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History Repeats Itself on the VC Parade Ground

4/6/2020

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This blog post was contributed by guest author Vivian Davis who has extensively studied the 20th century military history that unfolded on the Parade Ground in Van Cortlandt Park.  

When I heard on the news about a field hospital being constructed on the Van Cortlandt Park Parade Ground to aid in the COVID-19 hospitalization effort, I couldn't help but think that history was repeating itself.  It's been just a little over a century since the Parade Ground last saw a mobilization of this magnitude.   As a former Weekend Manager at Van Cortlandt House Museum, I also couldn't help but think about how much history has been witness by Van Cortlandt House over the last 270+ years.  
 
Formerly planting fields for the Van Cortlandt Family, the Parade Ground was developed in 1886 as a facility for the National Guard of New York.  It quickly became a “home field” for the 71st Infantry Regiment for weekend drills and polo matches.  Later, as the war in Europe escalated, the Guard put on a display of their military readiness in September of 1915.
 
It wasn’t until the conflicts in Mexico in 1916 when the Parade Ground became a full-time National Guard operation.  Mexican general and guerrilla leader Pancho Villa had been causing trouble on the Mexico/United States border, necessitating National Guard troops from New York to be sent west to protect the U.S. borderlands.
 
The National Guard presence on the Parade Ground switched into high gear with the United States declaration of war on the Central Powers in Europe in April 1917.  During this time, the National Guard became nationalized and thus could travel beyond the country’s borders.  The entirety of the modern-day parade ground and north beyond the Henry Hudson Parkway (which had not yet been built) was transformed into a mobilization camp which could accommodate roughly six thousand troops.  It included space to practice military maneuvers, a full mess set up, field hospitals, and a sea of canvas tents where soldiers prepared to be shipped off to Europe.   National Guard troops from all over New York and beyond descended upon The Bronx.  Due to its proximity to Broadway, Camp Van Cortlandt as it was known, became quite a spectacle for onlookers. 
 
After the spring of 1919, the Parade Ground once again became a place for the National Guard to do their weekend drills.  During World War II, it would also be used as a training area, but not to the extent of what was witnessed during the Great War.  After World War II, Van Cortlandt Park’s military history became a distant memory as baseball fields and cricket pitches were installed and cross-country runners began to dominate the fall months.
 
As I ponder the news of a field hospital once again being built on Parade Ground, I can’t help but think that we are watching history repeat itself in our backyards.  I’m choosing to remember those who created this space, a place for the greater good of New York, and saluting those who are to this day still working for the greater good of New York.
 


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Camp Van Cortlandt, 1916 Library of Congress
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First Field Artillery New York National Guard military demonstration on the Van Cortlandt Parade Ground, 1916 Library of Congress

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Field Mass being said from the grounds of Van Cortlandt House for the 71 St. New York Regiment August 1917.
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Mess Line, June 1916 Camp Van Cortlandt - Photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

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Up from the ashes, a story of salvation.

1/17/2019

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Reclaiming the Van Cortlandt Blind Earl Plates
 
This is the story of how 16 circa 1750 Royal Worcester Blind Earl plates were restored after a tragic fire at the home of their then owner, Miss Charlotte Van Cortlandt in Sharon, Connecticut.   The story was told by Miss Van Cortlandt in 1959, 30 years after the experimental treatment saved the plates.   Sadly we don't know the identity of the person who recorded the story who appears to be the potter Miss Van Cortlandt enlisted  to try to save the plates.  

         “As far as I (Miss Charlotte Van Cortlandt) can ascertain they belonged originally to my great-great-grandmother, Anne Van Cortlandt (Mrs. Henry White) who, with her husband, lived in the Van Cortlandt Museum House, New York, in Van Cortlandt Park.  Eventually my father, Augustus Van Cortlandt, inherited them.  After making Sharon, Connecticut our permanent home, the plates were packed in excelsior filled barrels and stored in the cellar.  For many years, they had been the pride of my mother and we children had admired their bright colors when they were used on special occasions.”
          As collectors know, Blind Earl Plates were made at the factory at Worcester, England about 1746.  The period known as the “Doctor Wall” period.  The name which now characterizes them was given later because of the pleasure a certain unidentified blind Earl had derived from following the raised pattern on the plates with his fingers, the long leaf motif on the right, the bulbous rosebud balancing it on the left, and the serrated plate edge. 
          In October of 1929 a fire destroyed the Van Cortlandt home in Sharon and the barrels in the cellar as well.  For about three weeks the embers were too hot to make any investigation. Eventually the Blind Earl plates were salvaged.  Fourteen Blind Earl plates were found unbroken and two more were cracked.  Unfortunately, the color of the decoration on all of them was completely changed.  Miss Van Cortlandt made a number of inquiries in different directions to find out if it were possible to regain the original colors on the plates and to remove the smoke stains on the white background.  Finally, she consulted me as a Potter.
          “Can anything be done,” asked Miss Van Cortlandt, “to restore my Blind Earl Plates to their original color?” I looked at the dull, homely, discolored plate.  The graceful rose-leaf that extended from one edge to the opposite was a dead liver color, and the small roses all grey.  I recalled my own experience when my apartment in New York burned and though the furniture, pictures, pewter, and rugs were completely destroyed, there remained – unbroken but black – an exquisite Green Lykethos (6th Century B.C.) and a Copenhagen porcelain deer (20th Century A.D.).  I left the Greek vase in its blackened state but I reclaimed the deer in my New York studio by submerging it for several days in a strong solution of soda ash, an ingredient that I use extensively in my glazes.  This loosened the black which was a hard surface deposit of smoke and the deer was restored.  So my first suggestion was to try the soda ash on the Blind Earl Plates.
          This we did unsuccessfully in my Sharon studio.  No wonder.  Why?  Because the deer and the plate were not parallel cases ceramically.  The deer was also porcelain, it is true, but the mineral color (very faint pastels) had been mixed into the feldspathic glaze and fired at a high temperature.  All porcelain factories have their own clay composition and these are fired at various temperatures accordingly, but all true porcelain is fired very high.  Blind Earl Plates were made of the famous clay of the Worcester Factory and glazed with a clear feldspathic glaze, then fired high.  When cooled, the dead-white ware with its shiny surface and raised design was put in the stockroom ready for decorators.  They painted the color on this raised design, adding individual motifs as the spirit moved.  Special china decorating paints were used that contain minerals in their composition.  Copper oxide is used for green, cobalt oxide for blue, manganese or iron oxide for all the warm or cools browns, etc.  When this over-glaze, or china decorating, as it is called, was finished, plates were again placed in the kiln and fired, but at a very low temperature to develop the color and insure its permanence. 
          In both the Van Cortlandt fire and mine, the heat was intense and in her case of long duration because of the well-filled coal bins, but it did not reach the porcelain temperature of the Worcester firing.  Proof of this is that none of the plates was deformed as would have been the case if the heat had been as high as in the original firing.  Fourteen came out of the house fire, flat and true.  Also porcelain heat would have burned off all of the color except cobalt as most pigment cannot take high temperature.
          What happened is that in this smoky fire (wood, excelsior, coal, etc.) oxygen was cut off from the flame and in a smoky atmosphere flame removes oxygen from the color.  Copper oxide will turn from green to liver color.  The pinks and browns turn to grey or black.  Sometimes the glazes containing iron oxide turn to the luscious green of the Sung celadon according to the glaze composition.  By this deduction, I felt that re-firing the plates in a low temperature oxidizing kiln would restore them to the original gay greens Miss Van Cortlandt especially remembered.
          The technique of firing in a reducing (smoky) heat has been practiced for centuries chiefly by the Greeks, the Chinese, Indians, Koreans, and others.  In my experiments for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I have fired various fragments of ancient pottery in both oxidizing and reducing kilns with interesting and satisfactory results. 
          It was a great responsibility to re-fire these rare and otherwise perfect plates as I had never fired decorated china.  What temperature should I choose?  “Do anything that you like,” said Miss Van Cortlandt, “they are no good to me as they are!”
          I decided to try as a start, the low lustre heat.  Nothing was added, no retouching by painting on the original plates.  They were merely re-fired.  The setting of the plate (I fired one at a time) in my small kiln was tricky.  It was too big to set flat but I succeeded, after juggling, in setting it in a slanting upright position, not touching the walls of the kiln, and I placed a heat gauge, called a cone, beside it which I would watch through the spy hole.  Once the kiln door is closed and the fire started, it is not opened until the firing is done and the kiln again cooled.  While the heat, glows, color cannot be seen as you look through the spy-hole.
          The first was started and a careful record kept of the time for advancing the heat.  The completed burning took about three hours.  Then came a wait of twenty hours for the kiln to cool!  Our excitement was intense as together we opened the kiln and viewed our results.  There it stood, the color restored.  Once more the large, graceful leaf was a singing, vibrant green, the stems a golden brown, and the roses a luscious pink.  The whole plate fresh, happy, and lovely in color, the smoke stain gone from the gleaming white background, but the surface of the decoration was a little too dull and the plate needed a little higher fire to give the decoration more sheen. This we did, and both the color and the surface came out perfect.  How did we know?  By comparing it with one belonging to a member of the family in New York.  Placing the two plates side by side the color seemed identical, surface and all.
          Subsequently, sixteen plates were re-fired, the excitement was always great, as each plate reappeared in its former glory.
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Christmas in July?

7/13/2015

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Dec 28 1947 Gouverneur Ave (between Van Cortlandt Pk. S. and Sedgwick Ave.) Bronx N.Y. - Eddin J. Spiwack, photographer
Summer weather hit hard today in Kingsbridge inspiring me to post this archival photograph from a somewhat cooler day in the neighborhood.  This photo shows the aftermath of an unanticipated Christmas blizzard in 1947.   The team of snow-shovelers is shown working to clear the sidewalks around the Amalgamated Houses with what appears to be P.S. 95 in the background.   Wouldn't a bit of that snow be a nice relief from today's steamy temperatures?

The Great Blizzard of 1947, according to Wikipedia,  was a record-breaking snowfall that began on Christmas without prediction and brought the northeastern United States to a standstill. The snowstorm was described as the worst blizzard after 1888. The storm was not accompanied by high winds, but the snow fell silently and steadily. By the time it stopped on December 26, measurement of the snowfall reached 26.4 inches (67.1 cm) in Central Park in Manhattan.

 Meteorological records indicate that warm moisture arising from the Gulf Stream fed the storm’s energy when it encountered its cold air and greatly increased the precipitation. Automobiles and buses were stranded in the streets, subway service was halted, and parked vehicles initially buried by the snowfall were blocked further by packed mounds created by snow plows once they were able to begin operation. Once trains resumed running, they ran twelve hours late. Seventy-seven deaths are attributed to the blizzard.

 Drifts exceeded ten feet and finding places to place snow from plowing became problematic, creating snow piles that exceeded twelve feet. In Manhattan some of the snow was dumped into the sewers, where it melted in the warm waste water flowing to the rivers. When possible it was dumped directly into the Hudson River and the East River. Most suburban areas did not have such nearby alternatives to stacking the snow up. Low temperatures that winter led to the snowfall remaining on the ground until March of the next year.



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The Boy Fought Hard and Well 

9/24/2014

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Lt. Augustus Van Cortlandt, III (1922 - 1945)
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Augustus Van Cortlandt by John Wesley Jarvis
     For many years, members of The National Society of Colonial Dames in the State of New York and their Van Cortlandt Committee would celebrate the start of a new "season" at Van Cortlandt House.  These celebrations were held the Saturday in May which fell closest to the 25th which was the day, in 1897, that the Museum was first opened to the public. A short time after the 1968 Monday Holiday Act permanently established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May, these annual celebrations were ended.  

     While these celebrations were usual joyous occasions with Maypole Dances, costumed Colonial Dames, and a group of special dignitaries, the annual gathering of the Society on May 23, 1956 had a much more somber feel.  It was on that day that Augustus Van Cortlandt, Jr. addressed the assembled Dames on the occasion of the donation of a portrait of the first Augustus Van Cortlandt in honor of his son who had been killed in Germany in December of 1945.  

     A portion of Augustus Van Cortlandt's address from May 23rd is featured below.  

     "The young man whose memory we are here to preserve is the last Augustus, the great-great-great-grandson of the first Augustus. He was born at Guard Hill in 1922, almost 200 years after the birth, and almost 100 years after the death of the first Augustus. He attended day school at Bedford, then Kent School where he rowed on the crew. He then entered Yale University, where he rowed on the freshman crew, and the next year on Junior Varsity. When war broke out, he entered the Yale R.O.T. C., received training in this country, was attached to the 10th Armored Division and went to France as a second lieutenant. There in the Third Army he went through a long and severe campaign. At a crossing of the Moselle River his command was cut off by the enemy and was under heavy fire for three days and nights. Although wounded he managed to extricate his command.
     For this reason he received the Silver Star Medal and his first award of the Purple Heart. He spent Christmas in the heaviest possible fighting at Bastogne, a hospital was struck by a bomb and caught fire. Lt. Van Cortlandt and an enlisted man carried out the wounded, and for this he received the Bronx Star Medal. He was promoted to First Lieutenant, and his outfit was attached to the Seventh Army. With the Seventh Army in Germany, his detachment was attacked by S. S. troops. He was acting as forward observer and in returning to his battery with the direction and range of the opposing advance, he was shot through the stomach. The only words he uttered were to give the range he was trying to report, and his battery was able to destroy the attacking force and hold its position. He died before he could be moved to a hospital. For his conduct in this, his last engagement, he received the Oak leaf Cluster to the Silver Star Medal he had previously won, and a second award of the Purple Heart. Lt. Van Cortlandt fought a long and strenuous campaign which lasted for many months, and neither the cold of the winter, the discomforts of rain, the fatigue of campaigns, the pain of wounds, nor even approaching death itself were ever able to deter him from the proper performance of his duty. It would appear that even the most dispassionate and impartial observer would grant that the boy fought hard and well."
 
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    Laura Myers, Director

    Laura has been the Director of Van Cortlandt House Museum since September of 1994.  She is innately curious about many things and takes advantage of her Material Culture focus to explore more deeply the collections of Van Cortlandt House Museum.  

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