MIDWINTER WISH BOOKS

As the snow drifts grew higher in January and mid-February, visions of summer's blossoms danced in our heads. The colorful flower illustrations found in those wish books that arrived after the first of the year reassured us that warm days would come again, melt away the snow, and awaken dormant plants from their long winter's nap.

Nettie and her brother Charles, who saved some of their gardening catalogs, must have carefully poured over each page, looking at the new cultivars offered each year and then sending orders off to Burpee, Lovett or Vaughan. Dates on these catalogs in the collection indicate that this horticulture fascination went back to earlier members of the Bullis family as well, even before Nettie and Charlie were old enough to wield a hoe and shovel.

For example, from 1896 there are copies of DREER'S AUTUMN CATALOGUE and LOVETT'S GUIDE TO HORTICULTURE. Vaughan's colorful 1933 GARDENING ILLUSTRATED is preserved in our file along with copies of Peter Henderson & Company's 1896, 1916, and 1933 publications, which offered "seeds, bulbs, plants, roots, implements, sundries," all illustrated in black and white as well as color. Burpee's 1917 publication offered similar stock to the public and even enclosed in their catalog an "Application for Domestic Money Order" for the customer's convenience in remitting the amount due.

Those of you who enjoyed Charlie's garden on Canandaigua Road for many, many years were privileged to see the results of his catalog purchases as well as his expertise in producing his own cultivars. Today, it's our responsibility to carry on the local tradition, started by the Bullis family and other Macedon pioneering families, of leafing through garden catalogs (or scanning online versions) and placing orders (using credit cards instead of money orders). Then, like Charlie and Nettie, we sit back and wait for Memorial Day weekend to begin the process of turning our wishes into reality.

BOOK REPAIR

This week several Bullis Room volunteers met to repair books with missing or loose boards(aka "covers"). To accomplish this, here's what we did:

1. We arranged for an expert in book repair to instruct and guide us. This is essential, unless you are knowledgeable and experienced in this area.

2. Next, we assembled the supplies and materials needed: white glue, scissors, cork-backed rulers, pencils, sharp knife, wax paper, paper towels, binder's board, crash (a stiff cheesecloth material), craft paper, head bands, cloth or leather for covering the new boards, and paper for end sheets. These items can be purchased at art and discount stores or book binding supply houses.

3. Prior to our session, we measured the books to be repaired and cut the replacement parts out of the new materials.

4. With books and supplies organized on a large work table, we then carefully listened to and followed the expert's instructions, as she patiently guided us through the process. (Please take note of the word "patiently.")

The results were books with new endsheets and boards, securely bound together with the text block. Hurray! We hope to give this same TLC to other books in the collection that are showing signs of aging.


Note: if you're interested in repairing your own books, we suggest you contact your local book-repair expert or use your favorite search engine to locate illustrated instructions on the web. Good Luck.

IN HONOR OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH

THE HISTORY OF SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE, ANCIENT AND MODERN. THE FORMS OF SLAVERY THAT PREVAILED IN ANCIENT NATIONS, PARTICULARLY IN GREECE AND ROME. THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE AND THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES. Compiled From Authentic Materials by W. O. Blake, published by J. H. Miller, Ohio, 1858.

A few weeks ago, a volunteer set aside this book and suggested the rest of us look it over and consider it for a Black History Month entry on this blog. We did and were equally impressed.

Anyone who needs information about the formation and continuance of the slavery system in this country will find invaluable information between the covers of this factual, well-documented 150-year-old book. On the first of 832 pages, the author states:

It is certainly a curious fact, that as far as we can trace back the
history of the human race, we discover the existence of Slavery.

Then follows the history of Mosaic institutional slavery, Sparta's Helots, Greek and Roman slaves, and slavery in Africa, England and in the New World. Two chapters, titled "Early Opponents of African Slavery in England and America" and "Movements in England to Abolish the Slave Trade," document the abolitionist efforts of Quakers and the historian Thomas Clarkson.

The book ends with sixteen pages of statistical information compiled from the 1850 census about free and slave states and a record of the United States Supreme Court's decision in the Case of Dred Scott vs. Sandford, in their December term, 1856.

Eleven images enhance the reader's understanding and interpretation of the facts reported in these 34 chapters. You can view these images at: http://people.uvawise.edu/runaways/images/blake.html

We invite you to stop by the Bullis Room and take a look at our copy.

BULLIS FAMILY HISTORY, PART II

JOHN LAPHAM BULLIS, From Corporal to Brigadier General

After the surrender of Lee, Corporal John Lapham Bullis's unit was ordered to Texas (along the Rio Grande River, near Brownsville) for Reconstruction duty. He was mustered out of the Volunteer Army on February 6, 1866 at White's Ranch, Texas, after serving almost three and a half years in the War of the Rebellion.

He attempted a personal business of providing logs for the steamboats on the Mississippi for about a year. It was said that civilian life just did not provide as much excitement as military life provided and he entered military service again. He was appointed 2nd Lieutenant in the 41st Infantry, September 3, 1867. This duty permitted little opportunity to advance, so in November, 1869, he requested transfer to the new Twenty-fourth Infantry, composed of white officers and black enlisted men.

With the Twenty-fourth Infantry, he participated in operations against Indian raiding parties and cattle rustlers. While stationed at Fort Clark (150 miles West of San Antonio along the Rio Grande) he received command of a special troop of Black Seminole Scouts. In 1873 and 1874, Bullis and his 20 scouts played a major support role to Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie as he battled against tribes from the Texas Panhandle and Mexico. He received brevet citations for his "gallant service" in the years of 1875 through 1881 and the title of "friend of the frontier" from the state of Texas. He left the Black Seminole Scouts in 1882 for other duties in Indian Territory.

In 1888 he served as agent for the Apaches at San Carlos Reservation. He was transferred to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1893, to act as agent for the Pueblos and Jicarillo Apaches. In 1897, he returned to Texas as Major Bullis and was appointed paymaster at Fort Sam Houston. He saw service in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. After forty years military service, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him brigadier general in 1904 and the next day he retired.

We know less of his personal and civil life than his military career. He married Alice Rodriguez of San Antonio in 1872. She died in 1887 and he married Josephine Withers of San Antonio in 1891. In 1885, during his first marriage, he became one-third owner of Shafter Silver Mines of Presidio County, Texas.

John Lapham Bullis died in San Antonio, Texas on May 26, 1911.

Places named in his honor:
1) Bullis Gap Range, a ten-mile chain of peaks near the Rio Grande
2) Camp Bullis, a military training base near San Antonio, posthumously, in 1917
3) Bullis, Texas, a Southern Pacific Railroad station founded in 1882 as a siding and nonagency station and abandoned by the railroad after 1944


NOTE: Information contained in this article is from the STATEMENT AS TO THE MILITARY RECORD IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY OF BREVET MAJOR JOHN L. BULLIS, 24TH INFANTRY, U.S. ARMY and other family papers.

BULLIS FAMILY HISTORY, Part I

JOHN LAPHAM BULLIS:

Student, farm hand, sheep herder, trapper, business man, soldier, war hero--all of these terms describe Nettie and Charlie's Uncle John. Born in Macedon on April 17, 1841 to Dr. Abram R. and Lydia P.(Lapham) Bullis, he was the eldest of seven children.

Only limited information is available about his early years. We know he received the standard Quaker education at academies in Macedon and Lima. Notes taken during a conversation with Charlie Bullis about his Uncle John tell us:

"In his teens John Bullis went trapping in Canada to earn money.
Before going to Civil War had a horse and a flock of sheep. Always
trying to earn money and get ahead - plowing for his uncle, Stephen
Lapham, when he went to war (either at the first call or on 21st
birthday).

Went to school at Lima Seminary, at Lima, New York. At end of Civil
War, he was in civil life about a year and in business on the
Mississippi River where he bought timber and hired men to cut it up
and sold it for fuel in steamboats of Mississippi River...."

John Bullis's long and successful military career is well documented and tells of his loyal service that included many acts of bravery. He began as a corporal in the 126th New York Volunteer infantry on August 8, 1862. During the Civil War, at Harper's Ferry in September, 1862, he was wounded and captured, surrendered to Stonewall Jackson, then exchanged. At Gettysburg, on July 1-3, 1863, he was again wounded and captured at Pickett's Charge. This time he spent two or three months in Richmond, Virginia's Libby prison before again being exchanged. He was discharged from the service August 17, 1864, to accept an appointment as Captain in the 118th United States Infantry, Colored Troops, dating from August 18, 1864.

Captain Bullis and his regiment participated in a number of major combats with small forces of Confederates while being recruited near Owensboro, Kentucky as well as several combats near Fort Harrison, Virginia in the winter of 1864 and 1865. At Dutch Gap canal, in the spring of 1865, they were under fire almost continuously for about three months.

CONTINUED NEXT WEEK: More of John Lapham Bullis's military service and civil life.

NOTE: Information contained in this article is from the STATEMENT AS TO THE MILITARY RECORD IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY OF BREVET MAJOR JOHN L. BULLIS, 24TH INFANTRY, U.S. ARMY and other family papers.