  The disgust at her treatment eased America’s entry into the war in 1917.

That same year, two British newspapers raised funds in memory of Edith Cavell, dedicated to the creation of six rest homes for nurses around England. Many nurses had also suffered greatly in the war and needed long term care as well.

After the war, her body was exhumed and escorted to Britain. On May 1919, in the Westminster Abbey, a memorial service was held for her.  She was laid to rest in Norwich Cathedral, near her birthplace.  The Red Cross Journal at the time reported that Edith Cavell was “a brave and patriotic lady, a distinguished member of the nursing profession who had done nothing worthy of death.”

Then Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith said: “We cannot at this moment forget, the imperishable story of the last hours of Edith Cavell. Thank God we have examples of all the qualities which have sustained our Empire. Let us be worthy of them.”

Edith Cavell was indeed a brave and patriotic woman who devoted her life to nursing and her country.  Perhaps the truest assessment of her would be to recognize her as she saw herself – as simply ‘a nurse who tried to do her duty.’  These values have lived on in her legacy, as she continues to inspire women.

Edith Cavell with her two dogs, Brussels, 1915
Edith Cavell with her two dogs. Brussels, 1915

A memorial statue for Edith Cavell was built near Trafalgar Square for her extraordinary life. The Red Cross remembered her with a bronze medal showing her portraits. On the back it says: 1915 REMEMBER!  The Church of England recognizes October 12th as the day for commemoration of Edith Cavell, patriot and nurse. In 2015, exhibitions took place to mark the 100th anniversary of her death. The Royal Mint created £5 coins featuring her portrait.

As a nurse, Edith Cavell did not shrink from death.  “I have seen death so often it is not strange, or fearful to me!”  She wrote to her fellow nurses while in prison, “I have told you that devotion will give you real happiness. Your whole duty and a good heart will be your greatest support in the hard moments of life and even in the face of death.” 

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The Windscale Nuclear Disaster – Britain’s Chernobyl

The Windscale Nuclear Facility, England, 1957
The Windscale Nuclear Facility, England, 1957

In 1957, in an English seaside town, a new type of disaster occurred when a fire broke out at the Windscale nuclear reactors. The fire, at the two-reactor facility in Cumbria (now Sellafield), was due to poor design and gross mismanagement, leading to deadly consequences. The incident became embroiled in Cold War-era secrecy and proved the desperate lengths the British government was willing to go to become a global nuclear power.

The origins of the Windscale nuclear fire can be found within the decades long Cold War, specifically the nuclear arms race.  Most nuclear projects in Britain and the U.S. were focused on deterring attacks from the Soviet Union, who were also building up their own massive nuclear arsenal.

For the UK, having nuclear bombs was not just about Soviet deterrence; but also about Britain remaining a world power. Following World War II, Britain’s empire and global influence was in steady decline.  It needed to prove itself capable of making atomic weapons by itself. It was under these political pressures that construction of the Windscale reactors began.

At the start of the 1950s, Britain built two nuclear reactors, then referred to simply as ‘Piles’, at the Windscale Works in Cumbria on the northwestern coast of England. The reactors were not built to produce electrical power, but rather plutonium-239 for use in nuclear weapons. Each reactor was fueled by 180 metric tons of uranium with 2,000 tons of graphite moderators. In 1952, the British government put the completed Windscale Piles online.

However, several factors had complicated the design and construction process.

The Windscale Piles were planned and constructed far too rapidly.  The reactor’s chimneys were partly complete when Sir John Cockcroft, Director of the atomic energy regulator, insisted that radioactive particle filters be added in case of an accident.  By then, filters could only be added on top, rather than within the chimneys where they needed to be.

Another issue was that this new nuclear technology was not perfectly understood by the scientists who designed it. The relatively low temperatures at which the Piles were operating caused a build-up of “Wigner Energy,” which could increase temperatures in the reactor if allowed to accumulate.  When the engineers finally noticed the problem, their only available solution was to heat the Piles hotter than normal to help release the energy. This process, called ‘Annealing,’ seemed to work.

The reactors were built with an air-cooling, rather than the typical water-cooling, system of most nuclear reactors.  This increased the possibility of radioactive air being blown out onto the unsuspecting English countryside.  Filters were added at the insistence of John Cockcroft, but at the wrong location on the chimneys.

Other corners were cut to save money and produce plutonium faster than the Piles were capable of safely producing. Windscale was plagued with safety concerns from the start, due to the tight deadlines and time constraints ordered by the British government, who wanted atomic bombs ASAP.

In 1957, the UK faced its worst nuclear power accident in history.

In October, a fire broke out in Windscale’s Pile 1 while it was being routinely “annealed.”  When the process was initiated on October 8th, the pile failed to get warm enough to regulate the Wigner energy levels in the graphite moderators. Wigner energy increases because of the displacement of carbon atoms in the graphite lattice. This energy needed to be regularly annealed through the heating process that released the energy.

When the process was tried again the next day, October 9th, the pile became sufficiently hot (uranium temperature of 250 C), but strangely stayed hot. Then as the staff watched in shock, the temperature reading within the Reactor 1 began to rise and rise.  It reached an alarming 400 C, the hottest the reactor had ever reached. Air fans failed to cool down the pile.

On October 10th, the site engineers realized in horror what was happening. The interior of the reactor now glowed with heat.  A protective aluminum cannister had burst inside Pile 1 allowing the uranium to catch file.  Uranium fuel cartridges were now incredibly hot.  Engineers discovered flames at the back of Pile 1!

The reactor’s engineers and operators frantically made several different efforts to fight the fire. First, they attempted to knock the burning uranium away manually using long metal poles. Then carbon dioxide was pumped into the pile in an attempt to smother the flames. Neither strategy had an effect.

On October 11th at 9 AM, water was turned on, with the flow increased through the day from an initial flow of 300 gallons per minute, to 800 gal/min, to 1,000 gal/minute by Noon. The water flow continued until the next day, October 12th with no effect. Finally, the engineers closed off the airflow to the reactor and the fire died out. The reactor slowly cooled down to a stable temperature and everyone in the control room breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Windscale had released radioactive debris into the English atmosphere for four days.

It became the worst accidental release of radioactive materials in British history. Local residents in nearby Nethertown, Gosforth and Seascale were not evacuated or even notified that a facility fire was taking place, There were left in the dark and therefore exposed to radiation.  Fortunately, Cockcroft’s filters, nicknamed “Cockcroft’s follies” at the time,  had prevented the impact from being far worse.

Following the fire, environmental measurements were taken to determine the spread of radiation.  Measurements showed atmospheric dispersion of radioactive materials throughout England, Wales and parts of northern Europe with the highest concentrations to be I-131 and Cs-137. Of the two, the bigger focus was on the I-131 as the most hazardous consequence of the fire.

The most visible action at the time, and the only one the government acknowledged, dealt with milk contamination. Despite fears over the potential cancer risks posed to locals, especially children, the main course of action taken was the destruction of around 250,000 gallons of milk from farms within 300 square miles of the facility.

After radioactive iodine-131 particles were released into the air, they fell onto farmland grasses and were eaten by dairy cows. The milk produced would then contain enough radioactive iodine to raise the risks of thyroid cancer, especially in children who drank it. Further, the government banned sales of milk from within 200 square miles of Windscale, but for only a month.

Windscale Disaster spread of radiation, 1957
Windscale Disaster spread of radiation, 1957

Other than this, the government insisted the population need not worry. In fact, radioactive particles had spread across the northern UK and eastward over Europe.  The disaster would later be rated Level Five on the seven-point International Nuclear Event Scale – the same as the USA’s Three Mile Island disaster.

The British government downplayed the accident. The government’s report on the fire was deemed unpublishable due to the secrecy risk it posed.  Harold Macmillan, then UK Prime Minister, mandated that only the summary of the report be published.  British nuclear physicist Sir William Penney’s report on the incident was censored and blamed the staff. The pile operators had resorted to shaving down the protective fins of the aluminum cartridges that housed the uranium to increase yield.

The Windscale Piles closed for good.

The members of government, who had ignored safety risks by putting pressure on the factory to produce plutonium faster, were quick to shift blame to the Pile operators.  An investigation by Sir Alexander Fleck prompted the 1971 creation of the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB). The Windscale site, renamed Sellafield in the 1980’s, has continued to host energy generation and waste management since.

Recent reports have concluded that the fire was ultimately caused by the project’s emphasis on speed and output over safety.  It was not until the late 1980s, 30 years later, that relevant documents were declassified and made available. In 1990, the director of the UK’s National Radiological Protection Board estimated that the fire had likely caused about 100-240 local deaths from cancer, in addition to countless non-fatal cancers. It was a high price to pay for the Cold War arms race.

For decades, Pile 1 remained sealed away, unused though monitored. In recent years, a slow process of decommissioning has begun including clean-up of the fire’s effects.  In 2021, the government announced that it had demolished Pile 1’s infamous chimneys. Spent fuel also needs to be treated and stored. The target date for completing all decommissioning activities at Sellafield is 2040.

It can be argued that 20th century governments, 75 years ago, believed that the benefits justified the risks. However, in cases like Windscale and later Chernobyl, the politics of the Cold War encouraged governments on either side to take fewer cautions against the public health risks posed by their nuclear projects.

In a post-Chernobyl/Fukushima world, it seems horrifying that governments would have such a careless reaction, but in the 1950s, many countries downplayed or covered up the environmental and health risks posed by their nuclear programs. Both Windscale and Chernobyl were operating with poor designs; pressure for fast results; and with safety risks accepted as a means of rushing timelines and, of course, saving money.

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The MV Doña Paz – the Worst Maritime Disaster in History

Doña Paz on fire following its collision with an oil tanker in the Philippines Sea,1987

While the Titanic may be the most famous shipwreck, its death toll was but a third of the world’s deadliest, taking the lives of over 4,300 souls.  Just five days before Christmas, the MV Doña Paz ferry collided with an oil tanker, burnt to the water line, and sank in the Philippine Sea.  “Asia’s Titanic” was the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster of the 20th century.

On December 20, 1987, a routine ferry journey turned catastrophic and shocked the world.  The disaster exposed inadequate safety measures, vast overcrowding, and a lack of maritime regulations.  How could this have happened?

The MV Doña Paz was a passenger ferry operated by Sulpicio Lines, a major Philippine shipping company.  That night, the ferry was travelling on a routine trip from Tacloban City in Leyte, to the capital of Manila. The ferry had a registered capacity of 1,518 passengers.  The official manifest listed 1,593 passengers and 60 crew. It was grossly overloaded with more than 4,300 passengers —many unregistered, including children, traveling without proper tickets.

Earlier, on 20 December 1987, the Doña Paz departed from Tacloban, Leyte Island, for the Philippines capital of Manila, with a stopover at Catbalogan, Samar. The atmosphere aboard the overcrowded Doña Paz was nevertheless quite festive. Passengers were looking forward to reuniting with loved ones for the Christmas season, completely unaware of the tragedy that awaited them.

At 10:30 pm (22:30), most of the passengers were sleeping in seats or crammed onto floors.  While sailing near Dumali Point, along the busy Tablas Strait near Mindora, the ferry suddenly collided with the oil tanker, MT Vector. The tanker was on route from Bataan to Masbate, carrying 1,041 tons of gasoline and over 7,000 barrels of other flammable petroleum products.

The collision sparked a massive explosion and fire onboard the oil tanker. It also rained down flames and flammable petroleum onto the deck of the ferry.  Within minutes, the Doña Paz and the surrounding sea were also aflame. Survivors described waking up after sensing the crash.  The following explosion aboard the Vector, panic ensued on the ferry ship.

The MV Doña Paz had no working radio, leaving it unable to send out distress signals. A power blackout left the ship without lights.  Passengers onboard could not access life vests which were locked away in cabinets on deck. None of the Doña Paz crew members were at their posts.  Only an apprentice seaman was on the ship’s bridge at the time of the collision. Officers were drinking beer and watching TV in the rec. room.

The captain of the Doña Paz was watching a movie in his cabin.

The crew panicked as well.  With a lack of guidance, the panicked passengers clawed over each other to reach the upper deck. Those who made it, then had to quickly decide if they should stay onboard their burning vessel OR jump into the flaming waters surrounding the ship. Gasoline had leaked onto the water and caught fire as well.

Passengers faced a disorienting panic. Survivors reported that the crew failed to provide instructions or assistance in the chaos. With fire spreading throughout ship, panicked passengers on deck jumped into the burning sea. There they faced thick black smoke or being engulfed by the flames of the burning oil slick.

Intense flames quickly consumed both vessels and turned the sea into a fiery inferno. It took only two hours for the Doña Paz to sink into the strait and four hours for the MV Vector.

In the ensuing rescue, only 24 survivors were rescued—21 from the Doña Paz and 3 from the Vector’s 13-man crew. These floating survivors were picked by passing ships or vessels responding to the distress call from the Vector. Most survivors had sustained third degree burns. None of the crew of the Doña Paz survived. The majority of the passengers perished in the flames, the sea, or went down trapped within the ship.

The death toll was staggering.

While the ferry’s manifest listed only 1,593 passengers and crew, investigators discovered that 4,386 people were aboard.  This far exceeded its maximum capacity.  The sheer number of unlisted passengers made it impossible to account for everyone. The official tally made the Doña Paz the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history, surpassing both the Titanic and Lusitania.

The investigation that followed revealed a series of major failures and oversights:

  1. The Doña Paz was packed with passengers way beyond its legal capacity.  Many were not listed in the ship’s manifest, making it difficult to track the actual number of dead.
  2. Survivor testimonies indicated that the ferry’s crew were woefully unprepared for such a catastrophe. Passengers had no access to locked up life vests or emergency equipment. The crew themselves were untrained in guiding passengers.
  3. The MT Vector was not seaworthy. The tanker was sailing without a valid license.  Its crew lacked proper training to handle hazardous materials. Why had it been allowed to operate at all?
  4. The collision instantly ignited the Vector’s cargo, causing a rapid and devastating fire. The absence of fire safety equipment aboard the Doña Paz doomed the ferry.

In the aftermath of the disaster, public outrage grew in the Philippines.  There were widespread calls demanding improved maritime safety regulations. However, no one was held accountable. Both the owners of the Doña Paz and the MV Vector denied responsibility.  Lawsuits dragged on for over a decade.

The maritime authorities and Philippine government were both criticized for their lack of oversight and failure to enforce safety protocols.  Some reforms were introduced to strengthen maritime safety standards.  Still, many felt the authorities failed to take adequate steps to prevent another such disaster. International maritime organizations called for stricter enforcement of regulations.

In 1999, the Philippine Supreme Court ruled that the Vector’s owners were liable.

They ship found the ship unseaworthy and operating without a license, a lookout, or a qualified master. The investigation by the Philippine Coast Guard revealed that the crew were not at their assigned posts and were unable to guide evacuation efforts.  They attributed the death toll to overloading, a common practice in the Philippine ferry industry.

The incident was a mix of corrupt practices – allowing illegal purchase of extra tickets amid the Christmas season, poor oversight by authorities, and an inadequate safety culture onboard. In 1979, the ship was named Don Sulpicio when it suffered a major fire and declared a loss. The ship was refurbished however and came back in service as the “Doña Paz”.

The Doña Paz before the disaster.
The Doña Paz before the disaster.

Sadly, the Doña Paz is part of a long list of disasters in Philippine maritime history.  From 1972 to 1987, there were 80 collisions, 177 sinkings and 53 fires.  Sulpicio Lines was involved in a total of four deadly shipping accidents, resulting in 5,000 deaths in 11 years. In 1987,  the Doña Marilyn, sister ship of Doña Paz, sank off Leyte province, killing around 300. In 1998, 200 died when the Princess of the Orient, another sister ship, sank in stormy seas near Batangas.

Although the marine inquiry and the courts ruled that the Doña Paz owner was not to blame, the evidence revealed an unacceptablely poor safety culture within the company. In 2015, the CPC of Sulpicio Lines was suspended. It now operates under a different name and ships cargo only.

The environmental consequences of the oil spill had a lasting impact on the marine ecosystem of the Tablas Strait. The explosion and sinking released large quantities of fuel, one of the worst oil spills in Philippine history.  The oil slick damaged fragile coastal ecosystems, wreaking havoc on local fish populations. The damage to coral reefs took years to heal. In some areas, the impact was irreversible. The Tablas Strait was marked by reduced fish stocks, affecting the livelihoods of coastal communities.

The Doña Paz Disaster is a stark reminder of the dangers of inadequate safety standards and corrupt practices. In maritime history, the disaster stands as a tragic lesson on the importance of both enforcing regulations and preventing negligence. Every December 20th, Filipinos remember the thousands of lives lost in the disaster, offering prayers and memorials for those souls who perished.  The Doña Paz disaster serves as a sobering reminder of what happens when corporate profits are put before public safety.

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The Spirited Alice Roosevelt Longworth – Teddy’s Oldest Daughter

Alice Roosevelt, oldest daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902
Alice Roosevelt, oldest daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902

Alice Roosevelt Longworth was the oldest daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt.  She grew up to become just as outspoken and strong-willed as her father.  Alice was the most unconventional first daughter ever to live in the White House.  She became a Washington socialite and political power broker with a keen intellect and a razor-sharp tongue.

Her boldly independent, free-spirit breathed a new life into the concept of womanhood in the early 20th century, just as the Suffrage movement was gaining momentum. She would be involved in both woman’s rights and later, the sexual revolution of the 1960’s.   Even her iron-willed father admitted he could not control his free-willed daughter.

Alice Roosevelt was the only daughter of a young Theodore Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Lee, whom he loved deeply. Two days after giving birth in 1884, Alice Lee tragically died of Bright’s Disease. That same day, Teddy’s mother Martha died just hours earlier of typhoid fever, downstairs in the same house.

 A distraught, 25-year-old Theodore named his new little girl for his late wife.  He was so overcome with grief, that he would never call his daughter by her name, and instead referred to her as Baby Lee. Not only would Roosevelt never say the name “Alice” again, but he would not let anyone else say it around him either.

To deal with his crippling grief, Teddy Roosevelt left New York City and started a ranch in the wild Badlands of North Dakota.  He left his daughter under the care of his sister Anna (Bamie) in New York. While away, Teddy worked through his grief far from baby Alice. He raised cattle. He hunted buffalo. He even boxed with a gunfighter in a saloon.

Meanwhile, Alice Lee remained in New York City with her Aunt Anna.

Bamie would have a huge influence on Alice due to her own strong and independent nature. When Teddy returned to Alice two years later in 1886, he married his high school sweetheart, Edith Carow. The new family moved to Oyster Bay, Long Island, and Teddy and Edith had five more children. But tensions formed between Teddy’s second wife and his oldest daughter.

Her step-mother Edith was jealous of Roosevelt’s past relationship with his first wife and took out these insecurities on young Alice. Edith once told the girl that if her ‘dull’ mother had lived, she would have bored her father Teddy to death. Matters only worsened as Alice Lee grew into an attractive young woman.

Alice Roosevelt became both strong-willed and fiercely independent. Edith could not control her and implored Teddy to send the girl to a private boarding school. The fiery young girl replied, “If you send me away, I will humiliate you. I will do something that will shame you. I tell you, I will!” To Edith’s dismay, Teddy relented. They sent Alice Roosevelt back to her Aunt Bamie instead to be tutored.

In 1901, the Roosevelt family’s life changed forever when Teddy became President on the death of William McKinley.  He was now in the public eye more than ever.  Alice was now 17.  When Roosevelt took office, he brought his wife and six young children into the White House, whose playful antics charmed the country.

It was the lively Alice who quickly became the focus of the press’ adulation and scrutiny. Glowing reports were printed about her society debut at the White House in 1902. Soon, the color “Alice Blue,” based on the dress she wore, was a sought-after fashion staple. Songs were even named after the first daughter.

“Princess Alice,” as the press called her, had become an instant sensation.  She smoked cigarettes in public (her father forbid her to smoke under his roof). She stayed out late partying and rode back in cars with men unchaperoned.  She was even seen placing sports bets with a bookie.

Once asked by the press about his daughter’s wild exploits, Teddy Roosevelt replied with exasperation, “I can either run the country, or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.” Alice grew distant from her father as she was angered by his refusal to still not call her by her name.

Teddy Roosevelt admitted to being mortified by his daughter’s behavior.

She had become the opposite for what a “young lady” of her time was supposed to be. She was cheered at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, welcomed by fireworks during a visit to Cuba, and greeted by fans at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Edith Roosevelt chided Alice for waving to her fans during Teddy’s 1905 inauguration.

Her free spirit caused much of the public to fall in love with her. “She has become one of the most regarded women in the world,” the NY Tribune wrote of her.  The press was present when she became the first woman to drive alone in a car, when she raced up and down the streets of Washington.  She smoked publicly, chewed gum, played poker, often wore pants, partied all night, and slept till noon.

Alice kept a dagger and a pet garter snake in her purse. She often phoned in tips of her whereabouts to reporters so that she could collect the cash rewards offered for info about her. The New York Herald printed a running score of her social life over the course of one 15-month period, which included 407 dinners, 350 balls, 300 parties, and 680 teas.

Despite their battle of wills, Roosevelt was shrewd enough to capitalize on his daughter’s popularity. In 1905, he sent her on a high-visibility trip – a month’s long diplomatic mission to Asia, with stops in Japan, China, Korea and the Philippines. Members of the mission included Secretary of War William Taft, 7 senators, 23 congressmen, and other diplomats.

True to form, Alice made headlines at every stop of the journey.

She was welcomed by the Emperor Meiji of Japan and Empress Dowager Cixi of China—a testament to her role as her father’s emissary. She did not abandon her fun entirely, making news by jumping into the ship’s pool fully clothed, then urging members of the delegation to join her.  Many young women viewed Alice Roosevelt as the future of womanhood and cheered her on.

Alice was equal amounts competitive with her father and fiercely loyal to him. “Being the offspring of a very conspicuous parent, I wasn’t going to let him get the better of me.”  She once pointed out that her extroverted father was “the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the child at every baptism.

Every time she was spotted out with a man, people speculated that she’d marry him.  While on the Asia tour, Alice met her future husband, Congressman Nicholas Longworth. When she returned from China, they announced their engagement. He was a debonair bachelor and Washington socialite — who also resembled Theodore Roosevelt.

News of Alice’s engagement to a politician 15 years older unleashed a media frenzy. The public gathered outside the White House on February 17, 1906, in hopes of glimpsing the political wedding of the century. The event was so festive the press likened it to a national holiday. Well-wishers lined the streets hoping for a glimpse of the famous couple.

Nicholas Longworth & Alice Roosevelt with Theodore Roosevelt 1906
Nicholas Longworth & Alice Roosevelt with Theodore Roosevelt 1906

Inside the East Room, dignitaries and emissaries watched the bride slice the wedding cake, not with a knife but with a sword. “Miss Roosevelt looked as pretty as she ever did in her life, and that is saying a good deal,” the New York Times gushed. “The best pictures that have been printed do not do justice.”

Princess Alice received ornate gifts befitting royalty – a gold box from England’s King Edward VII, a diamond bracelet from Germany’s Wilhelm II and jewelry from the dowager empress of China.  Of the marriage that followed, Alice later admitted, “I hardly reveled in it.” Both of them partied often and had various affairs, though they remained married.

In the election of 1912, Taft once a close friend of her father, was now a bitter rival.  Roosevelt was trying for a third term in his newly formed Progressive Bull Moose Party, which split the Republican vote. Alice’s public insults of Mrs. Taft caused her to be banned from White House events. After her father lost, Alice buried a voodoo doll of first lady Nellie Taft in the White House garden.

Alice had become a prominent, if unofficial, political figure.

Woodrow Wilson emerged victorious over both her father and Taft. She vocally opposed Wilson’s League of Nations at the end of World War I. She was banned from the White House again by the Wilsons.  When Teddy died in 1919, Alice Roosevelt took up her father’s political causes. She became known as the “Other Washington Monument.”

In 1925, Longworth and Alice purchased 2009 Massachusetts Avenue. What attracted them to the property was its location. Dupont Circle and Massachusetts Avenue was where Washington’s power elite and millionaire industrialists owned mansions.  It was an imposing five-story, limestone house, consisting of 20 rooms and 6 baths.

Alice began a lifetime of influence in Washington circles. She was a formidable friend—or foe—of every president who followed her father.  Even relatives were not spared. Longworth publicly opposed her Democratic cousin Franklin Roosevelt for President in 1932.  She said of him, “The same surname is about all we have in common…. I am a Republican…. I am going to vote for Hoover.“

Alice was a harsh and outspoken critic of her cousin Franklin’s New Deal during the Great Depression. Alice once declared that her cousin Franklin was “one-third sap and two-thirds Eleanor.” Eleanor Roosevelt countered that Alice Longworth led a life that was “one long pursuit of pleasure and excitement, and rather little real happiness.”

Her marriage was rocky throughout the years. Alice had a long affair with Senator William Borah in the 1920’s.  By her own later admission, Borah was the father of her only child, a daughter, Paulina Longworth. She was born shortly after Alice’s 41st birthday in 1925.

When Nicholas died in 1931, her family fortune was nearly exhausted.  Alice needed to find a source of income.  In 1933, she published her autobiography “Crowded Hours,” full of tales and reminiscences of her father, family, and public life. She even posed for cold cream and a cigarette advertisements.

“Mrs. L.” managed to rein over Washington social and political scene for decades to come. Politicians sought Alice’s advice and opinions at her famous dinner parties. Alice frequently brought power brokers together in her home. She could either aid or hinder candidates and Congressional bills. She denied influencing floor votes, but regular visits to congressional hearings suggest otherwise.

Alice was close friends with Richard Nixon when he was vice president.

Alice Roosevelt Longworth and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, 1962
Alice Roosevelt Longworth and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, 1962

She encouraged Nixon to run for president and continued to invite him to her famous dinners.  Although a staunch Republican, Alice later became smitten with the Kennedys. She assisted First Lady Jacqueline in restoring the White House. She changed parties after the assassination and supported Bobby Kennedy in 1968.

When Nixon became president, he invited Alice to his formal White House dinners.  That same year, Nixon threw an 87th birthday party for her at the White House.  In true form, she said of the occasion, “It was so gruesome. Everyone looks at you and wonders if she’ll last another year.”  Her friendship with Nixon ended with the Watergate Scandal. 

Her social sphere was not limited to just presidents and lawmakers. She always appeared when foreign dignitaries were in town: Alice met Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1976, during their visit for America’s bicentennial celebration. She also stayed active in feminist causes important to American woman, calling Gloria Steinem “one of my heroes.”

In the 1960s and 1970s, Dupont Circle became home to hippies, and the so-called “Duchess of Dupont Circle,” continued to live there. One night during the Vietnam War protests, she stuck her head out a window during a demonstration and got a whiff of police tear gas, which she said, “cleared my sinuses.”

Her house was cluttered with animal skins and stuffed heads from her father’s many hunting expeditions, and filled with a lifetime collection of books and photographs. “After reading all night, I like a day that begins at 11 am.” Alice slept in a bedroom with a refrigerator stocked with late night snacks to accompany her reading.

Her only daughter, Paulina, would struggle with depression and addiction her entire life.  Paulina’s husband had died in 1951 and she died of an overdose of sleeping pills in 1957. This left Alice to care for her now-orphaned granddaughter, Joanna Sturm alone. Joanna would go on to have a daughter herself, who she named Alice.

In her final years, as Alice Roosevelt Longworth began showing signs of senility. Her granddaughter would call Alice’s friends and urge them to come to visit.  “I don’t think I am cruel or insensitive. I laugh, I have a sense of humor,” Alice Roosevelt Longworth said in an interview, “I like to tease … Isn’t it strange how that upsets some people?” When Alice recalled her young life, “I must admit a sense of mischief does get hold of me from time to time. I had an appetite for being entertained.”

Although Alice was Theodore Roosevelt’s firstborn child, she was the last of his children to die. She died at age 96 in 1980. President Carter’s official statement said, “She had style, she had grace, and she had a sense of humor that kept generations of Washington politicians wondering which was worse—to be skewered by her or be ignored by her.” At her own request, her granddaughter buried her without fanfare in Washington’s Rock Creek Cemetery next to her husband.

Alice Roosevelt was well known for her famous quips, “The secret of eternal youth is arrested development.” Another was, “My specialty is detached malevolence.”  She stated that her philosophy in life was quite simple. “Fill what’s empty, empty what’s full, and scratch where it itches.” Perhaps her most famous quote was during a White House dinner in 1965, “If you haven’t got anything good to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”

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How Saint Paul spread Christianity in the Roman Empire

Saint Paul (Saul of Tarsus) statue in front of St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican
Saint Paul (Saul of Tarsus) statue in front of St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican

Saint Paul is one of the most central figures in the religious history of the western world. Following his conversion from Judaism to Christianity, he travelled tens of thousands of miles around the Mediterranean Sea. During four, long missionary journeys, he spread the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  It was Saint Paul who planted the seeds and turned Christianity from a small Palestinian sect into a worldwide faith, open to all people.

His written works are some of the earliest Christian documents, 13 of the 27 books of the New Testament. What we know about Saint Paul comes mainly from two Biblical sources, the Acts of the Apostles, written after Paul’s death, likely by the same author as Luke’s gospel. The second source is Saint Paul’s own letters (Epistles) to his followers.  But who was this man who first persecuted Christians, then would become one its greatest disciples?

Paul was born Saul somewhere between 5 BC and 5 AD in Tarsus, on the coast of modern-day southern Turkey.  Though a Jew, Saul was also born a Roman citizen, which came with certain privileges in the vast empire.  Like his father, he became a successful tent maker by trade.  Saul was born to a staunchly Jewish family well known in their community. His family was well off as they could send him off to be educated in Jerusalem.  There he became an avid student.  Saul later described himself before his conversion as “of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor.” (Philippians 3).

As a Roman citizen, he knew both Greek and Latin. Like many Jews of that time, he had a second Greco-Latin name, Paul. Stubborn and bold, Saul became a skilled debater. As a Pharisee, he was among the first Jews to widely persecute Christians.  He considered them a dangerous, subversive sect needing to be overthrown. Saul “sought to destroy the Church: he went into the houses, took men and women, and put them in prison” (Acts 8).

In the Acts of the Apostles, he is mentioned for the first time during the stoning of the disciple Stephen in Jerusalem – the first Christian martyr. As a persecutor of the church, Saul had authority over and approval of the stoning. His intense zeal for this work was widely known, so he was reviled by the early Christians. The disciples of Jesus also feared and ran from him.

The early followers of Jesus were still devout Jews who continued to observe Jewish Law. But they were still a small sect within Judaism.  So Paul attempted to snuff out this fledgling movement before it could spread and do much damage. After the stoning of Stephen, Saul was authorized by the high priest to execute the fugitives in Jerusalem. He would travel wherever he could to stomp out the young Christian religion.

It took divine intervention for Saul to convert to Christianity.

He had never listened to or met Jesus while was alive.  Around 37 AD, Saul was on his way to Damascus on an assignment to persecute Christians there.  Suddenly, a heavenly light shone on him.  Falling to the ground, he heard a voice from above saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ Saul responded, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The voice answered, ‘I am Jesus, whom you persecute.  Now get up and go into the city.’ (Acts 9).  Saul looked up and saw a vision of the risen Jesus in the light.

Saul was temporarily blinded and the event would change his life completely. He was escorted by his fellow travelers to Damascus blind, where for three days, he neither ate nor drank.  A disciple in Damascus named Arnanias baptized Saul as Paul, and his vision was immediately restored.

Paul then met with the small Christian community in the city and testified to what happened to him on the road. He stayed with the disciples in Damascus and began to preach with enthusiasm in the synagogues.  Instead of flushing out Christians, he had now become one! Pharisees now sought out to kill Paul for preaching Christianity instead of persecuting it. He had to flee Damascus and went to Jerusalem.

There, he met Simon Peter and the other Apostles, who looked upon him with great skepticism and mistrust.  In the end though, Peter accepted this new zeal as bestowed by Christ and welcomed him. Paul listened to the Apostles and learned the teachings of Jesus. He left Jerusalem a fervent disciple and returned to Tarsus.  There he devoted himself to evangelizing both Jews and pagans, referred to in the Bible as ‘Gentiles.’

Saul’s earlier passion for persecuting Christians turned into an even greater fervence to spread the gospel across the Mediterranean. Paul earned his own living wherever he went. Luke says that he was a tentmaker and Paul often talks about how he combined his preaching with working with his hands.

Paul would make four great missionary journeys.

Around 46 AD, the Christian church in Syrian Antioch chose Paul and another disciple, Barnabas, to proclaim the gospel throughout Galatia (modern Turkey). This would become Paul 1st great missionary Journey.

The pair sailed to the island of Cyprus, where the Bible notes that he confronted a sorcerer preaching the devil’s work, one of many confrontations to follow.  They then sailed to the mainland and travelled to Pisidian Antioch, in present day central Turkey, preaching the gospel of Jesus.  The pair travelled to Iconium and Lystra, where Paul performed a miracle, healing a man crippled since birth.  They then returned to Syrian Antioch via Perga. The journey would last two years.

When they stopped in each city, Paul went to the synagogues to preach the teachings of Jesus to Jews, proclaiming him the Messiah and the fulfillment of the Old Testament. In each location he also converted Gentiles to followers of Christianity and founded small churches in each community. The people there were typically Greco-Romans or pagan-druids who worshiped multiple gods. He returned to Jerusalem excited to discuss their journey with Peter and the Apostles.

Paul’s second journey begins around 51 AD.   Barnabas and Paul had a falling out over which disciple should accompany them, and the men parted ways.  Paul travels on foot across Galatia with the disciple Silas (Silvanus), revisiting the churches he founded in Lystra and Iconium.   On this trip, Paul has a dream where Jesus calls to him to go even further and bring the gospel to Macedonia and Greece. So they sailed across the Aegean Sea next.

Here the pair traveled down the east coast of Greece, preaching about Jesus in Thessalonia and Phillipi, where they were briefly imprisoned in chains. Paul attempted to proclaim the gospel in Athens, but was rebuffed by the Greeks. He then went to Corinth where they stayed for a year, establishing a larger church there. He traveling back through Ephesus on the Turkish coast, before sailing back to Jerusalem, then returning to Syrian Antioch. This second, longer journey would last three years.

Paul began his third great journey around 54 AD, this time with a young apprentice Timothy.

This was a pastoral journey revisiting the small churches he had founded to strengthen them, grow their congregations, and give them further instruction. He retraced his prior land trip across Galatia, spending three years establishing a church at Ephesus.  While in Ephesus, Paul heard a prophecy that should he return to Jerusalem, he would be imprisoned by the Jews. His Ephesian followers pleaded with him not to go. Peter would not be dissuaded.

From there they crossed the Aegean Sea once again, returning to Macedonia, Thessalonia and Corinth, visiting the communities that had previously welcomed him. It was during this 3rd missionary journey that Paul cemented many of the churches he would later write epistles to. He returned again to Jerusalem four years later. 

The four missionary journeys of Saint Paul.
The four missionary journeys of Saint Paul.

While he was gone, tensions had developed between the Gentile-Christians he had founded and the Judeo-Christians of Palestine following Peter.  Peter, who at first freely ate with Gentiles, later withdrew from contact with them. Paul did not shy away from taking Peter to task for it. They two men disagreed face to face over the demands that Gentiles follow certain rules of Jewish law.  Paul argued with Peter about the foolishness of not accepting the Gentiles because of this.

“I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.  If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile (by following Jesus), how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Galatians 2).

Paul’s ministry was particularly punishing on him and marked with other conflicts and several imprisonments in the cities he traveled and preached to. He argued with Gentiles who opposed the impact his preaching their business trade. Paul also had conflicts with new Christian leaders who neglected to abide by ALL Christian principles and only cherry-picked the ones that pleased them.

Paul fell back on his Roman citizenship on several occasions to alleviate his most dire situations. The first was when Paul and Silas were beaten for preaching as Christians in Philippi. The second was in Jerusalem, where Paul was to be flogged by Roman soldiers after daring to preach in the temple. The third time was in Caesarea, when Paul was on trial before the Roman governor Festus. He was accused by the Jews of preaching against Jewish law.  They had him arrested (as prophesized in Ephesus) and held in prison for 2 years in Caesarea.

Facing trial, Paul as a Roman citizen, boldly appealed directly to Emperor Claudius.

The emperor had him transferred to Rome, thus beginning his 4th great journey. Along the way, he healed the father of the governor of Malta who was suffering from fever.  In Rome, he was placed under house arrest for 2 more years. It was in the Roman capitol, where church leaders say Peter found him, and Paul met the fledgling Christian community there. The charges against him were dismissed, after which Paul continued his 4th missionary journey in Rome itself.

Paul was arrested one final time by the infamous Emperor Nero. This time, for converting Romans to Christianity and daring to proclaim Christ king, not the emperor.  Nero blamed the burning of Rome on the Christians and a Roman court condemned Paul to execution. The Bible does not record Paul’s death, but tradition holds that he was executed on the Aqueas Salviae sometime around 68 AD.  As a Roman citizen, he was beheaded rather than crucified.

Though there is no mention in the Bible of Paul and Peter meeting in Rome, Christian tradition holds that they were imprisoned together and embraced on the Via Osteinse before being led to their respective executions.  One can only imagine their last poignant words together. Legend has it that the Apostle Peter was crucified, upside down at his own request, on Vatican Hill. The Basilica of St. Peter and the Basilica of St. Paul stand over what is believed to be their respective tombs.

During his later journeys, Saint Paul wrote some of the most eloquent passages in the Bible (1 Corinthians 13). He became the first great Christian theologian, establishing some of the building blocks of the church that Christians now take for granted. Paul contributed much to how Christianity understands the relationship between the Old and New Testament.

In his letters, Saint Paul frets about who will defend the status of his converts. Paul also often berates his followers for backsliding and doubting Jesus. Theologians have come up with a picture of Paul as a zealous preacher who was quick to defend the honor of Christians, but who also demanded loyalty to the faith. “Patiently correct, rebuke and encourage your people with good teachings.” (Timothy 2)

There is little doubt that Saint Paul’s four missionary journeys changed the course of Christianity. Paul expanded the church far and wide, reinforcing it amongst Jews, opening doors to Gentiles, all the while fighting zealously for his conviction that the gospel was for ALL peoples and that NO barriers should be put in their way.

Considering that he was not one of the twelve apostles, and therefore not an eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry on Earth, it is amazing that Saint Paul made the permanent mark on Christianity that he did. His life, letters, and legacy certainly suggest divine intervention that reverberates through the millennia to this day.

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Smallpox and the American Revolution

Continental Army defeat at Quebec during the Revolutionary War Smallpox epidemic, 1776
Continental Army’s defeat at Quebec during the Revolutionary War smallpox epidemic, 1776

During the 1700’s, smallpox epidemics raged throughout the American colonies. They would severely impact the new Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.  The first signs came during the early battles of the American Revolution in 1775-1776 – at the siege of Boston, the siege of Quebec, and Britain’s Virginia regiments.  These deadly outbreaks pushed Washington and his medical staff to make crucial decisions regarding smallpox control. He ordered all Continental soldiers to be inoculated in 1777.  Historians credit this mandate with the colonists’ ultimate victory in the Revolutionary War for Independence.

Throughout history, smallpox epidemics sparked panic amongst the population. Before vaccinations began in 1796, people had very few ways to protect themselves. For many, the disease proved fatal. Small pox is caused by the contagious variola virus. It typically spread by infection of the respiratory tract. The initial signs came 12 days after exposure. Early symptoms were flu-like with fever, headache, body aches, vomiting and malaise.  By Day 4, the face flushed and the first painful pox appeared – not on the skin, but in the mouth and throat. Eating and drinking became painful. The next day, the dreaded skin rash began.

In the worst cases, patients died early from hemorrhaging.

Pustules then erupted on the skin in a pox.  If the pustules became confluent, 60% of patients died. Around Day 10, the pustules turned blistery and cracked open, releasing a foul stench. For survivors, near the end of the second week, scabs formed.  If you survived to week 3, the fever subsided and patients were left with unsightly scars replacing the poxes. Survivors were now strangely blessed though. Having endured the disease, they were now immune.

With every outbreak, those who survived the disease rarely got smallpox again. This observation led to the advent of inoculation, the process of contracting smallpox on purpose to induce future immunity. A doctor removed pus from an active pox of an infected person and inserted it into the hand skin of a non-infected person. The insertion resulted in the inoculated person contracting smallpox but with only mild symptoms.

Smallpox was rampant in crowded European cities. Most people did not make it through childhood without contracting the disease. Thanks to widespread inoculation, most gained immunity, including the British military. The disease spread across Europe and into America, thanks to English and Spanish colonization.  Because most American colonists lived in isolated villages, few were inoculated, so the colonies experienced sporadic epidemics. It would devastate the Native American populations as well

Doctors could employ only two weapons: quarantine and inoculation.

Inoculated individuals did contract smallpox, and were fully capable of infecting others. So they should be quarantined lest they spread the disease. For this reason, inoculation was highly controversial in the colonies. Many believed the procedure was more deadly than the disease. In England, where smallpox had long been endemic, the procedure was widely accepted. This meant that at the beginning of the American Revolution, the British forces had the advantage.

This brings us to the War for Independence.  During the 1760s, Dr. Joseph Warren operated a smallpox inoculation clinic on Castle Island in Boston Harbor.  There he inoculated future President John Adams, amongst other Sons of Liberty. Abigail Adams later inoculated herself and her children against the disease.

Despite inoculations, a smallpox epidemic seized Boston in 1775. After the Battle of Bunker Hill, smallpox was gripping the citizens of Boston and General Howe’s Redcoats. The Continental Army was entrenched around the city. General George Washington knew from his medical advisors that his Continental soldiers were not immune to smallpox and would be devastated by the outbreak.

Teenage smallpox disease victim.
Teenage smallpox disease victim.

Washington also had to contend with a sizeable exodus of refugees from the stricken city. Colonial spies reported that General Howe was deliberately infecting fleeing refugees with an intent to spread the disease among the rebels.  Washington banned the refugees entering from the American army camps. He ordered any soldier showing ‘the least symptoms of Smallpox’ to be immediately quarantined.

 In March 1776, General Howe and the British army abandoned Boston.  Despite this victory for the colonists, Washington forbade his troops from entering the city because of the epidemic. He permitted only one thousand men who had previously contracted smallpox to enter and retake the city. Washington ordered that no one susceptible could enter; no one with visible symptoms could leave. Finally, by autumn, the epidemic waned.

Smallpox also raged on the Canadian front.

In 1775, Continental soldiers, led by Colonel Benedict Arnold, marched towards Quebec to prevent the British from taking the city. In December, the first case of smallpox was reported among his soldiers. It crippled the American forces in Canada, preventing them from launching an attack. Many soldiers told their superiors they would NOT re-enlist due to fear of the disease. They would rather desert the revolutionary cause than risk death by the dreaded smallpox.

This forced General Richard Montgomery to attempt an assault on Quebec in the winter. Only about 800 men were able to fight, as the rest were sick with the pox, resulting in a crushing failure. British forces killed Montgomery, wounded Arnold, and captured hundreds of rebels. Benedict Arnold managed to maintain forces around Quebec, however, the lack of reinforcements due to smallpox prevented any future attack.

Wanting protection from the disease, fearful soldiers began inoculating themselves! These men failed to quarantine however, and instead spread the disease further amongst their fellow soldiers.  Arnold forbade self-inoculation by penalty of death to prevent its rampant spread.

In March 1776, Major General John Thomas took control of the forces in Canada. Thomas refused to allow any inoculations. He felt the soldiers would not have enough time to recuperate in quarantine for a British attack. Thomas also refused to be inoculated himself to show solidarity with the his men. He contracted the disease and died from it.

“It was apparent that smallpox, rather than British might or Continental Army inadequacy, was the reason for the Army’s defeat in Canada.” – John Adams

After a miserable, five-month siege of Quebec, 1,500 Americans retreated up the St Lawrence River. The men struggled through knee-deep snow. While quarantine had worked at Boston, it failed at Quebec. Half of the retreating troops were sick with the pox. One soldier wrote: ‘My pocks had become so sore and troublesome, that my clothes stuck fast to my body, especially my feet; and it became a severe trial to my fortitude to bear my disorder.’

When reinforcements finally arrived, they were terrifying by the scenes that greeted them, and quickly succumbed as well. ‘My eyes never before beheld such a seen’, wrote John Lacey of Pennsylvania, ‘nor do I ever desire to see such another – I did not look into a tent in which I did not find either a dead or dying man.’ Two mass graves consumed thirty to forty bodies a day.

General Philip Schuyler wrote to George Washington, warning him that further reinforcements would rather weaken than strengthen their Army unless inoculated. It is likely that smallpox killed roughly a thousand men during the Canadian campaign. Returning soldiers then instigated further outbreaks in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Washington feared every day of the spread of smallpox amongst his soldiers.

“Finding the smallpox to be spreading much, I have determined that the Troops shall be inoculated. For should the disorder rage with its usual Virulence, we should have more to dread from it, than from the sword of the enemy.” – George Washington.

With this order, Washington enacted the first medical mandate in American history. Washington ordered that all troops and all new recruits must be inoculated. The military used private homes and churches as isolation centers to control spread of the disease during their quarantine.

Washington took a huge risk with these mass inoculations. If the British found out, they could have launched an attack on the weakened Continental Army. Therefore, it had to be kept secret. Though gaining support across each colony was difficult, as fear of smallpox ran rampant, mandated inoculations proved successful.

Revolutionary War Continental Army during the winter of 1777.
Revolutionary War Continental Army during the winter of 1777

By 1777, the procedure was established in the Continental Army, and prevalence of the disease was greatly reduced.  With smallpox diminished, the Continental Army even saw a surge of new recruits in 1777.

To the south, in the colony of Virginia, the royal governor, Lord John Murray, had promised freedom to all “slaves belonging to Rebels” who would fight for the king. At least 900 African-Americans joined Dunmore, donning uniforms and fighting in several skirmishes. But smallpox would turn out to to be their worst enemy. In February 1776, smallpox appeared in Dunmore’s troops near Portsmouth, Virginia. By May, over 300 had died and he  lost more of his black regiment every day.

Lord Dunmore set up an inoculation camp at Gwynn’s Island in Chesapeake Bay.

In July, now under attack by Virginia rebels, Dunmore was forced to give up the island. Virginians who arrived were appalled at the scene. “We were struck with horrour at the number of dead slave bodies, in a state of putrefaction, strewed all the way from their battery to the point, about two miles in length.“

They found others gasping for life. Some had crawled to the water’s edge to cool their fevers. In all, some 500 slaves died on the island. As in Canada, rebel soldiers carried smallpox with them, sparking more outbreaks in Virginia and Maryland. In 1778, the disease seemed to have faded away in the army thanks to Washington’s orders. Continuing through the year, the American forces went through inoculation and quarantine at West Point, Valley Forge, Alexandria, and Fairfax. 

In 1779, as the theatre of war moved further south, so did smallpox. In early 1779, a British force of Hessian troops carried it through the southern colonies. Smallpox erupted in Charleston and Savannah and plagued the south for two more years. Particularly hard hit were the slaves who fled to promised freedom in General Cornwallis’ Redcoat army. This time, the British turned on the infected African Americans and forced them to return to their masters, in an attempt to spread smallpox to the American army.

As the Revolutionary War reshaped colonial America on the east coast, a very different upheaval shook the entire North American continent. In 1779, the virus moved westwards from the colonies, finding vast susceptible populations of frontier colonists and Native Americans. Trade and colonial expansion joined the army in transporting the disease. In 1779, smallpox had travelled via the Spanish Catholic missions and struck Mexico City, afflicting 44,000 and killing 18,000.

Smallpox arrived in the frontier province of Texas in 1780, where it killed over 5,025.

In a description of smallpox among the Narragansetts ‘They lie on their hard matts, the pox breaking and running one into another, their skin cleaving to the matts they lie on; when they turn them, a whole side of skin will fall off at once.‘

Smallpox launched a simultaneous attack on the plains territory by way of the Comanches, who engaged in trade with the Shoshone in Wyoming and Montana. Before long the disease appeared among the Iroquois, Cree and Blackfeet.  The Shoshones transmitted the plague to the tribes of the upper Missouri River. The Sioux marauders contracted it during their assaults on those Missouri villages. The disease decimated the indigenous tribes.

While smallpox on the southern and northern plains began to wane, the epidemic, did not. Smallpox reached the northwest Pacific coast, most likely from Shoshone nomads following native trade routes down the Columbia River to the ocean.  References to abandoned villages and smallpox-scarred natives can be found on different British voyages to the Pacific northwest.

From 1775 to 1782, revolutionary upheaval rocked the east coast, while smallpox wreaked its havoc from the colonies to the plains to the Pacific. From Mexico to Hudson Bay, the continent was alive with trade and tribes, and the smallpox virus followed them all and left decimated populations behind.

Cruising the northwest coastline of America in 1792, Captain George Vancouver wondered, where were all the natives? The land and sea were abundant with an unlimited supply of food, but there were few people. Instead, they found abandoned villages scattered with human skulls and bones. The conclusion was inescapable: ‘By some event, this country has been considerably depopulated!’

Nevertheless, despite the smallpox surge and the pandemic tragedy, America survived.  Without the bravery and determination of 18th century doctors, inoculation and quarantines may have never gained widespread acceptance in the new United States.  And without General George Washington’s decisive and unpopular inoculations, the American colonists may never have won the Revolutionary War against Britain and achieved their independence.

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The Great Bengal Famine and the Boston Tea Party

Sketch of of Bengali family during the Great Bengal Famine, 1770
Depiction of a starving family during the Great Bengal Famine.

The Indian Famine of 1770 is one of the greatest disasters in human history. Over ten million people, a third of the population of Bengal, died.  A drought lasting 5 years, bad harvests, and cruel British rule all contributed. The British East India Company compounded the famine with heavy taxation, leading to millions of Bengalis unable to buy food and starving to death. The Bengal Famine had a ripple effect far beyond India. When accounts of the terrible famine reached the American colonies, they helped instigate the Boston Tea Party.

There was, in fact, more to the Boston Tea Party than just anger over tea taxes. News of the Bengal Famine fostered distrust and outrage towards the British Parliament and the East India Company. Boston’s reaction was particularly acute, escalating rebel anger and culminating in the Boston Tea Party of 1773.

The East India Company was a private British firm that ruled most of India from 1757 to 1858, when control was transferred to the British government. In 1764, after a military victory over the Mughals, the Company won control of Bengal (including present-day Bangladesh).  This included the right to levy taxes on the Indian population.  The East India Company attained the right to collect the peasant’s tribute (diwani) formally given to the Mughal Emperor. This tribute had been about 10-15% of the output of the peasant farmers.

The Company profited off land revenue taxes collected through local tax collectors.

These collectors were rewarded with handsome percentages and bonuses for meeting their goals. The Company raised that rate to 40 to 50%. In addition, they outlawed the storage of rice and other foods. India regularly experienced droughts, so storage of reserves was a standard practice amongst villages and families. The Company however wanted to their maximize profits, so they outlawed this “peasant hoarding.”

When drought began in 1769, it produced famine conditions, risking starvation amongst the Bengal population. What was the governing Company’s response? The East India Company, chaired by Sir George Colebrooke, was not satisfied with merely maintaining revenues from the Indian peasants with millions facing starvation. They wanted more.

It raised the taxes again to 60%, and resorted to violence to collect them.  The Company imposed a yearly quota that tax collectors must reach—no matter what. This placed an impossible burden on the poor Bengali population.  Now Bengali families no longer had money to pay for food when their crops failed with reserves outlawed.  Famine-related starvation began.

Tax collectors, not wanting to loose their bonuses, employed violence on the population, curtesy of the occupying British Redcoats, to “compel” the Bengalis to pay. As a result, most families, after having been forced to pay the taxes at gunpoint, had dry farmland unable to grow food, and no money left to buy it. Starvation of men, women, children, elderly – it mattered not to the Company directors.

The most died of starvation in 1770 when the worst of the taxes reigned.  Indians knew that the root cause was not the drought, but the cruel taxation of the British occupiers, and deep hated was planted. With each Indian death came less tax revenue for the Company sucked from the Bengali population.  This economic shortfall would have an unexpected ripple effect in of all places – the American colonies.

In 1771, a number American newspapers ran excerpts of a “Letter from a Gentleman in India”

“On our arrival here, we found a river full of dead human carcasses floating downstream. The streets crowded with the dead and dying, without anyone attempting to give them relief.  So horribly has the famine raged here, that those who were able to procure food were so accustomed to see their fellow creatures perish, that it did not even create a painful emotion. The numbers that have perished in Calcutta alone amounted to 10,000 to 12,000 a week. 

Every morning the dead were just gathered together in a heap and thrown into the river. I have myself passed by and seen 20 or 30 lain down to die in the length of one street. It was no uncommon sight to see dogs running about with human limbs in their jaws. I have beheld the hapless infant tugging at the empty breast of its mother just expiring, without being capable of affording them the smallest aid. ”

The now financially-struggling Company influenced the British Parliament to pass the Tea Act in 1773, allowing direct shipment of its Indian tea to the American colonies. The company could now bring tea to America duty-free, with the taxes paid by the colonists. Its design was to grant the company an American monopoly on tea, and enable it to gain greater profits from the trade.

A series of angry pamphlets, entitled “The Alarm,” were circulated in Boston in 1773.  They told of the Bengal Famine and called for refusing to accept the tea brought by the Company. “Rusticus” writes,

“Are we to be given up to the East India Company to step forth in Aid of the Prime Minister, to execute his Plan, of enslaving America? Their Conduct in Asia for some Years past, has given simple Proof, how little they regard the Rights, Liberties or Lives of Men for the Sake of Gain. And these not being sufficient to glut their Avarice, they have, by the most unparalleled Barbarities and Extortions, reduced whole Provinces to Ruin.

Fifteen hundred Thousand perished by Famine in one Year, not because the Earth denied its Fruits; but because this Company engulfed their Necessaries of Life, and set taxes so high that the poor could not purchase them. Thus having drained the Sources of the immense Wealth from India they now cast their Eyes on America.”

“Rusticus” put the issue before his fellow Americans: the East India Company had just starved to death millions in Indian people for the sake of profit and greed.  They controlled the British government with repeated bribes, and now they have their sights set on America. This injustice led to the Boston Tea Party in December 1773.

The Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams, rallied meetings against the British Parliament.

iction of the Boston Tea Party, December 1773
Depiction of the Boston Tea Party, December 1773

In December 1773, several Company ships carrying tea arrived in Boston harbor.  The colonists refused to pay taxes or allow the tea to be unloaded. The British Governor ordered the tea tariff to be paid regardless.  That night, over 100 colonists emptied 45 tons of Company tea into Boston Harbor. The first Continental Congress was convened the next year in 1774.  The American Revolution began at Lexington and Concord in 1775, and the Declaration of Independence a year later in Philadelphia.

As for the Indian Bengal Famine, below is an excerpt of a letter with a rather gruesome account from someone present at the time, published in the New-York Literary Magazine.

“Great dearth has desolated the provinces of this beautiful country. Hardly any rain has fallen during four years. In consequence the crops have failed, and the poor starved. From my enquiries, I find half of the inhabitants of the Duab have perished. Every ditch, road, brook, pond, and street were strewed with dead bodies of men, women, and children. Where the wretch expires, there he lies, till his flesh is stripped off by the dogs. No one tends to the dead; for their friends are starved wretches as well.

The Hindoos do not bury their dead, but burn them. We have been often obliged to shift our camp on account of the stench, arising from the putrefaction of so many bodies.  Men and women, with their children in their hands, flocked to camp, offering themselves for sale for a quart of corn. Mothers sold their children for the fourth part of a rupee. I could have purchased a thousand children at this price.

These poor wretches were reduced to this hard alternative. You, in England are astonished, no doubt, to hear of dogs devouring dead bodies.  Wise nature has so ordered, that this hot country abounds with these dogs, called parriars. They go up and down the streets seeking dead carcasses, which they devour, whether of horses, sheep, or men. I have seen hundreds of bodies with two or three dogs tugging the limbs to pieces.”

Company accounts reported that nearly 10 million died in the 5 year famine, 1/3 of the population.

The exact number is unknown since counting in rural and remote areas was ignored. What is known from accounts of British administrators is that the social upheavals were widespread. A Kali religious revival followed, reaffirming a religious identity suppressed by the Company. The terrifying Goddess Kali became a symbol of Indian, anti-British resistance well into the 19th and 20th centuries. Kali had become the Goddess of Indian protest against the cruel British rule.

Famines are preventable if there is a serious societal effort to confront them, lead by a democratic government with an independent press. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have droughts and famines under its oppressive British colonial rule, widespread famines stopped after it achieved independence 180 years later, in 1947.

What caused the 1770 famine? The continued raising of taxes by the Company, together with the drought and indifference of the British occupiers, resulted in the deaths of ten million Bengalis. Some historians call it a genocide, though not one cause by guns or gases. The Great Bengal Famine reminds us that unequitable treatment and unchecked greed can have destructive societal power when used to deny basic freedoms and access to justice … and incite others to rebellion and revolution.

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The Downfall of New York’s Boss Tweed

William "Boss" Tweed, New York City, 1870
William “Boss” Tweed, New York City, 1870

William Tweed, aka “Boss Tweed,” was a ruthless 19th-century New York City politician.  He is known for his powerful influence within the NY Democratic political machine (Tammany Hall), and well as for flaunting his over-the-top corruption, fraud, and greed for over two decades.

After the Civil War, more than a million people crowded into New York City’s unpaved, manure-filled streets; many in dilapidated slums. Poverty, disease, pollution, and crime were rampant for the poor Irish and German immigrants who made up half the population. The city government offered very few basic services. Boss Tweed discovered how to provide these services and line his pockets at the same time. He personified government corruption in The Gilded Age.

William Magear Tweed was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1823, the son of a Quaker furniture maker. Young William left school at eleven to apprentice with his father. Bored with carpentry, he left and became a junior clerk at a New York mercantile firm, then advanced to bookkeeper at a small brush factory. At twenty-one, he married Mary Jane Skaden, the daughter of the factory’s owner.

William found brush making dull as well, but discovered an outlet for his restlessness in volunteer firefighting. By then, Tweed was a ruddy-faced, boisterous, man, six feet tall and nearly three hundred pounds.  By 1850, at 27, he was foreman of a new fire company, Americus No. 611, “Big 611,” with a Bengal tiger on its fire engine.

From an early age, Tweed discovered he had a knack for politics.

He ran for 7th Ward Alderman under the Democratic Party. Though he lost by a small margin, but he won his next race in 1852 by bribing a 3rd party candidate to split the Republican vote. William Tweed was learning how to manipulate New York politics. He was a fast learner and learned from the best—the New York City Common Council, better known as The Forty Thieves. He was now in his element and became a rising star. Tweed rapidly became one of the city’s leading politicians and one of the most corrupt.

In 1856, he was drawn into the Tammany Hall faction in opposition to Mayor Fernando Wood.  He was picked to be head of a new Board of Supervisors, formed to combat election fraud. He made his headquarters at Tammany Hall, located on East 14th Street. The board soon became an avenue for Tammany graft and corruption instead. Tweed willing and enthusiastically embraced it all.

Other powerful positions came to him – commissioner of schools, deputy street commissioner, New York state senator, and Finance Committee chairman. In Tammany Hall, he was now the most influential man in the organization. They selected him to head the city’s political machine, an authoritarian “BOSS” who would essentially would run the city. In 1861, his political enemy, Fernando Wood, was defeated in the mayoral race, giving the new “Tweed Ring” free reign of the city.

Tweed extorted large payoffs from companies desiring to do, or maintain, business in New York.

In 1864, he bought the New York Printing Company, which then became the official printer for the city.  “Boss Tweed” now wore a diamond in his necktie, orchestrated city elections, controlled the new mayor, and rewarded his political supporters. His primary source of funds came from the bribes and kickbacks he demanded in exchange for city contracts and favors.

In 1867, Tweed and his wife moved into a large mansion on Fifth Avenue and 44th Street and maintained a large stable of horses. Soon, Tweed owned a regal summer estate on the Connecticut shore as well. He gobbled up key real estate in Manhattan. Now a millionaire, Boss Tweed began to move in high society circles. He was now hobnobbing with the likes of wealthy banker J. P. Morgan. He threw lavish parties, and owned gold and diamonds worth tens of thousands of dollars.

By 1870, he had been named to the boards of the Harlem Gas Company, the Brooklyn Bridge Company, Third Avenue Railway Company and the Guardian Savings Bank, which controlled city monies.  The robber barons paid him off handsomely for allowing him to make lucrative deals in both their favors. Incredibly, a number of New York City’s most respected leaders were duped for years by Tweed, unaware of his criminal side.

In 1870, he manipulated the state legislature in Albany to grant New York City a new charter that gave local officials, rather than those in Albany, power over local political offices. It became known as the “Tweed Charter” because Tweed paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes to state politicians for its passage.

The Tweed Ring did help the poor immigrants in New York, albeit for their own political gain.

Thousands of immigrants in New York were naturalized American citizens being able to vote. Tweed made sure the immigrants had jobs, a place to live, enough food and clothing, received medical care, and even coal to warm their flats during winter. He contributed millions to neighborhood churches, schools, hospitals, orphanages, and charities that cared for immigrants.  Immigrants in the city were grateful and voted in overwhelming numbers for Tammany Hall Democrats.

The most notorious example of his corruption was the construction of the New York County Courthouse (later called Tweed Courthouse). The city built it with stone and marble from a Massachusetts quarry owned by Tweed. The courthouse, expected to cost $500,000, wound up costing taxpayers $13 million, most of it winding up in Tweed’s pockets. The corruption was shocking in its breadth and boldness. His greed for wealth and power apparently knew no boundaries.

A carpenter was paid $360,751 for one month’s labor. A furniture contractor received $179,729 for 40 chairs. A plasterer, got $133,187 for two days’ work, earning him the nickname “The Prince of Plasterers.”   When a city committee investigated why it was taking so long to build, it spent $7,718  to print its report using the printing company owned by Tweed. He paid off dozens of judges for favorable rulings.

Boss Tweed publicly flaunted the rule of law. He hired people to vote multiple times and had deputies protect them while doing so. He stuffed ballot boxes with fake votes and had election inspectors who questioned him arrested. As Tweed said, “The ballots make no result; the counters make the result.”  At times, the Tweed Ring simply ignored the ballots and falsified election results.

Tweed’s candidates often received more votes than there were eligible voters.

An editorial cartoon shows Boss Tweed leaning on a voting booth. The caption reads: “ As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?” By 1870, his power in New York was absolute – the ruler of all he surveyed. The ebullient Tweed shared his ill-gotten gains with his ring, the city comptroller, the county commissioners, and the mayor.  In total, the Tweed Ring brought in an estimated $200 million in corrupt money over its lifetime.

In the end, however, Boss Tweed’s greed was too great and his exploitation too shameless. By July 1871, two lower-level city officials with a grudge against the Tweed Ring, James O’Brien and Matthew O’Rouke, provided The New York Times publisher with reams of documents detailing the corruption with city projects. The newspaper published a string of damaging articles. Political cartoonist Thomas Nast launched his first volley of a series of caricatures in Harper’s Weekly—“Let Us Prey,” which depicted Tweed as a fat vulture feeding off the city.

Editorial Cartoon of Boss Tweed and his ill-gotten gains, 1871
Editorial Cartoon of Boss Tweed and his ill-gotten gains, 1871

A furious Boss Tweed offered bribes then threats to the editor of the New York Times to stop their reporting, but neither worked. The political cartoons created public outrage and a national scandal.  Even illiterate immigrants could understand the cartoons. Soon Tweed and many of his cronies were facing criminal charges. Nevertheless, due to his popularity amongst his base, he was reelected a state senator!

By December, 1871, Tweed’s luck had run out, and he was finally arrested and indicted. Others in his ring had fled abroad like rats on a sinking ship. It took two trials and two years to convict Tweed. The first trial resulted in a hung jury, but in a second trial, he was found guilty of more than 200 crimes. In 1873, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison and fined $12,750.

He managed to get his sentence reduced on appeals to just one year and paid only $250 in fines.  Democratic state chairman Samuel Jones Tilden vowed to take back New York City.  ‘No one is above the law,’ he declared. He filed an affidavit citing Tweed and his ring’s misdeeds, which became the basis of a civil suit for recovery of the city’s money. Tweed was rearrested in early 1875 in a civil action to recover $6 million of what had been stolen. Unable to secure the $3 million in bail set by the state, he was sent to jail yet again in New York City.

This time, Tweed’s supporters finally abandoned him.

While in jail, Tweed’s lawyer’s were able to get him regular leave to visit his family, while guards waited at his doorstep. At one of these meals, he escaped out a rear door disguised as a servant and fled across the Hudson River to New Jersey.  Then he took a boat to Florida, from there to Cuba, and finally to Spain. Because Spain’s government wanted the U.S to end its support for Cuban rebels, it agreed to apprehend Tweed.

The warrant issued in New York for his arrest described him:

Fifty-five years of age, about five-feet eleven inches high, weight about two hundred and eighty pounds. Very portly, ruddy complexion, has rather large, coarse, prominent features and large prominent nose; rather small grey eyes, grey hair, head nearly bald on top from forehead back to crown. His beard may be removed or dyed, and he may wear a wig or be otherwise disguised.…

Another Thomas Nast cartoon, printed in Harper’s Weekly in 1876, led to his arrest in Spain and extradition back to New York City.  Unable to pay the $6 million judgment levied against him in the civil action, in which he was convicted of 204 out of 240 counts, he remained in jail. This time, he was granted no home visits as his wife had left him after he fled the U.S.

In an attempt to be pardoned, he gave detailed testimony, confessing his guilt and naming all his many cohorts and cronies.  It did not work. Samuel Tilden, now governor of New York, refused his pardon.  Boss Tweed died of pneumonia two years later in the Ludlow Street Prison on April 12, 1878. Everyone else, including his family, had long since deserted him. On his death, New York City mayor Smith Ely refused to fly the City Hall flag at half-staff.

Boss Tweed was one of the 19th century’s most reprehensible figures and has come to stand for all that is bad in American politics. His story serves as a reminder of the interplay between political ambition and narcissism. Tweed’s legacy endures as a cautionary tale of the dangers of unchecked political power by a single individual in government.  Nevertheless he helped to spawn further authoritarian political bosses over the years—again and again – on the local, state, and national scene … all the way to the present day.

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The Ignored and Forgotten Lake Nyos Disaster

Cattle asphyxiated by the Lake Nyos Disaster in Cameroon, 1986.
Cattle asphyxiated by the Lake Nyos Disaster in Cameroon, 1986.

The 1986 Lake Nyos Disaster occurred when volcanic carbon dioxide (CO2) gas erupted from beneath an African lake in Cameroon, bubbling to the surface, forming a deadly cloud.  There was no huge eruption, no great boom or blast that evening.  What resulted was like a scene from a horror movie. The deadly gas flowed down valleys and into villages, asphyxiating 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.  By morning, villagers and animals within 25 kilometers of the lake lay dead in homes and fields. How did such a tragedy come about?

The republic of Cameroon, situated in equatorial Africa on the Gulf of Guinea, was a former German colony, then a French and British colony, that gained its independence in 1960. Lake Nyos is a small, 2 km long, 200 m deep crater lake located in northwestern Cameroon near the border with Nigeria.  The region is known for its occasional volcanic activity, but nothing like this disaster.

Most of the people in rural Cameroon are farmers or herders, this included the villages and farms on the slopes of the crater lake. Residents knew the lake as blue and usually still.  August 21, 1986 began as a typical summer day.  Men and women labored from dawn till dusk in the fields.  Children attended their schools.  By late evening, they had completed their dinners and parents put children to bed.  The summer evening air was still hot with relatively little breeze.

Sometime between 9 and 10 pm, villagers in the valley heard a strange rumbling noise, much like thunder, but without any lightning. Those people closest to the Lake Nyos described hearing a distant bubbling noise. A frothy spray emerged from the lake, with a whitish cloud developing on the entire surface.  Lake Nyos is surrounded mostly by bluffs, some up to 100 m high. The cloud mushroomed in size until it overflowed the crater rim and began to flow down into nearby valleys.

When farmers near the lake left their houses to investigate, they suddenly lost consciousness.

There was no warning, no time to scream or run. Most were dead in a few breaths. People and animals all around them began losing consciousness and collapsing to the ground.  It a few minutes, most had suffocated. In Nyos an­d Kam, the first villages hit by the cloud, all but four people on higher ground died. The valley split and the deadly cloud followed each path, killing people up to 25 kilometers away from the lake.

Some survivors overtaken by the deadly cloud smelled a sulfurous, rotten egg odor and feeling a warm sensation on their skin before losing consciousness.  After rescue, some remained unconscious in a coma for up to 36 hours. They woke up to a scene of mass death.

Such a cloud is called a mazuku, a deadly blanket of carbon dioxide mixed with air. Magma pockets under the lake had leaked CO2 into the water in high concentrations.  Then some activity caused it bubble up to the surface. The large cloud of deadly gas is estimated to have grown to 100 meters (330 feet) tall before flowing over the rim and down into the valley.

The next day, pockets of gas lingered in low lying areas, causing new fatalities when people unwittingly walked into the gas pockets. Over the next two days, people from surrounding areas rushed to the valley. They found thousands of corpses, both human and animal, lying on the ground where they had dropped. Cattle, sheep, goats, pets, birds, and even insects were all killed. It was as if time had stopped. A putrid smell of rotting eggs would cling to the earth for months.

A government rescue team did not arrive until 36 hours later.

Assisted by the Cameroon military, everyone wore full face masks, protective gear and oxygen tanks on their backs. The approximately 5,000 survivors were all in comas that ranged from six to 36 hours in length. They reported falling unconscious and waking up dazed. The lucky ones had escaped death because they lived on higher ground.

“I could not speak. I could not open my mouth because of the terrible smell. When crossing to my daughter’s bed, I collapsed and fell. I was there till nine o’clock in the morning until a friend came.  I wanted to speak, but my breath would not come out. My body was completely weak. I managed to go over to my neighbors’ house. They were all dead.” – survivor account.

By August 23rd, the cloud had blown away. After being unconscious for up to a day and a half, some survivors revived only to find that their family members, neighbors, and livestock were dead. Around 1,746 people died in the towns of Nyos, Cha, Fang, Mashi, and Subum. Most residents were farmers.

Sadly, with so many corpses, the dead could not receive individual funerals, so rescuers dug mass graves.  Some developed respiratory issues. Pregnant women suffered miscarriages; others had pneumonia. A few committed suicide after seeing the horror of so many dead or losing all family members.

About 3,500 livestock also perished and had to be burned in large pyres. Lake Nyos itself had changed, too. It was now significantly shallower. Dead fish floated on its surface.  Its formerly picturesque blue hue had darkened and turned an ugly rust color.

The Cameroonian government in Yaoundé initially suspected an act of terrorism, or the illegal dumping of chemical wastes into the lake. More traditional villagers in Njindoun believed legends that evil spirits periodically left the lake and killed neighboring people. These legends likely came about because of past gas bursts.

All evidence pointed towards death from CO2 asphyxiation.

Concentrations of just 10 percent lead to rapid unconsciousness and coma. Forty percent concentrations are almost immediately lethal within minutes. Many of the victims seemed to have died very quickly, suggesting very high CO2 concentrations.

Carbon dioxide kills by first shutting off people’s consciousness, then their breathing. Where the CO2 concentration was 15 percent or less, people fell into a coma but later revived. Individuals who inhaled more than 15 percent CO2 stopped breathing in minutes and suffocated. The sulfurous odor was attributed to small amounts of hydrogen sulfide mixed with the CO2.

Geologically, the Lake Nyos disaster was a limnic or gas eruption. This happens when a volcanic crater lake suddenly releases a large amount of dissolved gases in the water. Gas releases occur when pressure builds up from geothermal activity at the lake’s bottom. When the pressure becomes too great, gas rapidly escapes to the surface and forms a heavy, toxic cloud. The cloud blankets the ground, displacing oxygen and quickly asphyxiating people and animals.

Geologists reasoned that CO2 had been trapped in the bottom of Lake Nyos for a long time, held down by 208 meters (682 feet) of water. On the day of the gas eruption, something external triggered the release of gas. Most likely the vibration a simple rockslide from one of the lake’s steep walls.

The gas release was not a volcanic eruption.

The lake water was not unusually warm and the bottom was undisturbed. Magma beneath the earth seeped carbon dioxide into the deep lake waters, where it dissolved. When the CO2 content became supersaturated, CO2 erupted to the atmosphere. About one cubic kilometer of gas escaped, enough to lower the entire lake level by more than one meter.

Lake Nyos is in the Oku Volcanic Field, part of a 1,600 km-long chain of volcanoes that runs from Nigeria and Cameroon into the mainland. Lake Nyos sits on the edge of an inactive volcano and a magma pocket.  The lake changed colors when the escaping gas carried oxygen-poor, deep lake water with it. When this water reached the surface, dissolved iron reacted with oxygen in the air, creating iron hydroxide that stained the lake yellow-brown for several month.

Lake Nyos following the gas eruption that killed over 1,700 in Cameroon, 1986
Lake Nyos following the gas eruption that killed over 1,700 in Cameroon, 1986

Once the cause was determined, the Cameroonian government acted accordingly. Teams installed CO2 monitors on the lakeshore, hooked to sirens that would sound if too much gas entered the air. People knew the alarms meant they should go immediately to higher ground. The government relocated several communities and discouraged residents from returning to the lake.

A refugee camp for villagers, situated 25 kilometers from the lake, became a permanent home to many. Most of the survivors still alive have fresh memories of what happened to them that horrible night. They lost family, their land, and their herds.  The Cameroon government promised to assist them by building new houses and giving them funds to start agriculture again elsewhere. The victims say they still have not received the promised compensation.

The survivors say since then, they have been forgotten and abandoned.

To prevent a recurrence, measures were implemented to manage Lake Nyos. Geologists opted for a gradual degassing of the lake, but this took decades to enact. Money and decent roads into Nyos weren’t plentiful. In 2001, French engineers sunk a 6-inch (15-cm) plastic pipe 666 feet (203 meters) into the lake until it reached the gas layer. Frothy CO2 shot out the top like a shaken champagne bottle. Authorities installed two more pipes in 2011.

It has always been the wish of the survivors to return to their ancestral villages. But Cameroon’s Ministry of Territorial Administration, says it is still too dangerous, even with the degassing of the lake. Even so, some are ignoring warnings from the government and have returned to live and farm close to the lake once again. Today, Lake Nyos is degassed to about 80 percent of the level after the 1986 explosion. While the lake is significantly safer today, it still carries a hazardous risk level for those who dare venture near it.

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The Forgotten Sinking of the Empress of Ireland

Depiction of the sinking of the Empress of Ireland, 1914.
Depiction of the sinking of the Empress of Ireland, 1914.

Just two years after the Titanic, and a year before Lusitania, another passenger ship sank with an even greater loss of life, yet few remember the tragic tale. The Empress of Ireland sank in Canada’s St. Lawrence River in the spring of 1914 after colliding with another ship in a dense fog bank in the dead of night.  Sadly, the outbreak of World War I a few months later overshadowed its tragic fate.  How did this catastrophe unfold?

Although not as grand as the Titanic, the Empress of Ireland was the pride of the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company.  Built by Fairfield Shipbuilding in Glasgow, Scotland, the Empress was christened and launched in 1906.  For the next eight years, it would safely carry tens of thousands of passengers across the Atlantic Ocean.

The Empress of Ireland accommodated 1,542 passengers in four class sections on seven decks and was operated by a crew of 373. She was 570 feet long and could carry 310 First Class, 468 Second Class, 494 Third Class, and 270 Steerage.

At 4:27 PM on May 28th, 1914, the Empress departed from Quebec City for a six-day voyage to Liverpool, England starting down the St. Lawrence River with 1,477 passengers and crew. British families who had established themselves in the Americas, frequently booked return passages to the UK to visit loved ones and show off new children and grandchildren.

The Empress was under the command of a newly appointed Captain, Henry George Kendall.

It was a pleasant spring afternoon as Capt. Kendall gave the orders to depart. As a new Captain, this was a day he worked his whole life to achieve. Having risen through the ranks, this was to be his first voyage as master of his own ship.  He set a course downriver to the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic beyond.

Unlike Titanic, there were few famous people on board, just the actor Laurence Irving and his wife, actress Mabel Hackney, returning to Britian from a successful Canadian tour.  Many of the passengers, including 170 members of the Canadian Salvation Army Band, were excited to be heading to a large musical convention in London.

Passengers milled about on deck in the long daylight hours or in the gangways, learning their way around the ship. Parents allowed older children to roam freely. Diners enjoyed the late sunset coming in through windows, then some fresh air in an after-dinner stroll on deck. As night closed in, passengers and crew settled in to their staterooms and cabins for their first night underway.

Like a harbor, the St. Lawrence River requires pilots to operate from the bridge. Pilots were taken on and off at Point-au-Père, Quebec, near Rimouski. One of the Empress’s last tasks that night before heading into the open water of the Gulf of St. Lawrence was to disembark its river pilot.  Having done so, she was still close to southern shore of the river.

Also on the St. Lawrence that night was the Norwegian freighter Storstad inbound from Sidney, Nova Scotia.  She was carrying a full load of black coal to Montreal and sat low in the water. The Storstad was heading upriver, about to pick up her pilot for the voyage to Montreal, so also hugged the southern coastline.

The ships first sighted each other’s mast lights near 2:00 AM on May 29th.

Till now, it had been a calm, clear night near on the river near Point-au-Père.  On the bridge of the Empress of Ireland, Captain Henry Kendall estimated the approaching ship was roughly eight miles away, off his port bow.  If the Empress held its course, the ships would pass each other port to port.

But this would take the Empress closer to shore and off his intended course towards the gulf. He still had ample time for a turn to port, cross the Storstad’s bow, and set his course for open water. The two ships should pass starboard to starboard, still comfortably apart.

Within moments of adjusting course though, a creeping bank of FOG formed on the river, swallowing both the Empress and the approaching ship.  Heavy fog was common on the St. Lawrence when warm, moist air encountered the frigid river water, producing a thick fog so dense that visibility was near zero.

Worried by the fog and the other ship, Captain Kendall gave three blasts on his ship’ smoke stack whistle.  This indicated to the other ship that he was ordering his engines full astern, slowing the ocean liner to a crawl.  Kendall kept her bow pointing on its course up the river and waited for a sign the other ship was safely past.

Onboard the Storstad, the captain was asleep and First Mate Alfred Toftenes was in command of the bridge.  He saw the large ocean liner before the fog rolled in and was also concerned with its proximity.  Not realizing the Empress intended a starboard-to-starboard passing, and believing they would be passing port to port, he ordered a turn to starboard, unknowingly taking it directly into the Empress’s path.  When the fog rolled in, he woke his captain.

Back on the Empress or Ireland, tense minutes passed on the bridge.

The next thing the crew saw were two masthead lights appearing out of the fog.  They were only a hundred feet away to starboard and heading straight at them on a collision course! Captain Kendall shouted his next order, “Hard to starboard!” attempting to swing his stern away from the approaching ship. The move was not successful. At this point, the two ships were too close to avoid impact.

Depiction of the Empress of Ireland and Storstad, 1914.
Depiction of the Empress of Ireland and Storstad, 1914.

The Storstad’s bow cleaved into the Empress hull midship between the liner’s steel ribs, below the waterline, leaving a gaping hole 16 feet wide.  The Storstad’s bracing was designed to break through ice, making her bow a lethal weapon.  The fact that she was fully loaded with coal meant she was deep in the water and punctured the Empress well below the waterline. She penetrated Empress of Ireland a fatal depth of 25 feet.

The river’s current and the Storstad’s momentum pulled it away from the doomed Empress. Sixty thousand gallons of icy water a second began pouring through the huge gash.  The Empress’ list to starboard was almost immediate, with the quickly-submerging hull forcing even more water into the jagged opening.

The Empress of Ireland had watertight doors in its bulkheads below decks, but they required manual operation by the crew.  Captain Kendall quickly ordered them closed, but the incoming water rapidly overwhelmed the crew and they had no time to seal them properly.

Water poured into the starboard side so fast that most of the people sleeping in starboard cabins did not stand a chance. Many passengers had their port holes open for a fresh night breeze.  This unfortunately allowed their cabins to flood when the port holes suddenly dipped below the icy water. If there was any mercy for the starboard side passengers, it was that their drowning deaths came quickly.

At around 6 minutes following the strike, the power failed, plunging the ship into darkness.

The gangways were now filled with panicked, screaming passengers. There was also no time to muster women and children first. Following the Titanic’s sinking, the Empress was equipped with enough lifeboats for all.  However with the fast and severe list to starboard, only a few were able to launch. The listing quickly became so extreme that only five boats could be successfully launched off the starboard side.  A few attempts of the port side boats resulted in them skidding down the side of ship and capsizing, toppling passengers in the dark, icy river.

After 10 minutes, the liner had lurched completely over and now lay on her side.  Some 700 passengers managed to climbed out port side doors and portholes, crouching precariously on her port side hull.  As the stern rose, those survivors were thrown into the freezing water. A mere 14 minutes after the collision, the Empress of Ireland sank beneath the St. Lawrence River.

The captain of the Storstad had immediately ordered his ship to lower its lifeboats to rescue survivors. By the time the last of the nearly-frozen survivors had been fished from the dark river, the death toll was staggering. Of the 1,477 on board, 1,012 died, including 840 passengers, eight more than the Titanic. The 170 members of a Salvation Army Band all perished.  Captain Kendall was thrown from the bridge and survived the sinking.  He was rescued by a lifeboat.

Young William Clark worked as a fireman aboard the Empress.  He was in the engine room stoking the steam boilers with chunks of black coal when the Storstad struck. Clarke somehow managed to climb up to the decks. The events of that night were all too familiar to Clark, as he worked as a stoker on the Titanic’s maiden voyage and survived that historic sinking as well.   He later gave up on his life at sea.

Word spread quickly  on the river that a ship had gone down and survivors were being brought ashore. In the port of Rimouski, Quebec, no one could have imagined it was the Empress of Ireland that had sunk. The few survivors able to withstand the frigid river waters were brought to Rimouski, but many later died of pneumonia.

Comparisons to the Titanic were inevitable, but there is no winner in a game of disaster.

The Titanic lost 832 passengers and 635 crew; the Empress lost 840 passengers and 172 crew, 134 children.  The Titanic took 2 hours, 40 minutes to sink.  The Empress of Ireland went down in just 14 minutes. Coming so soon after the Titanic, the Empress underscored the difficulty of building a ship guaranteed to sink slowly enough to completely abandon it.

While as great of a tragedy as the Titanic, the sinking of the Empress of Ireland never garnered the press or international attention the Titanic received. The Empress of Ireland was not a particularly famous or fashionable ship.  Soon after the Empress sank, the world’s attention was drawn to the early beginnings of World War I in Europe.

What had happened? For certain, fog had proved to be a treacherous conspirator. Captain Kendall blamed the Norwegian captain for the disaster. “You have sunk my ship!” were the first words he uttered when he was pulled on board the Storstad. Had the two ships simply kept their courses and speeds, they would have passed each other without colliding.

The Canadian government wanted answers and commissioned an Inquiry which met on on 16 June 1914 in Quebec City. Lord Mersey, who had presided over the Titanic Inquiry in 1912 (and would preside over the Lusitania Inquiry in 1915), lead the Empress Inquiry.

Captain Kendall testified he was going to pass the Norwegian ship cleanly starboard to starboard with no risk of collision. As the fog rolled in, the captain stopped the engines and blew the ships whistle’s three short blasts, indicating that the engines were now at full speed astern. The fog worsened and the Storstad’s masthead lights reappeared when the ship was only a hundred feet away coming at them broadside.

Storstad Captain Thomas Anderson was awakened by Chief Officer Toftenes, when he slowed the ship down. Toftenes thought they were going to pass port to port. He ordered a turn to starboard, away from what he thought was the other ship’s course. In reality,  he was turning into the Empress’s side.  Captain Anderson testified he ordered full speed astern moments before the two ships collided.

The Commission found that the Storstad had changed course during the fog and was at fault. 

There were three factors that led to the rapid sinking of the Empress of Ireland: 1) the location of the impact, midship, 2) failure to close the watertight doors, and 3) the open portholes. The Norwegians then held their own inquiry and found the Empress of Ireland at fault.  They said the standard protocol of passing port to port was not followed.

Just weeks after the disaster, Canadian Pacific hired a salvage company to retrieve the first-class mail, the purser’s safe and $150,000 in silver bullion ($2 million today).  From June through August, numerous dives were made to retrieve its valuables and some of the bodies. Unfortunately, only a small number of bodies were retrieved.  Most were trapped beyond the divers’ reach inside the wreck.

Following the investigation into the accident, Captain Kendall was cleared of all charges in the disaster. He went on to serve aboard other ships and had a long life at sea. He passed away in 1965 at the age of 91. His obituary in The London Times made no mention of the his role in the sinking of the Empress of Ireland.

The Empress would lie in its watery grave for another 50 years before it was rediscovered by modern scuba divers in 1964, lying in 130 feet of water. But because the St. Lawrence is around 40F/4C even in summer, and has strong tidal currents that limit visibility, this is a dive for experts only. Nevertheless, the Empress has been visited hundreds of times since, including one by Dr. Robert Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic wreck.

Depiction of the Empress of Ireland on the bottom of the St. Lawrence River.
Depiction of the Empress of Ireland on the bottom of the St. Lawrence River.

Some divers have treated the wreck with respect while others have ravaged its remains. The insides of the Empress of Ireland are half-hidden by the silt steadily deposited by the St. Lawrence River over the years. Because the ship rests at so sharply on an angle, the starboard side is buried.

In the ship’s dining salon, chairs and tables appear to float in the silt like driftwood.  The remains of light fixtures dangle from the steeply angled ceiling. In the adjoining pantry, most of the first-class china has been taken by divers, as is the ship’s bell, one of its propellers, and the main bridge telegraph.

Sadly, some divers have even taken the bones of the more than 1,000 people who drowned inside. Divers continued to explore the wreck until 1998, when it was classified as a historic site by the Quebec government, protecting it from any further plundering.

A monument stands over a mass grave on a coastal road near Pointe-au-Père in Rimouski, inscribed with the names of those lost in the disaster. Ships passing by will see a white buoy which permanently marks the location of the wreck. Ironically, the lessons from the Empress of Ireland would have to be relearned 40 years later during the sinking of the Andrea Doria in 1956 following a another collision, when once again fog proved more than a match, for even modern radar.

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