Gainesville Broadside
The
Gainesville Chapter ~ Florida Society ~ Sons of the American Revolution
David C. Thomas~ ~~~ Chapter President
Volume XXVIII ~ Issue 05
David W. Cromer ~~~~ Broadside Editor
May
2016
Dr. Florin Curta Speaks
on “Eastern Europe and
its History with Russia
and Islam…..” at the
Chapter Dinner Meeting
Past President Dr. Larry Smith
introduced Dr. Florin Curta, Professor
of Medieval History and Archaeology
at the University of Florida. Dr. Curta
was the speaker at the SAR chapter’s
monthly dinner meeting at Brown’s
Country Buffet in Alachua on March
15, 2016.
New Member
Thomas Sean Tonnelier
induced on April 19, 2016
Thomas, (call me Sean) just had his
membership certificate approved by
the Florida Society on April 16. He said
that being a native of Massachusetts,
he wanted to be inducted on Patriot’s
Day.
President Thomas and Registrar Partin
made arrangements for him to be
inducted today.
NEW MEMBER SEAN
Curta is the editor of five collections
of studies and the editor-in-chief of
the Brill series ‘East Central and
Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages,
450-1450.’
(Cont page 2)
David Thomas
2nd Place 2014 FLSSAR Fowler
Newsletter Award
Runner Up ~2012 - 2013 NSSAR
Carl F. Bessent Newsletter Award
Sean Tonnleier
James Partin
Winner of 2001, 2002, & 2003
FLSSAR “Poor Paul”
Newsletter Award ~ “Best in Florida”
The Gainesville Broadside May 2016
2
(from page 1)
Dr. Curta’s books include The
Making of the Slavs: History and
Archaeology of the Lower Danube
Region, ca. 500-700 (Cambridge,
2001), and followed with the historic
development of Southeastern
Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250
(Cambridge, 2006), and then he
reported on The Edinburgh History
of the Greeks, c. 500 to 1050. The
Early Middle Ages (Edinburgh,
2011).
Dr. Curta’s presentation was
impressive. He covered his works
listed above by detailed recitation of
the historical events from perhaps
500BC to Early Middle Ages.
After this use of his personal
research and writing he continued to
tell the members of the development
of the Mongols 1300-1400; Russian
power c. 1400 to 1700; the Ottoman
Empire. He continued his Russia
and the Balkans’ history with the fall
of communism in 1989, and the
Soviet Union fail in 1991.
The strength of Russia and how it
obtained such strength is
noteworthy. The numerous
organizations consisting of “The
Balkans” were reported as
frequently shifting allegiance due to
factors discussed by Dr. Curta.
This presentation by Florin Curta
was thoroughly enjoyed by the SAR
members present.
Dr. Curta was presented with a SAR
Chapter Certificate of Appreciation
and a USA/SAR lapel pin.
David Thomas
Dr. Florin Curta
News for Veterans
Congress has expaded veterans’
rights in recent years.The most
recent was the 2013 change which
affected the Pledge of Allegiance.
(a) ……………..the Star-Spangled
Banner is the national anthem.
(b)Conduct During Playing.—During
a rendition of the national anthem—
(B)
…………………. veterans who are
present but not in uniform may
render the military salute in the
manner provided for individuals in
uniform……..
The Gainesville Broadside May 2016
3
Patriots' Day April 18, 2016.
The 241st Anniversary of the
Battles of Lexington and
Concord.
Each year in mid-April, thousands of
people flock to historic Lexington and
Concord and Minute Man National
Historical Park to celebrate Patriots'
Day. Patriots' Day is a special
Massachusetts State holiday
commemorating the opening battle of
the American Revolutionary War, April
19, 1775.
The holiday and the entire weekend, is
celebrated with parades,
reenactments and commemorative
ceremonies.
Captain David Brown's Company of Minute Men, North
Bridge, Concord, Minute Man NHP
This Woman Traveled Farther
Than Paul Revere to Warn
America "The British are
Coming"
The phrase "the British are coming"
might be synonymous with an image of
Paul Revere riding horseback in the night
to warn his fellow patriots about an
impending invasion.
But on this day, April 26, 16-year-old
Sybil Ludington actually did the same
thing, and she traveled much farther to do
so.
A young
American
patriot, Sybil
Ludington is
the female
counterpart to
the more
famous Paul
Revere. Born
in 1761 in
Connecticut,
Ludington was
the eldest of
twelve
children. Soon
after her birth,
her family settled in Dutchess County,
New York. In addition to being a farmer,
Ludington’s father held various positions
within the small town and served in the
military for over sixty years.
(to page 4)
The Gainesville Broadside May 2016
4
(from page 3)
He was loyal to the British crown until
1773, when he joined the rebel cause. He
was quickly promoted to Colonel and led
his local regiment. Colonel Ludington’s
area of command was along a vulnerable
route that the British could take between
Connecticut and the coast of Long Island
Sound.
When British troops and British loyalists
attacked a nearby town, Danbury,
Connecticut, in 1777, a rider came to the
Ludington household to warn them and
ask for the local regiment’s help. At the
time, the Colonel’s regiment was
disbanded for planting season, and all of
the men were miles apart at their
respective farms. The rider was too tired
to continue and Colonel Ludington had to
prepare for battle, so he asked his barely
sixteen-year-old daughter Sybil to ride
through the night, alerting his men of the
danger and urging them to come together
to fight back. Ludington rode all night
through the dark woods, covering forty
miles (a significantly longer distance than
Revere rode), and because of her bravery,
almost the whole regiment was gathered
by daybreak to fight the British.
After the battle at Danbury, George
Washington went to the Ludington home
to personally thank Sybil for her help.
Although Ludington never gained the
widespread fame that Paul Revere did in
America’s history, she was honored with a
stamp by the Postal Service in 1975. There
is a statue of her by Lake Gleneida in
Carmel, New York, and there are
historical markers tracing the route of her
ride through Putnam County.
(https://www.nwhm.org/educationresources/biography/biographies/sib
yl-ludington/)
Gainesville Chapter
Events
May 2016
May 3 Executive Committee Meets
May 5 Holocaust Remembrance Day
May 8 Mother’s Day
May 17 Chapter Meeting Brown’s
Country Buffet, Alachua, FL
May
21 Armed Forces Day
May
30 Memorial Day
The Gainesville Broadside May 2016
5
BIRTHDAYS
May 2016
May
May
May
May
May
May
May
May
May
May
5
6
10
13
14
19
21
21
22
23
John Coker III
Matthew Van Arnam
Henry Bariteau
Jeffery Cromer
Douglas Cromer
Grant Earnest
Dr. John Coker Jr.
Aedan Schenck
Kirk Schenck
David Cromer
Free dinner for birthday members at
the Monthly meeting of their Birthday
month
When you get to your wit's end,
You'll find God lives there.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
People are funny; they want the
front of the bus,
Middle of the road,
And back of the church.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Opportunity may knock once,
But temptation bangs on the front
door forever.
FLORIDA SOCIETY
EVENTS
ATTENTION ! The Florida Society has
available for reading 2 e-Books
(electronic only) containing articles
on our Compatriots' Military
experiences and another book with
Historical/Genealogical content. Go to
FLSSAR Documents link.
2016 Spring BOM Meeting
Florida Society SAR
Orlando, FL
May 13-15, 2016
THE FLORIDA HOTEL AND
CONFERENCE CENTER at the Florida
Mall
1500 SAND LAKE ROAD, ORLANDO,
FL
32809
If a church wants a better pastor,
It only needs to pray for the one it
has.
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
The Gainesville Broadside May 2016
6
Book Reports from
Readers
Our readers are encouraged to
submit book reports or
recommendations of books they
have found valuable.
Thank you Tom for this report with feelings!
Readers also are encouraged to
submit personal stories of interest
and to submit stories of their
ancestors.
Just provide what you have and we
will make a story. Send anything of
interest to David Cromer .
.
NATIONAL SOCIETY
EVENTS
NSSAR 126th Annual Congress
Boston, MA
July 8-13, 2016
Book Report: Member Tom Little
“Bunker Hill: a city; a siege; a
Revolution”
“If one is very interested in the origin of
the American Revolution, this is a
detailed account of the first shots fired
on the mainland. Most information that
has been given previously has been
somewhat sketchy. This was clearing
the haze.
I was interested as a son of a man who
was born in Boston, Mass.; and whose
relations still live in Massachusetts and
the Vicinity.”
THE SAR MAGAZINE Winter 20152016, page 6, proclaims....…”The SAR
is coming to Boston, the SAR is
coming to Boston.”
This proclamation is backed up with
lots scenic and historic tours to enjoy.
Check it out!
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*
Quit griping about your church;
If it was perfect, you couldn't belong.
The Gainesville Broadside May 2016
7
Celebrating Patriot’s Day
Editor: This is from the Patriot Post of April 19th. I have removed what I think
are political statements contrary to the SAR principles.
THE FOUNDATION
"Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they want a war let it begin here." —John Parker
(1775)
PATRIOTS' DAY
Today is Patriots' Day, when we honor the anniversary of the opening salvo of the
American Revolution. On this day in 1775, militia men under Captain John Parker in
Lexington and under Major John Buttrick in Concord first engaged the British Red
Coats. In so doing, our forefathers began the great campaign to reject tyranny and
embrace the difficult toils of securing individual Liberty.
On April 19th, we honor the anniversary of Patriots' Day and the legacy of Liberty
launched that day, which is our inspiration to this day. In doing so, we mark the opening
salvo of the first American Revolution in 1775, and the first step toward the
establishment of an eternal declaration of human Liberty.
On December 16th, 1773, "rebels" from Boston, members of a secret organization of
American Patriots called the Sons of Liberty, boarded three East India Company ships
and threw 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. This iconic event, in protest of
oppressive taxation and tyrannical rule, is immortalized as "The Boston Tea Party."
Resistance to the British Crown had been mounting over enforcement of the 1764 Sugar
Act, 1765 Stamp Act and 1767 Townshend Act, which led to the Boston Massacre and
gave rise to the slogan, "No taxation without representation."
The Gainesville Broadside May 2016
8
But it was the 1773 Tea Act, under which the Crown collected a three pence tax on each
pound of tea imported to the Colonies, which instigated the first Tea Party protest and
seeded the American Revolution. Indeed, as James Madison noted in an 1823
reflection, "The people of the U.S. owe their Independence and their liberty, to the
wisdom of descrying in the minute tax of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil
comprised in the precedent."
The Tea Party uprising galvanized the Colonial movement opposing British
parliamentary acts, as such acts were a violation of the natural, charter and
constitutional rights of the British colonists.
In response to the Colonial rebellion, the British enacted additional punitive measures,
labeled the "Intolerable Acts," in hopes of suppressing the burgeoning insurrection. Far
from accomplishing their desired outcome, however, the Crown's countermeasures led
colonists to convene the First Continental Congress on September 5th, 1774, in
Philadelphia.
By the spring of 1775, civil discontent was at a tipping point, and American Patriots in
Massachusetts and other colonies prepared to cast off their masters.
On the eve of April 18th, 1775, General Thomas Gage, Royal military governor of
Massachusetts, dispatched a force of 700 British Army regulars, under Lieutenant
Colonel Francis Smith, with secret orders to arrest Tea Party leader Samuel Adams,
Massachusetts Provincial Congress president John Hancock and merchant fleet owner
Jeremiah Lee, and to capture and destroy arms
and supplies stored by the Massachusetts militia
in the town of Concord. Indeed, the first shots of
the eight-year struggle for American
independence were in response to the
government's attempt to disarm the people.
Patriot militiamen under leadership of the Sons
of Liberty anticipated Gage's preemptive raid,
and the resulting confrontation between militia
and British regulars en route to Concord ignited
the fuse of the American Revolution.
Near midnight on April 18th, Paul Revere, who
arranged for advance signal from Boston's Old
North Church of British movements, departed
Charlestown (near Boston) for Lexington and
The Gainesville Broadside May 2016
9
Concord in order to warn Adams, Hancock, Lee, and other Sons of Liberty, that the
British Army was marching with orders to arrest them and seize militia weapon caches.
Revere's Ride was immortalized by noted poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "Listen my
children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere... Hang a lantern aloft in
the belfry arch... One if by land, two if by sea... Through the gloom and the light, The
fate of a nation was riding that night; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight."
After meeting with Hancock and Adams in Lexington, Revere was captured, but his
Patriot ally Samuel Prescott made it to Concord and warned militiamen along the way.
In the early dawn of April 19th, the first Patriots' Day, 77 militiamen under the command
of Captain John Parker assembled on the town green at Lexington, where they soon
faced Smith's overwhelming force of British regulars. Parker did not expect shots to be
exchanged, but his orders were: "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if
they mean to have a war, let it begin here." A few links away from the militia column, the
British Major John Pitcairn swung his sword and said, "Lay down your arms, you
damned rebels!"
Not willing to sacrifice his small band of Patriots on the Green, as Parker later wrote in
sworn deposition, "I immediately ordered our Militia to disperse, and not to fire." But the
Patriots did not lay down their arms as ordered, and as Parker noted, "Immediately said
Troops made their appearance and rushed furiously, fired upon, and killed eight of our
Party without receiving any Provocation therefor from us."
The British continued to Concord, where they divided and searched for armament
stores. Later in the day, the second confrontation between regulars and militiamen
occurred as British light infantry companies faced rapidly growing ranks of militia and
Minutemen at Concord's Old North Bridge. From depositions on both sides, the British
fired first on the militia, killing two and wounding four.
This time, however, the militia commander, Major John Buttrick, yelled the order, "Fire,
for God's sake, fellow soldiers, fire!" Fire they did, commencing with "the shot heard
round the world," as immortalized by poet Ralph Waldo Emerson. With that shot,
farmers and laborers, landowners and statesmen alike, were bringing upon themselves
the sentence of death for treason. In the ensuing firefight, the British took heavy
casualties and in discord retreated to Concord village for reinforcements, and then
retreated back toward Lexington.In retreat to Lexington, British regulars took additional
casualties, including those suffered in an ambush by the reassembled ranks of John
Parker's militia – "Parker's Revenge" as it became known.
The Gainesville Broadside May 2016
10
The English were reinforced with 1,000 troops in Lexington, but the King's men were no
match for the militiamen, who inflicted heavy casualties upon the Redcoats along their
20-mile tactical retreat to Boston.
Why would the first generation of American Patriots forgo, in the inimitable words of
Sam Adams, "the tranquility of servitude" for "the animating contest of freedom"?
The answer to that question — Liberty or Death — defined the spirit of American
Patriotism then, as it defines the spirit of American Patriots today.
In 1776, George Washington wrote in his General Orders, "The time is now near at
hand which must determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether
they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms
are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness
from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now
depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting
enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We
have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die."
Of that resolve, President Ronald Reagan said, "Freedom is never more than one
generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.
It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we
will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was
once like in the United States where men were free."
The Gainesville Broadside May 2016
11
CHAPTER REPORTS
The Minutes of General Meetings
The Minutes of Executive Committee Meetings
The Treasurer’s Monthly Report
The above reports are listed at the website tab “members area” for members only.
The Gainesville Broadside is listed at tab “Messages” for
members and the public to view.
Website Directions
http://flssar.org/FLSSAR/SARGainesville
Sign-in your name as:
first initial cap, middle initial cap, last initial cap, remainder small. e.g.
“DWCromer”
Password is your State ID number.
All Compatriots are encouraged to review these reports
and to participate in your Chapter’s
Leadership.
The Gainesville Broadside is normally published bi-monthlyby the Gainesville Chapter, FLSSAR. Please
send comments or articles to Editor David Cromer or President Thomas.