As we have seen previously, the Drums arrived in the
valley that would soon take on their name around the time when the 18th
Century changed over to the 19th Century. Abraham Drum is probably
the first Drum to be born in the “Drums Valley” (1797) and we believe that Isaac Drum, born in
1799, is the first Drum to both be born in the Drums Valley and die in the Drums Valley, dying May 8, 1804.
We wonder if the Drums celebrated the new century or if it even made any
difference to them at all. Of course, if they DID celebrate, the question
becomes when did they celebrate, January 1, 1800 or January 1, 1801?
The question of when a century begins or ends has long
been a perplexing problem apparently for, well, centuries! As the year 1999 was
drawing to a close, great celebrations were planned to celebrate the start of
the new century, the 21st Century! Not only a new century, in fact,
but a new Millennium, the third Millennium, as well!!
Just as soon as those plans were announced, however, the
shouting began. It seems there were those, myself included, who tried to let
the rest of the world know they were celebrating a year too early; the 20th
Century was not ending in 1999, it was ending in 2000. The 21st
Century would not start until the year 2001! After all, one counts “one, two,
three…” not “zero, one two, three…”! The first year under the present calendar
was the year 1, not 0, so the hundredth year was 100, not 99 and the second
century didn’t begin until the year 101. It therefore follows that the first
millennium ended with the year 1000, not 999, and the second ended with 2000,
not 1999 making the beginning of both the newest century and the third
millennium 2001, not 2000.
However, the 1999-year-believers, or as we called
them, “the Early-Birds” (they called us “Killjoys”),
celebrated the beginning of the new century, and the new Millennium, on January
1, 2000 anyway, and the rest of us (correctly) celebrated it on January 1,
2001.
So it was when 1899 arrived.[3] So
it was when 1799 arrived! In 1799, the “early-birds” were known as the
“Ninety-Niners”. On New Year’s Day, 1800, the London Times editorialized
against the Ninety-Niners saying that the new century would not begin for
another 12 months.[4]
However, whether one day old or 12 months old, by 1801
the new century had begun. Although people argued over the century’s start
date, there was no argument over if the new country, The United States of
America, was up and running. It was! By 1801, the United States was already
welcoming its third president, Thomas Jefferson. He promised to take the
country in a new direction, different from the direction it had been going
under George Washington and John Adams. Sound familiar?
In 1803, Jefferson sent his Secretary of State, Robert Livingston, to
France to buy New Orleans. However, instead of just New Orleans, Francois de
Barbe-Marbois, the French Minister of Finance, offered Livingston the entire
area known as Louisiana, an area stretching from New Orleans to the present-day
Canadian border and over to the Rocky Mountains, 827,000 square miles! The
price was just $15 million. Jefferson thought New Orleans, alone, would cost
$10 Million so this was a real bargain! The Louisiana Purchase was signed on
April 30, 1803 doubling the size of the United States![5]
In the first six years of the new century, the Drums
gained two girls, Mary Elizabeth born 1801 and Margarett born 1804, and a boy,
William born 1805; but lost Isaac. During that same time period the United
States declared war on the Barbary Pirates; power struggles and wars raged
across Europe; and Aaron
Burr, Vice President of the United States, killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
It must have been a confusing time!
Even the currency one used to pay for goods and services
existed in a cloud of confusion. On November 25, 1803, a man named John Santee[6]
visited a Justice of the Peace named Isaac Hartzell in Easton, PA. Together
they drew up a promissory note.
I promise to pay or cause to be paid to Jonas Hartzell or to his order
the sum of six pound seven shilling lawful money of Pennsylvania
at or upon the
27 day of May next having for value recev’d on and
of John Fultons note settled
by said Hartzell for me as witness my
hand and seal, the 25 Nov’r 1803 John his mark Santee SEAL
Attested in presents of
Isaac Hartzell
£ 6 = 7 = 0
First of all, note the “mark”
made by John Santee. Usually, if a person was unable to write, they’d make an
“X” (his mark) and the witnesses would attest the person of which the note was
about, was the person making the mark. In John’s case, his make was not an “X”,
but a “J”. Good job, John!
Next, did you
notice the words “lawful money of Pennsylvania”? Remember, this was written
fifteen years after the U. S. Constitution was ratified in December of 1787[7] and eleven years after Congress established
the U.S. Dollar system in 1792[8]. These words are saying that in 1803 the
currency in use in Pennsylvania was not, or perhaps, not only, the U.S. Dollar,
but the earlier established Pennsylvania system of pounds, shillings, and pence. The Pennsylvania Pound was different from the British Pound. To be honest, my trying to follow all of this was a bit much and confusing. If it was confusing to me, now, what must it have been like THEN? There is a short piece on Wikipedia about the Pennsylvania Pound so if you'd like to be further confused try Pennsylvania Pound on Wikipedia. I'm not a big Wikipedia fan but in this case it seems to be the only concise summery available.
John did pay
this note off, at least his estate did after he died. On the back of the note
is the following endorsement written April 10, 1810.
Note of John Santee
£ 6 = 7 = 0
payable 27 May 1803
Debt . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$16=94
Ints 5yr 10½. . . . . . . . .
5=80
$22 74
Received the 10
April 1810 from Mather
gress the above sum
of Twenty Two
Dolls and seventy
four cents
Done Jonas Hartzell
That’s right! The debt created in Pounds and Shillings
was paid in Dollars and Cents! Also, Lawyer Hartzell seems to have made a small
error. In the original note, it was payable “at or upon the 27 day of May next”
and since the note was written in November of 1803, “May next” would be 1804. Right? He
wrote 1803, but by the time the thing was paid off, that detail must have
mattered little, it’s the “Interest line” that is important and that one appears
to be right.
On May 7, 1807, John’s sons, George and Leonard, settling
their father’s estate, paid one of their father’s debts in dollars. The receipt
to George Thompson reads:
Easton May 7, 1807 Rec’d of Leonard Santee and George Santee the executors
of their father’s will four dollars and eighty seven cents.
$4.87 Geo. Thomas, DR
However, the day before, on May 6, 1807, Leonard paid his
bar bill at Adam Heckman’s tavern – in pounds!
Easton May 6, 1807
Mr. Leonard Santee
To Adam Heckman
Tavern expenses
to 1 pint of wine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 . 9s
. ---
to 1 gill of gin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11s . ---
Received the above in full 3 . 0 .
For
Adam Heckman
(Signature) Jn Heckman
George and his family were well established in the Drums
Valley by 1810. One does wonder what currency George carried in his pants
pocket, although by then it probably was Dollars and Cents. We also wonder what
news made it to the valley about happenings around the country and the world.
In 1811, did George and Philip know about the battle fought by William Henry
Harrison near the river called Tippecanoe
in the part of the northwest territory to be later called Indiana? It became
the basis for the political battle cry heard in 1840, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too”,
as the Whigs ran Harrison for U.S. President and John Tyler for Vice
President.  |
From a book found in Jacob Santee’s Library.
According to what he wrote on the cover page,
he acquired the book in 1911.
Glee, Professor, A Journey Around the World (W.E. Scull, 1901) p 373.
|
Did the Drums take a side in the argument over the
morality of slavery? From census data it appears that none of the Drums in
Philip’s tree owned slaves. Pennsylvania, through the Gradual Abolition Act of
1780, became the first state to pass an emancipation law but as of 1790 there
were still close to 3,700 slaves in the Commonwealth.[9]
Of course, slavery continued to be the basis of the
economy of the southern states. As the country grew, new states asked to join
the union. However, in Congress, there existed a fragile balance between
“Slave” states and “Free” states. Any additional states would upset this
balance and so were resisted. In an attempt to quell the rising rancor, Henry Clay, a
Senator from Kentucky, proposed a compromise, the Great
Compromise of 1820. It suggested the area of Massachusetts known
as Maine be separated from Massachusetts and be admitted as a new, free state
and the territory known as Missouri be admitted as a slave state, thus
maintaining the balance in Congress. It further marked the southern border of
Missouri as the northern boundary for which slavery could be allowed in the
U.S., the exception being the state of Missouri.
 |
| JQA as depicted on the cover of a book in my library. |
George Drum celebrated his 63rd birthday anniversary
in 1825. His son, Philip, turned 38 that year and Philip and Magdalene’s son,
John, made his first appearance, 1825 being the year of his birth! Speaking of
sons, in 1825 John Quincy Adams, became the first son of a U.S. President to,
himself, be elected President, our 6th.
John Adams, living then in Quincy, MA, was extremely
proud of his son’s achievement especially since it came as the result of a highly contested and controversial
election, eventually decided in the U.S. House of Representatives.
JQA saw the Erie Canal
open in New York on October 26, 1825. He also saw the publication of a new book
that year that proved to become one of the most popular in history, still
popular today, James
Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans.
Sadness came to JQA, and all the people of the United
States, when both his father and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4th,
1826. The country was amazed when they realized that the date was the 50th
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, a document that both had worked
so hard together to create. In 1831 sadness came to the Drums when both George
and his son, George, died.
However, the population of country as a whole was
increasing. As shown by the census data of 1830, the U.S. population was twice
the size it had been at the start of the century; now counting 13,000,000! And
the Drums were growing right along with it! Between 1829 and 1836, at least ten
children were added to the Drum family tree, followed by another ten by 1850.
 |
| This is my favorite Santa. My parents gave him to me one Christmas when I was just a lad. |
That’s twenty more children to celebrate around the Christmas
Tree in the St. Johns Church (unless some of them were Methodist, of course)!
Those twenty children, along with the rest of the country, were just then
getting used to a new popular character introduced to the country in 1823 known
as Santa Claus, or, rather, St. Nicholas as he was called by Clement Clarke
Moore in his poem “A Visit
from St. Nicholas”; although the German parishioners of St.
Johns probably would have played that angle down a bit. After all, they already had the Belsnickel, a tradition they brought with them from the Palantinate.
The Belsnickel was a rather shabbily dressed, cranky fellow, sometimes dressed like a woman, who visited children's homes in the weeks just prior to Christmas to check up on the children's behavior. Good children got candies and treats while bad ones got switched with a Hickory rod. Later on he became sort of a reminder that the children still had time to correct their behavior before Santa Claus came.[18]
The following photo is apparently of a whole wagon load of Belsnickels as they arrived in Conyngham.
The Belsnickel was a rather shabbily dressed, cranky fellow, sometimes dressed like a woman, who visited children's homes in the weeks just prior to Christmas to check up on the children's behavior. Good children got candies and treats while bad ones got switched with a Hickory rod. Later on he became sort of a reminder that the children still had time to correct their behavior before Santa Claus came.[18]
The following photo is apparently of a whole wagon load of Belsnickels as they arrived in Conyngham.
The photo is part of the Conyngham Valley Historical Society's collection and presently appears undated on their web site.
Moore didn’t write the St. Nicholas poem for the country, however. He
wrote it to amuse his six children. Somehow it made it's way into print anyway and
changed the way children celebrated Christmas from then on. Moore gave us the
story and, in 1866, Thomas Nast, a cartoonist in New York, gave us
the man’s face.[10],
[11]
 |
| Mom's Santa Sugar and Creamer set. Reproductions, of course. |
There are many ways to keep warm and burning coal is one
of them, although in this following case it was probably more for the
blacksmith than the home furnace. In 1833 a ton of coal cost $1.50 but a ton of
fine coal cost only $1.00. However, if you got your warmth from liquid sources,
6 gills
of whiskey, supper and lodging would cost you $.75; lodging and bitters
cost $.09; and 2 quarts of whiskey, and a tin cup, set you back $.35.[13]
One glass of beer, one “smaller” of whiskey, or one glass of “Ciderial” or
“Cider Oil” (cider)
would cost $.03, take your pick! But if you wanted a barrel of cider, that was
$4.00. A quart of wine was $.18, a gallon of Holland Gin came to $1.25 but a
quart of brandy was only $.14.[14]
In 1829, a citizen of Drums might find a bushel of dried apples being offered
for $.50, a pound of lard for $.10, a pound of bacon for $.11, but a pound of
pickled pork brought only $.07, and a pound of veal was only $.02![15]
If you were to ask me what a “smaller” is, I would not be
able to tell you. My assumption is that it is a shot glass. I’ve always said
“Google knows everything”. Now I’ll have to add “except what a smaller of
whiskey is”!
Now this term “Ciderial” is also a point of confusion. This
is another term I’ve never seen before, nor “Cider Oil”, for that matter.
Nothing was found by Google that was relevant on these terms either! However, I
now know more about both “sweet cider” and “hard cider” than I think I ever
cared to know! And I’m not trying to be “Flip” about
that (some readers caught that joke although not a cider related pun, I admit).
For example, only Americans call fermented apple cider “hard cider”. Everyone
else calls it “cider”. Go figure.
So, I guess, Google knows everything except what a
smaller of whiskey is and what ciderial/cider oil is! Huh. Who’d of guessed
that Google doesn’t drink?
Urban Thesaurus,
when asked for synonyms for “cider” came up with 330, some obvious, some
ridiculous or even offensively ridiculous or worse like: roflwqerioasdcinwipryhtrphsg
(you’ll have to go to the site and look for yourself to learn what that means
but my least reactive response, but not my only response, to it was,
“Who thinks of these things?” Let’s just say it isn’t very nice.
When asked for “Hard Cider” Urban Thesaurus gave me 1,354
synonyms but, as they explain on the site, “…due to the nature of the
algorithm, some results returned by your query may only be concepts, ideas or
words that are related to ‘hard cider’ (perhaps tenuously).”
Since the term included the word “hard”, I suppose you can guess what most of
the “synonyms” the algorithm found referred to.
However, of all those “synonyms”, not one was “Ciderial” or “Cider Oil”.
I am left to assume these were local terms used for what
we today call “hard cider”.
 |
| Stringing the telegraph wire [19] |
In 1844, Samuel F. B.
Morse, using a code devised by Alfred Vail, sent a message
between Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. He sent it on an invention of
his own which he called the telegraph. His message read, “What hath God wrought?” After that, communication has
never wrought the same again!
A dentist in Hartford, Connecticut named Dr. Horace Wells pulled a bad tooth. To numb the pain, he used, for the first time in this manner, a gas called Nitrous Oxide, better known as Laughing Gas. He knew it worked because it was his own tooth! No word on if his new discovery had him laughing all the way to the bank.
Across the ocean in England, Michael Faraday published his research on
electricity shocking the world. Also, the scientist named John Dalton died,
leaving behind his notes and theories which became the basis of the theory of
the atoms.
All this in just 1844!
It came on the heels of the story published in 1843 that
begins “Marley was dead: to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about
that.” A Christmas Carol, once called “the greatest little book in the
world”, was published by Charles Dickens in 1843. It was from this book, a
ghost story, that the world gained the greeting, “Merry Christmas!”[16]
 |
| Sutter's Mill[19] |
It was also about this time when the potato famine began
in Ireland sending many of the Irish to the United States. As the Irish rushed
to the United States, many U.S. citizens, in 1849, were rushing to California.
It seems that a fellow named James Marshall had found some gold while building
a mill on John Sutter’s land near Sacramento, CA. That news started the great Gold Rush of 1849.
 |
| From Jacob Santee’s copy of Professor Glee’s A Journey Around the World (W.E. Scull, 1901) p 381. |
That event ruined more men than it enriched, including John Sutter! The 49’ers,
as the men hunting for gold came to be called, killed John’s cattle and
destroyed his property in their rush to find riches. Sutter eventually moved to
Lititz, PA in 1871 where he died in poverty in 1880.[17]
None of the Drums seem to have gotten caught up in the gold fever of 1849,
although there are members of Philip’s family tree living in California.
In 1859, Charles Darwin shocked the world when he
published “On
The Origin of Species”. No word on if John Drum ever read it,
or, if he did, what he thought of its conclusions!
John was in his 30’s during the years of the Civil
War but there is no indication he enlisted to fight – on either
side.Along with his fellow citizens and President Grant, I’m sure he celebrated the nation’s centennial. John’s son, Nathan A. Drum, was seven years old in 1876. Was he aware of the centennial and what it meant?
When the news came in 1876 that General George Armstrong Custer had been defeated and killed by the Plains Indians at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana, might Nathan A. have been outside playing “Cowboys and Indians”?
Return to the Drums of Drums, PA on November 19,
2018 for the 12th post, The Drums and
their Times Part 2: 1870’s – 1970’s.
[1] Unless otherwise cited, historical information found in
this post for the 19th Century is based on information found in A
History of the Nineteenth Century Year by Year (in Three Volumes) by Edwin Emerson,
Jr. (New York: P.F. Collier, 1901)
[2] Unless
otherwise cited, historical information found in this post for the 20th
Century is based on information found in Pages From the Past Special
Edition, Hazleton Standard-Speaker, Friday, September 6, 1991
[3] Emerson, Edwin, Jr., Volume 1, page 47
[4] Emerson,
Edwin, Jr., Volume 1, page 47
[6] A
descendant of John Santee’s, a woman named Ella Santee, married a descendant of
Philip Drum’s in 1919. His name was Elmer Alonzo Drum(Nathan A., John,
Philip, George, Jacob, Philip).
[7] Observing
Constitution Day, https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/constitution-day/ratification.html accessed 6/18/2018
[8] Coinage
Act of April 2, 1792, https://www.usmint.gov/learn/history/historical-documents/coinage-act-of-april-2-1792
accessed 6/18/2018
[9]
Sheldon, George G., A Field Guide to Pennsylvania State History (London:
PRC, 2005) p 11.
[10]
Handwerk, Brian, “Saint Nicholas to Santa: the surprising origins of Mr.
Claus”, www.natgeo.com
accessed 11/29/2017
[12] Annals
of the Sugarloaf Historical Association, Vol. 1 (Hazleton, PA: Sugarloaf
Historical Association, 1934) p 81.
[13] Annuals, p 80.
[14] Annuals, p 81.
[15] Annuals,
p 81.
[16] A
Christmas Carol: The Original Manuscript, by Charles Dickens – a facsimile of
the manuscript in The Pierpont Morgan Library (NY: Dover Publications,
1967) p ix.
[17]
Sheldon, George G., A Field Guide to Pennsylvania State History (London:
PRC, 2005) p 227.
[18] Lauer-Williams, Kathy, "The History of Belsnickel: Santa's Cranky Cousin," The Morning Call, November 29, 2013 http://articles.mcall.com/2013-11-29/entertainment/mc-belsnickel-christmas-pennsylvania-dutch-20131129_1_candy-pennsylvania-dutch-christmas-furs accessed 5/11/2018
[19] as depicted in: Devens, R. M., Our First Century: being a Popular Discriptive Portraiture of the One Hundred Great and Memorable Events of perpetual interest in the History of our country, Political, Military, Mechanical, Social, Scientific and Commercial: embracing also delineations of all the great historic characters celebrated in the annuals of the Republic; men of Heroism, Statesmanship, Genius, Oratory, Adventure and Philanthropy. (Springfield, MA: C. A. Nichols & Co.; Easton, PA: J. W. Lyon, 1876).
[18] Lauer-Williams, Kathy, "The History of Belsnickel: Santa's Cranky Cousin," The Morning Call, November 29, 2013 http://articles.mcall.com/2013-11-29/entertainment/mc-belsnickel-christmas-pennsylvania-dutch-20131129_1_candy-pennsylvania-dutch-christmas-furs accessed 5/11/2018
[19] as depicted in: Devens, R. M., Our First Century: being a Popular Discriptive Portraiture of the One Hundred Great and Memorable Events of perpetual interest in the History of our country, Political, Military, Mechanical, Social, Scientific and Commercial: embracing also delineations of all the great historic characters celebrated in the annuals of the Republic; men of Heroism, Statesmanship, Genius, Oratory, Adventure and Philanthropy. (Springfield, MA: C. A. Nichols & Co.; Easton, PA: J. W. Lyon, 1876).
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