In Defense of Historical Accuracy
Freeing Emmitsburg's Glorious
History
from the Shackles of Willful Lies &
Folklore
Mike Hillman
One
of the nice things about having the
facts on your side is that it gives
you a unique, if sometimes
uncomfortable, perspective of the
capabilities of those who chose to
ignore the facts in hand. The
actions of
Commissioner Boyle
and the Town commissioners in
handling the issue of the town of
Emmitsburg's founding date is a case
in point.
During the February Town Council
meeting, Commissioner Boyle made
some sweeping, disparaging remarks
on the quality of the research done
by the Emmitsburg Historical Society
on establishing
Emmitsburg's founding date to be
1785 and not 1757 as misconceived by
local tradition. I
think it is time to set the record
straight.
Mr.
Boyle listed several reasons for his
rejection, of our detailed research,
including:
-
A claim that we don't accept
oral histories.
On the contrary, we highly value
oral histories. Over the past
seven years, we have recorded
hundreds of hours of oral
histories, much of which have
formed the foundation of the many
stories we have authored on the
rich history of the Emmitsburg
area.
Our
on-line archives are filled with
personal memories.
However, before any of these are
used or put on line, we go to
great efforts to substantiate oral
histories and memories with legal
records or historical news
accounts.
Only when they pass this muster
are they considered credible. What
we don't place any stock in is
unsubstantiated hearsay or
folklore. Had Mr. Boyle taken the
time to join us at any of our
meetings to learn what we are
really about, he would have known
that. But he never has ...
-
That we didn't reference our
sources of information.
Reference? Reference? We gave
every member of the town council,
including Mr. Boyle, all our
source
documents outright,
and even took the time to organize
them in a nice, pretty folder that
divided the information up into
understandable, bite-sized chunks.
How much more reference does one
need? The town manager even asked
for a copy himself, stating that
it was the most detailed package
he has seen yet on the town's
history. Short of reading it to
him, I am not sure what more we
could have done for Mr. Boyle -
but wait, if I recall correctly -
I did read it to him.
But the real issue here is that of
Mr. Boyle's and the other
commissioners' lack of
familiarity, or outright
unwillingness, to use the
Internet. As the Historical
Society has embraced the Internet
as its principle mode of
communication, we are taking the
opportunity not simply to give
readers title of references, but
to actually link readers to those
sources, as we've done above. Of
course, if you print out this
document, or any of our documents,
the hyperlinks don't work. But, if
you read it on-line, the
hyperlinks connect you to a wealth
of information. This is something
Mr. Boyle would have known had he
taken the time to ask us. But he
didn't ...
-
The fact that our society
doesn't have a charter or collect
dues from its members!
Give me a break! Over the years
the Emmitsburg area has had
several historical societies, all
of which I assume collected dues,
yet none left anything behind for
posterity when they folded. The
last historical society thought us
credible enough to hand over their
check book with $300 in it when
they folded. They had collected
the money over the years from
their members. Unlike the other
societies which placed greater
emphasis on collecting dues than
they did to documenting and
sharing history, we promptly spent
the $300 on
scanning
and placing documents on the
Internet for use by people all
over the country interested in
Emmitsburg's history.
That $300 is a pittance compared
to what our own members have spent
over the years, out of our own
pockets, in researching and
publishing the area's history. To
reject our research because we, as
a group, have chosen to allow each
member to pay for their own
research cost is ludicrous at
best, childish at worst. And yes,
we do not have a charter.
What we
have instead is a goal - to
produce an accurate history of the
area, something the
other societies with charters did
not feel worth doing.
-
Because I changed the wording
in another document.
What Mr. Boyle failed to mention,
however, was that the author of
that
document supported
my changes and has encouraged me
to continue with my research
efforts.
Mr. Boyle on the other hand
had no problem
at
the April Town Council meeting changing
the wording
with changing the wording
of the official March town meeting
minutes, where the commissioners
voted 4-0 to "Change" the words
"Founded in 1757" to "Incorporated
in 1825" on the Town's Flag and
official seal, even after
Ted Brennan, the
author of the motion,
would not support those changes.
Following Ted Brennan's election loss, Mr. Boyle
raised the issue again at the May
Town Council meeting and all four
commissioners voted to change the
official minutes so they would
not represent what actually took
place in the February meeting.
Talk about double standards! Mr.
Boyle's actions are hypocritical
at best.
As if this weren't bad enough, Mr.
Boyle's changing of the official
meeting minutes is
going to cost the town several
thousand dollars
- for the town already had bought
new flags based upon the original
motion, and now will have to by
new flags again - so much for
being good stewards of the
people's money - money that
should have, and could be spent,
on more important projects - like
fixing the water systems - by
again, why let the facts get in
the way ...
-
That Samuel Emmit couldn't have
farmed his 2250 acres without
help, ipso facto, that help had to
live somewhere, and that somewhere
had to be the village that became
Emmitsburg.
Wow!!! What a leap of logic!! Of
all Commissioner Boyle's arguments
against our research, this has to
be his most fascinating and
creative, and outright ludicrous.
Let's be real,
in 1757
this area was wilderness, not farm
land.
The settlers did not clear all the
land they owned, but
only cleared what
they themselves needed to
cultivate. Samuel Emmit, the son
of a miller, chose to build his
house on land that now plays host
to the town's septic system. Over
the years
Samuel
sold his holdings off in large
hundred acre chunks,
all of which were un-cleared. Not
a single official record, or any
record or source for that matter,
supports Mr. Boyle's claim.
To the contrary, official
census and tax records clearly
support our case, showing that no
one, other than Samuel Emmit and
his family, lived on his land. For
his homestead land he
chose land that is now the town's
septic system, (so much for
respecting the pretended town
founder). If Samuel Emmit had
help, or people living on his
land, taxes would have been
collected and their names recorded
in the tax register.
Lastly, in a 1823 first hand
written account
Father,
later Bishop Brute's, describes
Emmitsburg as being a wood in 1786.
One would think if there had been
a village then, he would have
described it as existing, not as
woods ... But again, why let the
facts get in the way ...
Along the same lines, Commissioner
Sweeney rejected our research out of
hand because, (I paraphrase here) he
knew 'there was Churches here in
1757.'
No
Cliff, there were no churches here.
In 1757, a
few Lutheran families did purchase
an acre of land to construct a log
church on land that was about three
miles east of today's Emmitsburg on
Four Points Road.
It wasn't until
1797 that the congregation decided
to build a new church in the town of
Emmitsburg. Of
course Cliff would have known that
had he simply taken the time to read
this church's history. But
apparently he didn't think getting
the facts straight was worth the
effort.
As
I said in the start of this article,
one of the nice things about having
the facts on your side is that it
gives you a unique, if sometimes
uncomfortable, perspective of the
capabilities of those who chose to
ignore the facts in hand.
When the issue was initially raised
last year, Mr. Boyle first voiced
concern that no action should be
taken until the state weighed in. So
we contacted the state, and inquired
about the basis of their approval of
the town's historical designation.
The state representative laughed
when he heard the request. They were
only too happy to give the go ahead,
as they had already recognized 1785
as the founding date of Emmitsburg.
The
next roadblock Mr. Boyle threw up
was to have the word 'founding'
clarified by the Frederick
Historical Society. Again, we were
only too happy to procure it. Each
of the examples offered were rooted
in something actually being built
upon newly acquired land, not the
simple purchase of the land.
Of course, for us, it's academic
anyway, for Emmitsburg wasn't built
on land bought by Samuel Emmit in
1757. It was built on land the
Delaney family
Delaney
family bought in 1744.
Samuel had no title to the land, and
therefore had no right to give it to his
son in the first place.
Instead,
William Emmit, the founder of
Emmitsburg, did not obtain clear
title to the land till 1798 and it
was William, not his father, who
took action to obtain the title.
Something the proponents of the 1757
date have failed to point out ...
Next Mr. Boyle suggested that all
the material be reviewed by 'real'
historians. So we presented our
research to the History Departments
of Gettysburg, Mt. St. Mary's, and
Hood Colleges. Interestingly enough,
Mr. Boyle attempted to prevent the
town manager from sitting in on the
review of the papers at Gettysburg
College. And when the Mayor
supported the manager's
participation, Mr. Boyle raised the
issue of docking the manager's pay.
Why? Is he so afraid of the truth?
The
history professors assigned to
review our research at both
Gettysburg
and
Mt. St.
Mary's College, (Mr.
Boyle's
alma mater
which
he so proudly points out), have
warmly received our research, and
endorsed 1785 as the founding date
of the town.
Again, something the proponents of
the 1757 date repeatedly fail to
note.
I
fear Hood has backed away because of
the nasty tone that the defenders of
the 1757 date have taken, and
because of it, we might never hear
from them.
It
is important to understand how the
1757 date succeeded the 1785 date.
Up until 1957, 1785 had been the
date recognized as the founding date
of Emmitsburg. In 1957, a few
residents of the area got together
with a traveling, fly-by-night, New
York based production company which
made its living by producing
bicentennial plays and decided to
put on a bicentennial party.
To support the basis for a
bicentennial party, they simply
manufactured
material to fill in the gap between
1757 and the real founding date of
1785. In short they lied, and in
doing so they sacrificed the town's
real history to make a few miserable
bucks. It is this very lie that is
now being defended by the proponents
of the 1757 date.
In
1992, when Emmitsburg was placed on
the National Registry of Historical
Places, a decision was made not to
use the date 1785 upon which
the state
gave its recognition,
but to use 1757 on the newly erected
signs around town. The reason for
that choice was that it would be
easier to sell more houses in a
pre-revolutionary war town than in a
post revolutionary war town. And
once again, the town's history lost
out to greed.
But
for me, the saddest statement on the
whole affair came from one 'Senior
Resident' opposed to the 1785 date.
When asked if she would like to
review the research, she replied:
"No. I don't care what the facts
are, I'm not going to live long
enough if they change the date to
1785. I want my party!" When asked
if it didn't bother her about
robbing the next generation's
opportunity to celebrate the true
250th anniversary, she replied: "I
don't care about the next generation
or their kids ... I want my party!
They can fix the date when I die
..." A rather selfish statement I
must say.
"I
don't care about the next generation
or the kids." Is this what
Emmitsburg has become? Is
selfishness, greed, or the fear of
embarrassment more important that
historical accuracy?
Commissioner Boyle was correct about
one thing however: we are not going
to let the issue die. Unfortunately
for Mr. Boyle and the proponents of
the 1757 date, time and facts are on
our side. We intend to continue to
press the issue. As one lawyer
pointed out, the facts supporting
the 1785 date could win in any
court.
Where in the past, the issue may
have fluttered off everyone's radar
screens, thanks to the Internet,
the real
history of Emmitsburg's founding,
and
all the
legal documents supporting it,
are available to one and all.
Because of the Internet, the town's
history is no longer held hostage to
those who place higher emphasis on
folklore than over scholastic
research. It's no longer hidden
behind secret doors or held in close
secrecy as a rite of passage. The
town's history belongs to everyone,
not just to those born here. And it
deserves to be true.
But
back to the opening statement of
this article ...
Our sympathies to
Mayor Hoover, the only
'outsider' now in the town
government who has to deal with the
town Commissioner's ostrich-like
attitudes on a daily basis.
Not surprisingly, the mayor was
one of two elected representatives who took
the time to actually read the
material we presented the town
government, (Ted Brennan was the
other). It only took the mayor a
few minutes to understand the
issues. Had Mr. Boyle taken
1/20th of the time he spent in coming
up with reasons to reject our
research, instead of actually reading it, he
might just understand how clear
cut the issue really is. But
he did not.
One can only wonder, given the way
the issue of the town's founding
date has been mishandled by the town
commissioners, what is happening to
more pressing issues before them? If
they can't understand, or will not
take the time to comprehend simple
documents like deeds, can we
justifiably expect anything better
on more complex issues that are
before them? If they can't do simple
mathematics, are they really capable
of understanding a multimillion
dollar budget? Given how easy they
appeared to ignore the facts, one
wonders how often this occurs in
other issues brought before them.
But
more importantly, if a town
commissioner is so willing to
dismiss, with such prejudice, the
input and advice from individuals
for the sole reason that they were
not born here, what hope do we have
to resolve long standing issues
besetting the town, answers to which
are readily available today if they
choose to seek outside advice, which
they apparently refuse to do.
Disdain for non-natives of
Emmitsburg, as expressed by Mr.
Boyle in his recent comments to the
Washington Post, does not reflect
the traditional friendliness and
openness that was the trademark of
this once great town.
Traditionally, Emmitsburg was a safe
haven for "outsiders," something of
which we should all be quite proud.
Political dissidents, seekers of
religious freedom, refugees of
slavery and those of humble origin
were all safe to settle here. There
was an attitude of acceptance and a
mindfulness of one's own humble
roots, an attitude of live and let
live prevailed. The "welcome" was
genuine. Only in recent times have
we seen the counterproductive
attitudes of provincialism and
close-mindedness.
If we must be reactionary, then
let's choose what better elements of
our past history we would like to,
and need to, rekindle today. Let's
freely welcome newcomers and new
ideas. Let's listen objectively and
complement our own proven
experiences and traditions with that
of the newly arrived.
Further Reading: