Tuesday, 17 February 2015
4 interesting facts about New Jersey
The first American brewery was opened in Hoboken in 1642.
All New Jersey counties are classified as metropolitan areas - the only state in the USA to do so.
New Jersey is home to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island*.
Highlands, New Jersey, has the highest elevation along the entire Eastern Seaboard from Florida to Maine.
* This fact is particularly interesting as I'm sure most of us in the UK think these are in New York.
Monday, 16 February 2015
New Jersey - Ancient Heritage
Research for my novel, Manhattan Legacy, was a long and involved process during which I discovered so much about the beginnings of the United States of America in the 17th century. It took me on a fascinating journey and shook up a lot of my previously ignorant notions of America.
New Jersey is one such surprise. Far from being a place of rich housewives, Italians, Jersey Shore tourists and a strong accent, this State has an ancient history as rich and as fascinating as any in the world. An incredible heritage.
During the Jurassic Period, some 180 million years ago, New Jersey abutted North Africa. The Appalachian Mountains were a result of this head-on collision. Glaciers that formed during the Ice Age retreated to give rise to numerous swamps, rivers and gorges, including Glacial Lake Passaic formed from the melting waters of the Wisconsin Glacier and Glacial Lake Hackensack.
Around 10,000 years ago, the original peoples of America were feisty Paleo-Indians, survivors of inhospitable terrain and harsh weather. The Lenni Lenape, immigrants from the Mississippi Valley, were nomadic, big-game hunters, tracking wooly mammoths, giant sloths, sabre-toothed tigers and six-foot tall beavers across the icy wastelands of New Jersey an area called Scheyichbi by the Lenape. As the climate continued to become warmer, these prehistoric animals disappeared and, in their stead, was easier prey like white-tailed deer, raccoon and bear. The Lenape fished along the shoreline of New York Harbour using nets and fish hooks to collect clams, mussels and oysters and sea fish.
The Lenape of this region gradually became known as the Delaware. Their stone tools became more efficient and, with the advent of the bow and arrow, they began to settle in places for longer, built oval, bark-shingled houses and practised small-scale agriculture. They grew squashes, beans, maize and tobacco and gathered nuts such as walnuts, chestnuts and beechnuts.
With venison, oysters, clams, corn, sweet potatoes and walnuts on the menu, their diet would be the envy of some of today's more discerning diners.
By the time the first European explorers arrived in the 16th century there were 8,000 to 20,000 Delaware living in parts of Delaware, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. Life was to change dramatically for New Jersey's Delaware natives when Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed along the New Jersey coastline in 1524.
It's an extraordinary thing to realise that, far from being a 'newly-established' country, the USA is home to one of the world's oldest peoples.
The European Invasion! Read part two in my next blog.
Read my novel Manhattan Legacy available on Lulu.com
Read reviews of Manhattan Legacy on Amazon
New Jersey is one such surprise. Far from being a place of rich housewives, Italians, Jersey Shore tourists and a strong accent, this State has an ancient history as rich and as fascinating as any in the world. An incredible heritage.
During the Jurassic Period, some 180 million years ago, New Jersey abutted North Africa. The Appalachian Mountains were a result of this head-on collision. Glaciers that formed during the Ice Age retreated to give rise to numerous swamps, rivers and gorges, including Glacial Lake Passaic formed from the melting waters of the Wisconsin Glacier and Glacial Lake Hackensack.
Around 10,000 years ago, the original peoples of America were feisty Paleo-Indians, survivors of inhospitable terrain and harsh weather. The Lenni Lenape, immigrants from the Mississippi Valley, were nomadic, big-game hunters, tracking wooly mammoths, giant sloths, sabre-toothed tigers and six-foot tall beavers across the icy wastelands of New Jersey an area called Scheyichbi by the Lenape. As the climate continued to become warmer, these prehistoric animals disappeared and, in their stead, was easier prey like white-tailed deer, raccoon and bear. The Lenape fished along the shoreline of New York Harbour using nets and fish hooks to collect clams, mussels and oysters and sea fish.
The Lenape of this region gradually became known as the Delaware. Their stone tools became more efficient and, with the advent of the bow and arrow, they began to settle in places for longer, built oval, bark-shingled houses and practised small-scale agriculture. They grew squashes, beans, maize and tobacco and gathered nuts such as walnuts, chestnuts and beechnuts.
With venison, oysters, clams, corn, sweet potatoes and walnuts on the menu, their diet would be the envy of some of today's more discerning diners.
By the time the first European explorers arrived in the 16th century there were 8,000 to 20,000 Delaware living in parts of Delaware, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. Life was to change dramatically for New Jersey's Delaware natives when Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed along the New Jersey coastline in 1524.
It's an extraordinary thing to realise that, far from being a 'newly-established' country, the USA is home to one of the world's oldest peoples.
The European Invasion! Read part two in my next blog.
Read my novel Manhattan Legacy available on Lulu.com
Read reviews of Manhattan Legacy on Amazon
Sunday, 7 December 2014
How I survived rape, psychopaths and gangsters and wrote my first book, Manhattan Legacy
With
the list of my academic and workplace history neatly recounted under
the 'About Me' heading on my Blogspot, I can now add the real story:
the one that allows me to write about harrowing subjects, such as
rape, murder, abuse and rejection, with authority.
Born
of a schizophrenic mother, I have always been ambivalent about
relationships and how much I mattered in them. I was twelve when my
mother was finally carried away, restrained, quite literally, by men
in white coats. There were incidents during the previous three years
when I'd been drawn into her different personas – she'd fantasize
about my father being dead; she'd declare, taking her hands off the
steering wheel, that my deceased Grandma was driving the car; she'd
leave me to be accused of stealing from a shop when Grandma hadn't
turned up to pay. She had one of her worst episodes - trying to kill
herself by driving into a hedge - while I was at school and I'd
arrived home just as she was being taken away for 'treatment'.
My
mother had never wanted me and blamed me for sentencing her to life
with a man she disliked. In those days divorce was not an option.
Three months later after undergoing ECT and psychotic drug treatments she returned home, a stranger to me, needing
forty-two pills a day and constant monitoring.
Four
years later my father moved us to London, which was wonderful,
overwhelming and frightening to a naïve girl from the backwaters of
Hertfordshire.
My
next nightmare was at the hands of a friend of my father, Sam*,
tasked to introduce me to London life. I suffered rape and
humiliation at the hands of this man and his friends.
I
escaped my parents' acrimonious marriage breakdown by moving in with
a much older man, an alcoholic with violent moods and from a totally
different background, a true East Ender, born within the sounds of
Bow Bells. This was Hackney and Dalston long before they became a
chic place to live, with pubs that harboured thieves and murderers,
gyms that fostered the planning of crimes and council flats that held
parties to celebrate successes by the likes of the Krays and the
Richardsons. I was witness to a brutal gangland killing, was beaten
badly myself and lived in hovels. It took me four years to return to
my mother.
My
next escape arrived in the form of a charming, good-looking man, well
known in music industry circles, a social animal seen at every
important premiere, gig and club opening. It was only when I married
him and committed myself to bringing up my two sons that I discovered
the back story. I lived a weird life of deceit and lies for 23 years
before he finally walked out, leaving us homeless and penniless. I
suffered a nervous breakdown.
Quite
a life so far. But as you can see, I can talk about the disturbing
world of psychopaths, mentally disturbed people and physical and
mental abuse with authority. I've only skimmed over the above details
– there's far, far more to come. I plan to divulge the full story
of my life in future blogs.
*
Not his real name
Why I wrote Manhattan Legacy
To remember why I wrote my book, I need to think back to when I first had the idea to commit to a novel. No particular subject had gripped me and I had already started many projects that are yet to be developed.
I was casually grazing through sites on the internet which, back in 2000, were slow to load and lacking much content, when I came across details of a book about Wall Street. The book was called The Great Game by John Steele Gordon, the acclaimed business historian. I read some of the sample material and found myself drawn into a riveting history of a little lane, originally called Het Cingel, in New Amsterdam that went on to change the nature of trading and commerce forever.
I bought the book, read to page 192, and then saw the picture that was to capture my imagination. It was a simple, woodcut illustration depicting a primitive palisade beside which two men in doublets, boots and breeches stood discussing the merits of a high wall. Above the two chatting men was a guard, musket over one shoulder, patrolling atop the four-foot high breastwork that supported the twelve-foot pales. It was 1653 and this was newly-built Wall Street in New Amsterdam, a Dutch colonial town on the tip of Manhattan Island, that would become the foundation upon which New York was built.
One of the men had a peg-leg and was pointing at the wooden defence with his walking stick. That man, the man responsible for ordering the construction of the wall as protection for the colony against attacks by natives and foreign enemies, was Governor Pieter Stuyvesant.
I researched 17th century history and, in particular, the period of history now known as the Golden Age of Discovery, finding not only warring nations in Europe, the beginnings of global slavery, religious intolerance and conflict, pirates, Native Americans, witch hunts, racial and gender inequality, countries fighting for territorial and maritime supremacy in the New World, but also the extraordinary birth of the first truly modern nation. This was novel-writing gold!
The characters in my first novel, Manhattan Legacy, live in that Age: they feel, smell, see and experience 17th century life. Mostly, though, my book is about how one individual can create and influence a series of events that have far-reaching consequences for many other people. The fact that the thousands of choices, decisions and laws made during that period still affect us today is a constant source of spine-tingling awe for me.
The surviving characters from my first novel will feature in my next and subsequent books.
I was casually grazing through sites on the internet which, back in 2000, were slow to load and lacking much content, when I came across details of a book about Wall Street. The book was called The Great Game by John Steele Gordon, the acclaimed business historian. I read some of the sample material and found myself drawn into a riveting history of a little lane, originally called Het Cingel, in New Amsterdam that went on to change the nature of trading and commerce forever.
I bought the book, read to page 192, and then saw the picture that was to capture my imagination. It was a simple, woodcut illustration depicting a primitive palisade beside which two men in doublets, boots and breeches stood discussing the merits of a high wall. Above the two chatting men was a guard, musket over one shoulder, patrolling atop the four-foot high breastwork that supported the twelve-foot pales. It was 1653 and this was newly-built Wall Street in New Amsterdam, a Dutch colonial town on the tip of Manhattan Island, that would become the foundation upon which New York was built.
One of the men had a peg-leg and was pointing at the wooden defence with his walking stick. That man, the man responsible for ordering the construction of the wall as protection for the colony against attacks by natives and foreign enemies, was Governor Pieter Stuyvesant.
I researched 17th century history and, in particular, the period of history now known as the Golden Age of Discovery, finding not only warring nations in Europe, the beginnings of global slavery, religious intolerance and conflict, pirates, Native Americans, witch hunts, racial and gender inequality, countries fighting for territorial and maritime supremacy in the New World, but also the extraordinary birth of the first truly modern nation. This was novel-writing gold!
The characters in my first novel, Manhattan Legacy, live in that Age: they feel, smell, see and experience 17th century life. Mostly, though, my book is about how one individual can create and influence a series of events that have far-reaching consequences for many other people. The fact that the thousands of choices, decisions and laws made during that period still affect us today is a constant source of spine-tingling awe for me.
The surviving characters from my first novel will feature in my next and subsequent books.
Wednesday, 26 November 2014
Why Give Thanks?
Part Two
Giving
thanks to God, whatever the religion or belief system, has been part
of every culture since time immemorial: for health, for victory over
rivals and for plentiful harvests. Special dates are set for these
Festivals and most are celebrated on an annual basis.
The
tradition of Thanksgiving in the United States has its roots in
English history. In 1536, during the reign of King Henry Ⅷ,
there were 95 Church holidays and 52 Sundays, when no work was
allowed and attending Church services was mandatory. After the
Reformation, this number was reduced to 27, with some Puritans
wishing to eliminate Christmas and Easter festivities, too!
The
'Holy Days' became Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving. Fasting
Days were to mark disasters and threats and Thanksgiving Days to
celebrate special blessings coming from God.
Puritans
and Pilgrims who emigrated from England took these traditions with
them to New England. Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth, Massachusetts in
1621 and 1623 and the Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631 are among the
first Thanksgiving Days recognised in American history.
Harvest
festivals did not become an annual affair in New England until the
late 1660's, when Dutch-held territories in the New World were seized
by the English. Thanksgiving proclamations were declared by both
State and Church until after the American Revolution and were
invariably on differing dates. An annual nationwide Thanksgiving date
was announced by George Washington in 1789 and it was to be known as
“a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by
acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of
Almighty God.”
In
1863, President Lincoln proclaimed that the last Thursday in November
was to be a day when all Americans, from Northern and Southern
States, joined together in unity to celebrate Thanksgiving.
Unfortunately the Confederacy refused to recognise Lincoln's
authority and it was not implemented until the Reconstruction in the
1870's.
On
26th December 1941, President Franklin D Roosevelt signed
a joint resolution in Congress citing the fourth Thursday In November
as the national Thanksgiving Day.
It
is always with a sense of envy that I watch reports of Americans
celebrating this very important festival. People travel for hundreds,
sometimes thousands of miles to be reunited with their relatives on
this special day and reaffirm their love and care for one another and
their country.
In
England, we do not have any comparable occasion. The Scots have
Burn's Night, the Irish celebrate St.Patrick's Day and the Welsh have
St. David. St. George's Day, honouring our English Saint, is a
lukewarm, recently revived attempt at recognising England, but
somehow it only seems to be drunks and fanatics who enjoy it, nor do
our harvest festivals have quite the importance or relevance they
once had with the advent of supermarkets and all-year-round imported
foodstuffs. In a way it's very sad and not having our Day of
Thanksgiving doesn't allow us to embrace our past and acknowledge
those that built our country.
America
– your ancestors survived unimaginable hardships in crossing the
Atlantic, starvation, hostile environments, adversities we can only
wonder at, but your adventurous spirit and sense of nationality
prevailed - you should always give thanks for that!
Read my novel Manhattan Legacy available on Lulu.com
You can buy Manhattan Legacy in various ebook formats on Smashwords
Tuesday, 25 November 2014
Why Give Thanks?
Part
One
It wasn't a great journey - 3,000 miles in a leaky, wooden galleon,
at the mercy of all the elements: thunderstorms, howling gales,
freezing snowstorms, maggoty meat, weevil-infested biscuits, soured
beer, no water, all within an atmosphere of stinking animal ordure,
human vomit and Death on constant call with his life-ending scythe.
Then, imagine stepping onto stable ground, the churning sea behind
you, ahead green meadows, flowers, fully clothed trees, the sweet
smell of brine-less air and tinkling streams of pure mountain water.
Yes, this is your first first day in the New World. Here you can
worship your God without fear of persecution, you can build a cabin
to house your growing family, till the land and grow your grain and
vegetables and live in freedom and happiness..
Paradise Arrived!
No, not really!
Where's your first meal coming from? Where is your shelter for the
first night? What do you do with your worldly possessions? Your seed
crops are spoiled from exposure to seawater on board ship. What
plants are poisonous? What wild animals are lurking in the forests
ready to kill you?
Henry Hudson described the island of Manhattan as “The
land is the finest for cultivation that I have ever in my life set
foot upon, and it also abounds in trees of every description.”
This
account, along with glowing reports from the French explorer, Samuel
de Champlain, had enticed all manner of people to the New World:
Pilgrims, Puritans and Calvinists, who sought religious freedom of
worship and settlers, who wanted a life away from the strictures of
poverty, punitive laws, robbing nobles and European wars.
The
truth of this new land, though, was not what the colonists had
expected - it was an alien territory of disease, the unbearable cold
of a mini Ice Age, no food and very little shelter. There was,
however, God's love, hope, a gritty determination to succeed and the
local natives, the Wampanoag.
The
Mayflower's
Pilgrims landed on December 16th,
1620 and set up home in a deserted Wampanoag village, Patuxet. It had
been abandoned four years earlier after an outbreak of the plague,
brought by earlier Europeans, had wiped out two-thirds of the tribe
in the region, which, pre-pestilence, had numbered between 50,000 and
100,000.
Although
the Wampanoag had noted the arrival of strangers, they had not
regarded the newcomers as a warlike threat as they were accompanied
by woman and children. The natives observed them through their first
winter, but kept their distance.
On
March 16th,
1621, Samoset, a member of the Moneghan tribe from Maine, visited
Patuxet. He returned the following day accompanied by a Wampanoag
native called Tisquantum or Squanto. It was this kindly man who
showed the Pilgrims how to plant corn, where and how to fish and what
nuts and berries were safe to eat. That same month the Pilgrims and
Ousamequin or Massasoit, the Pokanoket Wampanoag Chief, agreed a
treaty of mutual protection.
In the Autumn of 1621, the Pilgrims harvested their first crop, and
it was a fine yield. The Pilgrims sent four men 'on fowling' and,
according to an account by Pilgrim Edward Winslow, one of only two
sources of this historical event, they used guns to capture their
prey. On hearing the gunfire, Massasoit believed his settler friends
were under attack and showed up at Patuxet ready to give support.
The natives were invited to join in the harvest festivities, but
there were 90 natives and there wasn't enough food for all. Massasoit
sent his men out to hunt and they brought back five deer which they
presented to William Bradford, the English leader.
The ensuing feast lasted for three days. There was venison, seafood,
water-fowl, maize bread, pumpkin, squashes of all description and
possibly 'fowl' or turkey.
How did this small feast of sharing and giving thanks at Patuxet
become Thanksgiving, one of the greatest annual events in American
history? See Part Two of 'Why Give Thanks?' tomorrow, on the Eve of
Thanksgiving.
For more on 17th century Manhattan life read my novel, Manhattan Legacy, available as a print copy or eBook.
Read my novel Manhattan Legacy available on Lulu.com
Read my novel Manhattan Legacy available on Lulu.com
Tuesday, 28 October 2014
Who am I?
What do all these major geographical landmarks have in
common?
A powerful river, a city in New York, a small county in New
Jersey, a bridge linking Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx and Inwood in Manhattan,
an enormous bay - the second largest bay in the world after the Bay of Bengal -
and a Canadian strait connecting that bay to the Atlantic Ocean.
The answer is navigator, explorer and ship’s Commander,
Henry Hudson.
It took this Englishman to claim Manhattan Island, the jewel
in the crown of the New World, for the Dutch in September 1609.
Henry Hudson was born in London, England, during the
mid-to-late 1560’s. His family were wealthy merchants and his grandfather, also
Henry Hudson, was a founding member of the Merchant Adventurers, a trading
company which received a Royal Charter from King Edward in 1553, and which became
known as the Muscovy Company in 1555.
Hudson’s privileged background would have seen him educated
in cartography, navigation, mathematics and astronomy, all subjects that drew
him towards sailing and exploration.
A headstrong, courageous, bewhiskered man with dark hair and eyes, he
was married to a lady called Katherine and had three sons John, Richard and
Oliver.
Since the discovery of the riches of the Orient: Indian and
Chinese silk, spices, precious gemstones, porcelain and much more, competition
to find the quickest route to Cathay was intense. European nations fell over
themselves plotting and scouring maps, investing heavily in doubtful ventures:
monarchs, merchants and governments handed over substantial amounts of money to
trading companies in order to become even wealthier and more powerful.
The quest to find the coveted Northeast Passage, a northerly
route that would carve a pathway through to the Far East, was one fraught with
danger, skulduggery and murder. The theory behind the a possible passage was
that there existed a seaway that ran above the Artic Circle eastwards and ended
in China, its access only possible during three summer months when the sun
melted the northern ice packs.
Henry Hudson would attempt four of these explorative
ventures on behalf of merchant companies and, in doing so, would immortalise
his name.
Climactic conditions during the 17th Century were brutal.
Europe and America were in the throes of a Little Ice Age that had begun in the
13th Century, bringing winters so severe that rivers froze, frost fairs were
held on the River Thames in London, encroaching glaciers destroyed farms and
villages in Switzerland, the freezing winter of 1607-08 claimed the lives of
excessive numbers of settlers and natives in Maine and in Jamestown, Virginia
extreme frost was reported and Samuel de Champlain recalled bearing ice along
the shores of Lake Superior in June 1608.
So, not only was the quest for the Northeast Passage one of
national competition, laden with treachery and greed, it was also set against a
backdrop of sub zero temperatures, impenetrable pack ice, unrelenting
blizzards, frostbite and death.
The London Muscovy Company commissioned Hudson’s services
and on May 1st, 1607, he captained the 80-ton ship, Hopewell, with ten crewmen and a ship’s boy. By June, Hudson
had reached Greenland and travelled northwards along its coast, across the
Arctic Circle and a month later entered what Hudson called, ‘Whales Bay’.
Shortly after, he met with an impenetrable wall of ice and returned to Tilbury
Hope, England, in September 1607.
His next trek was funded by the London East India and
Muscovy Companies in 1608. Again, Hudson was Commander of Hopewell, but this time he would follow an easterly route
sailing above Russia. He sailed in April, but finding his path blocked by ice
packs he turned around and landed back in Gravesend, Kent in August.
In 1609, Hudson he accepted a commission from the Dutch East
India Company to once again find an easterly passage to the Indies. Leaving
Amsterdam in April on Halve Maen (Half
Moon), a three-mast carrack, he was thwarted once more by the inevitable
barrier of ice above the Arctic Circle. This time though he did not head home,
but rather took a westerly passage skirting Newfoundland and reaching Nova
Scotia in late July. This decision was based on reports from previous explorers
in the area, John Smith of Jamestown and Samuel de Champlain, citing Native
American knowledge of a western route to Cathay.
In August he arrived at Cape Cod, foreswore exploring the
entrance to Chesapeake Bay, and sailed north and found Delaware Bay. In
September he reached the estuary of the North River or Muhheakunnuk (Mohican
for ‘Great Waters constantly in Motion’) - now the Hudson River. After a
skirmish with local natives, in which a crewmember died, Hudson travelled
upriver as far as what would become Fort Orange or present day Albany. This
journey would give the Dutch territorial claim to the island lying off the
starboard side of Halve Maen - Manhattan
Island.
Hudson would say of the island:
“The land is the finest for cultivation that I have
ever in my life set foot upon, and it also abounds
in trees of every description.”
—Henry
Hudson
Hudson’s voyage ended back in England in November 1609.
Although he was detained by English authorities, who were upset at his working
for the Dutch, his log was passed over to the Dutch Ambassador for England and
handed to the Dutch East India Company officials in Amsterdam.
His final voyage in 1610 was under the English flag again.
Funding from the English East India Company and the Virginia Company saw him
take the helm of a new ship Discovery,
with a remit to find the Northwest Passage. Rounding the southern tip of
Greenland in early June he reached what is now known as the Hudson Strait and
entered Hudson Bay at the beginning of August. He did not find the illusive
passage to the Far East. November saw him trapped in ice in James Bay. Having
survived a bleak winter on land, the crew wanted to go home, but Hudson did
not. The crew mutinied and eventually Hudson, his son John and a few crewmen were
forced into a small boat, with inadequate provisions for their survival, and
that was the last that anyone saw of Henry Hudson. It was June 1611.
What an ignominious death for such a brave, intrepid
explorer.
Check out my novel, Manhattan Legacy, for further reading on 17th century life.
Read my novel Manhattan Legacy available on Lulu.com
You can buy Manhattan Legacy in various ebook formats on Smashwords
For a really interesting look at Henry Hudson through original documents collated in 1860 check out the University of Pittsburgh's archives on the subject:
https://archive.org/details/henryhudsonnavig27ashe
Check out my novel, Manhattan Legacy, for further reading on 17th century life.
Read my novel Manhattan Legacy available on Lulu.com
You can buy Manhattan Legacy in various ebook formats on Smashwords
For a really interesting look at Henry Hudson through original documents collated in 1860 check out the University of Pittsburgh's archives on the subject:
https://archive.org/details/henryhudsonnavig27ashe
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