Virginia Beer Museum takes note of Guy Fawkes
Since Nov 5, 1758 was a Sunday, would a Chaplain have spoken of the Guy Fawkes event to the soldiers of the Forbes Expedition? We found one instance, but not from the Forbes Expedition.
We also want to note that Guy Fawkes night of bonfires and mischief and fireworks has found a modern incarnation.
The V for Vandetta mask is a stylized version of Guy Fawkes. But Guy Fawkes was wanting Catholic order restored, not Protestant rule, not freedom for the people, not religious diversity or tolerance. Yet now this event is used to celebrate anything attacking the established order. The original event of 5 Nov 1605 was against the King who sponsored what you know today to be the King James Bible. By the French and Indian War and on through the 1760s and then on through to the War of Independence, it became an anti-Pope Night. From then on this event came to symbolize a general attack against the established order.
But before we look at those matters, let us mention the Virginia Beer Museum. They are located 16 Chester Street Front Royal, VA 22630 P: 540-313-1441 Email: vabeermuseum@gmail.com
The Virgina Beer Museum
noted Guy Fawkes on November 5, 2017 Saturday Night
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Guy Fawkes Effigy and bonfire was constructed behind the Virginia Beer Museum.
Photo of the some of the crowd on Guy Fawkes night 5 November 2017.
Notice the one man with a harp. A special instrument designed by the holder of it. He spoke of the harp’s mythic orgins. Look that up some day. Something about dead turtles decaying and hearing the wind whistle through dessicated decaying muscle and cartilage.
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The V for Vandetta mask is a stylized version of Guy Fawkes. But Guy Fawkes was wanting Catholic order restored, not Protestant rule, not freedom for the people, not religious diversity or tolerance. Yet now this event is used to celebrate anything attacking the established order.
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, 'twas his intent
To blow up the King and the Parliament
Three score barrels of powder below
Poor old England to overthrow
By God's providence he was catch'd
With a dark lantern and burning match
Holler boys, holler boys, let the bells ring
Holler boys, holler boys
God save the King!
The Gunpowder Plot occurred November 5, 1605.
"The plotters were led by a man called Robert Catesby, whose plan was to blow up the English Parliament during its opening session in the presence of King James I. After that, English Catholics would rise up in revolt, set up a new government, and the authority of the Catholic church would be reasserted."
The Forbes Expedition officers make no note of it.
We don't know for sure if a Chaplain spoke of it or not on Sunday 5 Nov 1758.
The hired head Chaplain, Thomas Barton, may have become disaffected with soldier behavior.
At some point he stopped recording his sermons. Did he just deliver shorter, perfunctory sermons because the men were promised rum if they attend?
Beginning on 7 July and breaking off abruptly on 26 September 1758, it unfortunately stops well before the capture of Ft. Duquesne on 23 November 1758, prompting speculation that Barton, depressed or demoralized by his circumstances, might have withdrawn from the campaign.
Recently discovered evidence, however, establishes that, for whatever reason Barton chose to stop his journal in September, he did in fact continue all the way to Fort Duquesne.
An anonymous letter printed in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette on 14 December 1758 (no. 1564) and jubilantly announcing the fall ofthe French fortress is clearly from Barton's pen.
Source is on Page 20
One instance of celebration:
But up north, in Annapolis Nova Scotia, a Captain John Knox in the British Army records in his journal that a Chaplain did speak of Guy Fawkes Day on Nov 5, 1758.
Our Chaplain gave us an excellent discourse to-day, [Nov 5, 1758]
suitable to this anniversary [Guy Fawkes Day].Captain John Knox was stationed there ever since the 1757 failed Loudoun expedition against Fortress Louisboug which by July of 1758 had fallen to the British and whose heroes adorn the names of streets in Winchester Virginia to celebrate that victory.
How Guy Fawkes became Modern
The Guy Fawkes face
has stylized into a mask
for anti-govt, anti-globalist, anti-establishment.
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The Quick Story on Guy Fawkes
On November 5, 1605 Guy Fawkes is charged for being in the Gunpowder plot to kill King James I.
This is the same King who sponsored the work on the famous 1609 King James Bible.
This day later became an anti- Pope Day.
The people would cause bonfires and mischief to celebrate their anger against the Pope and all his followers, especially including the Catholic French.
How did Guy Fawkes Day become Pope Day?
Guy Fawkes became a symbol of attacking Authority, of any kind, especially those who followed the authority of the Pope.
Then Guy Fawkes became V for Vandetta, a British graphic novel, and a movie.
Now it's a symbol for the group Anonymous, the hacker group.
Bank Transfer Day
Christian, an art gallery owner in Los Angeles, California, said he was dissatisfied with Bank of America's "ridiculous fees and poor customer service." He created an event on Facebook called “Bank Transfer Day” and invited his friends to close their accounts at big for-profit banks and move their money to credit unions by November 5, 2011. Christian chose November 5 because of its association with Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up the British House of Lords and bring Catholic rule back to the United Kingdom, but was captured on that date in 1605.
IRONY AND CONTRADICTION
It's ironic and
an interesting insight
into how images
can take on their own life,
with little relevance to reality,
that twenty-first century anarchists
can iconize a man
whose ideals
were neither libertarian
nor democratic.
Though certainly a revolutionary in his way,
Guy Fawkes was basically a
middle class religious fanatic
whose objective was
not to give power to the people,
but turn the clock back
in favour of Catholic power
that was more hierarchical,
more aristocratic
and less tolerant
than the Protestant parliamentary system that had replaced it.
While Guy Fawkes is generally remembered as a villainous traitor who tried in vain to destroy the English King and his parliament, historic facts have all too often been forgotten.
Taken out of context, Guy Fawkes has even been turned into a hero, and seen as an anarchist martyr whose aim was to get rid of elites (the king and parliament) and give power back to the "people"; his face has been used by hacker groups and activists of the left and the right, notably the group Anonymous, as a symbol of the fight against establishment powers and hierarchies.
Source:
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Why relevant for Fort Loudoun?
This wasn’t just a battle against the French and Indians.
The French were Papists, Catholic, agents of the devil.
We do not see in the letters of the Virginia Regiment any violent bias towards Catholics, just a generalized distrust.
Discrimination towards Catholics known as Papists:
1. After Queen Ann died in 1714,
over fifty Catholics in line for succession were barred in favor of only Protestants. This was the 1701 Act of Settlement. Ignoring all possible Catholic lines of succession led to finding a Protestant in the Hanover area of Brunswick-Lüneburg King George I, 1714-1727. Brunswick-Lüneburg you will see are names of some Virginia Counties today.
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2. Acadians:
Expelling the Acadians, who in July 1755 were not just sent to Louisiana, but to many other colonies, including Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas. Virginia wanted to ship them to Great Britain. The Acadians were French Catholics. Their story was made popular in the poem Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - 1807-1882.
3. Papists in Virginia:
In the Journal of House of Burgesses’ first session 25 March 1756 to 5 May 1756:
Upon a Motion made, Resolved, That a Bill be brought in, For disarming Papists, and reputed Papists refusing to take the Oaths to the Government, and it is referr’d to Mr Attorney to prepare and bring in the same. — April 13. 1756, Page 366 of Journal of House of Burgesses 1756 first session
1st Session
Journal, 1756, March Session, page 335, March 25, 1756 to May 5, 1756
That's it.
That's our lead story.
There's always more.
Skip around.
Read bits and pieces.
Compiled and authored by Jim Moyer 11/6/2022
Capt John Knox Diary
The Guy Fawkes soon transformed into Anti Pope day
in the colonies during the French and Indian War on past the War for Independence.
This journal does not explain the transformation of Guy Fawkes Day into Anti Pope Day, but it does show a connection.
In Annapolis Nova Scotia, a Captain John Knox in the British Army records in his journal that a Chaplain did speak of Guy Fawkes Day on Nov 5, 1758.
Our Chaplain gave us an excellent discourse to-day, [Nov 5, 1758]
suitable to this anniversary [Guy Fawkes Day].The day before they foraged for food and found apples, presumably left over from old orchards abandoned by the forced removal of Acadians.
Officers, went to the orchards, scoured the country, for several miles, without making the least discovery, and returned to the fort about two o'clock in the afternoon, loaded with apples. We mention the Acadians, because Guy Fawkes Day had soon become transformed into Anti Pope sentiment, Pope's Day.
So read the last lines of this excerpt of the poem Evangeline talking about those abandoned farms:
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
This is the forest primeval;
but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands, Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed! Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.
Links:
5 Nov 1758 Order Book
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The poem
A journal from Captain Knox
sitting at Annapolis in Nova Scotia since the failed Loudoun campaign to take Fortress Louisbourg.
Thomas Barton, Chaplain on Forbes Expedition
LINKS
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King James I
King James Bible
Lord Loudoun 1757 expedition against Fortress Louisbourg
V For Vendetta Speech - Seeds of Revolution!
Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, whereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle are celebrated with a nice holiday. I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, think, and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillence coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well, certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now High Chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you, then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.
Charlie Chaplin - Final Speech from The Great Dictator
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Evangeline
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands, Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven? Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed! Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pré.
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Bank Transfer Day
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Bank Transfer Day was a consumer activism[1] initiative calling for a voluntary switch from commercial banks to not-for-profit credit unions by November 5, 2011.[2][3][4] As of October 15, 2011, a Facebook page devoted to the effort had drawn more than 54,900 "likes".[5] Debit card fees of $5 a month from the Bank of America are among steps leading to the Bank Transfer Day protest with a November 5 deadline.[6] Occupy Wall Street participants support the effort[7] even though the events are not related.[8] Among the detractors were Occupy Los Angeles participants: Sigurd Olin Christian, creator of the Bank Transfer Day event, stated that "he was accosted by Occupy Los Angeles organizers and has even received threatening phone calls" because of his pro-credit union rather than anti-bank approach.[9] Christian, an art gallery owner in Los Angeles, California, said he was dissatisfied with Bank of America's "ridiculous fees and poor customer service."[10] He created an event on Facebook called “Bank Transfer Day” and invited his friends to close their accounts at big for-profit banks and move their money to credit unions by November 5, 2011. Christian chose November 5 because of its association with Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up the British House of Lords and bring Catholic rule back to the United Kingdom, but was captured on that date in 1605.[11][12][13] This has been a continuing observance.[14]
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Reverend Thomas Barton
We may also consult the 1758 war journal of Thomas Barton.
Discovered in manuscript in 1970 and printed the following year, Barton's diary is filled with important details and significant observations. 64
Interestingly, it appears to trace his growing disillusionment with military life.
Beginning on 7 July and breaking off abruptly on 26 September 1758, it unfortunately stops well before the capture of Ft. Duquesne on 23 November 1758, prompting speculation that Barton, depressed or demoralized by his circumstances, might have withdrawn from the campaign.
Recently discovered evidence, however, establishes that, for whatever reason Barton chose to stop his journal in September, he did in fact continue all the way to Fort Duquesne.
An anonymous letter printed in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette on 14 December 1758 (no. 1564) and jubilantly announcing the fall ofthe French fortress is clearly from Barton's pen.
Source is on Page 20
In the eighteenth century, newspapers did not normally identify their sources for news beyond the city where they were
20 Myers: Preparations for the Forbes Expedition, 1758 published-i.e.,
writers whom we today would call "news correspondents." Comparing the letter's style with other writings of Barton allows us to recognize transparent similarities in syntax, vocabulary, figures of speech, and tone.
We know from a later occasion that he indeed anonymously sent news of military interest to the Gazette.
In 1763 a letter describing atrocities committed during Pontiac's War was printed anonymously in the Pennsylvania Gazette: it duplicates the structure, phrasing, and vocabulary of a letter Barton had sent a few weeks earlier to Richard Peters on the same subject. 66
Additionally, Franklin also printed Barton's war sermon Unanimity and Public Spirit in 1755. All this evidence shows that Franklin, during the years 1755-61, was publishing writings by Barton. 67
Finally, a letter by Thomas Penn to Barton commending the latter for his participation in the Forbes campaign also thanks him for sending both "your account of the flourishing state of the frontier Settlements ... [and] your account of the Lands in the back parts of the Province." 68
The Proprietor's next remark suggests that Barton's second "account" was of the new territories opened with the fall of Ft. Duquesne: ''but [I] believe we must not think of making Settlements on the Ohio 'till the next Age." 69
Barton had seen and described for Penn the new rich lands that lay about and beyond the Forks of the Ohio, hoping to encourage him to open that territory to settlement. The full text of what is certainly then Thomas Barton's letter to Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette follows and fittingly concludes this essay. Appropriately, it is perhaps one of the final extant communications Barton wrote before he removed to Lancaster in 1759.
His celebration of the destruction of Fort Duquesne and of his general's great victory rounds off a sequence of events that in effect commenced with the virtual beginning of his incumbency in Christ's Church, Huntington township, and the inglorious defeat of another British general marching to seize the French stronghold at the Forks of the Ohio. Barton's euphoria matches in degree the despair and the anguish that distinguished his first letters, penned within the shadows of the forest of Huntington and Reading townships three-and-a-half years earlier. * * * * Thomas Barton[?] to The Pennsylvania Gazette (no. 1564, 14 December 1758):
The following Letter from that General's 70
Army, being wrote by one, who seems to be no Stranger to the true Interest of these Colonies, nor to
21 Adams County History, Vol. 1 [1995], Art. 3
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/ach/vol1/iss1/3
Indian Affairs, we hope will not be unacceptable to our Readers.
Pittsburgh (formerly Fort Duquesne) Nov. 28, 1758
SIR, I have the Pleasure to write this Letter upon the Spot where Fort Duquesne once stood,
while the British Flag flies over the Debris of its Bastions in Triumph.
Blessed be God, the long look'd for Day is arrived, that has now fixed us on the Banks of the Ohio! with great Propriety called La Belle Riviere, in the quiet and peaceable Possession of the finest and most fertile Country of America, lying in the happiest Climate in the Universe.
This valuable Acquisition lays open to all his Majesty's Subjects a Vein of Treasure, which, if rightly managed, may prove richer than the Mines of Mexico, the Trade with the numerous Nations of Western Indians: It deprives our Enemies of the Benefits they expected from their deep laid Schemes, and breaks asunder the Chain of Communication betwixt Canada and Louisiana, a Chain that threatened this Continent with Slavery, and therefore the chief Favourite and Mistress of the French Court.
These Advantages have been procured for us by the Prudence and Abilities of General FORBES, without Stroke of Sword, tho' had they been purchased at the Price of much Blood and Treasure, every Lover of his Country must have allowed that they would have been cheaply bought.
The Difficulties he had to struggle with were great.
To maintain Armies in a Wilderness, Hundreds of Miles from the Settlements; to match them by untrod den Paths, over almost impassable Mountains, thro' thick Woods and dangerous Defiles, required both Foresight and Experience, especially if you consider the Efforts of an active Enemy, frequently attempting to cut off our Convoys; consider also his long and dangerous Sickness, under which a Man of less Spirits must have sunk; and the advanced Season, which would have deterred a less determined Leader, and· think that he has surmounted all these Difficulties, that he has conquered all this Country, has driven the French from the Ohio, and obliged them to blow up their Fort (when we were within a few Miles of it we heard the Explosion) he has now reconciled the several Nations of Indians at War with us, and with one another, regained our lost Interest among them, and fixed it on so firm a Foundation, as not again to be shaken; so that our Back Settlements, instead of being frightful Fields of Blood, will once more smile with Peace and Plenty.
These Things have rendered him the Delight of the Army, and must endear him to the Provinces.
22 Myers:
Preparations for the Forbes Expedition, 1758 All his Motions were narrowly watched by the Enemy, who, finding that he not only proceeded with Care and Circumspection, but with inflexible Steadiness, and that they could neither face him in the Field, retard his March, nor resist him in their Fort, retired to their Batteaus, 71
and fell 72
down the River, we hear, to a Fort, built two or three Years ago, near the Junction of the Ohio with the Cherokee River, where their united Stream falls into the Missisippi, Eight Hundred Miles from hence.
The Twenty-sixth of this Month was observed, by the General's Orders, as a Day of pub lick Thanksgiving to Almighty God for our Success; the Day after we had a grand feu de Joye, and To-day a great Detachment goes to Braddock's Field of Battle, to bury the Bones of our slaughtered Countrymen, many of whom were butchered in cold Blood by (those crueller than Savages) the French, who, to the eternal Shame and Infamy of their Country, have left them lying above Ground ever since.
The unburied Bodies of those killed since, and strewed round this Fort, equally reproach them, and proclaim loudly, to all civilized Nations, their Barbarity.
Thanks to Heaven, their Reign on this Continent promises no long Duration! especially if Mr. PITT73
be preserved, whose great Soul animates all our Measures, infuses new Courage into our Soldiers and Sailors, and inspires our Generals and Admirals with the most commendable Conduct.
23 Adams County History, Vol. 1 [1995], Art. 3
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The Rev. Thomas Barton's Authorship of The Conduct of the Paxton Men, Impartially Represented (1764)
James P. Myers Jr.
Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies Vol. 61, No. 2 (April 1994), pp. 155-184 (30 pages) Published By: Penn State University Press
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As Franklin moved up in his political career so did the profits of his business. Starting in 1736, when Franklin was chosen clerk of the General Assembly he was able to secure large scale, very profitable printing jobs such as votes, pamphlets and other general use forms. The Gazette saw a boost in its circulation in 1737 when Franklin was appointed Postmaster of Philadelphia. As Postmaster he was able to include The Pennsylvania Gazette in mail riders (mailmen) routes to be delivered with regular mail gaining a wider audience as well as increasing demand for paid advertising space.
Business was thriving by the mid 1730s, the Pennsylvania Gazette became the most popular newspaper in the colony and Poor Richard’s Almanac was a best seller with a circulation of 10,000 copies a year.
In 1748 Franklin retired from business. Having built a fortune which enabled him to live comfortably for the rest of his life he decided to dedicate all his time to science and public projects.
He left the management of his business to his partner David Hall including printing and editing of the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard’s Almanac.
The Pennsylvania Gazette ceased publication in 1800, ten years after Franklin’s death.
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PRAYERS FOR RUM
We had for our chaplain a zealous Presbyterian Minister, Mr Beatty, who contmplained to me that the men did not generally attend his prayers and exhortations.
When they enlisted they were promised, besides pay and provisions, a gill of rum a day, which was punctually served out to them, half in the morning and the other half in the evening and I observed that they were punctual in attending to receive it;
upon which I said to Mr Beatty:
"It is, perhaps below the dignity of your profession to act as steward of the rum; but if you were only to distribute it out after prayers, you have them all about you."
He liked the thought, undertook the task and, with the help of a few hands to measure out the liquour, executed it to satisfaction; and never were paryers more enerally and more punctually attended.
David W Rial, The Old Forbes Road (Pittsburgh Western Pennsylvania Historical Society, 1995), 62-63
Page 52, The British Defeat of the French in Pennsylvania, 1758: A Military History of the Forbes Campaign Against Fort Duquesne: by Douglas R. Cubbison. More on this author here. And a review here.
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