MACEDON HISTORY

The Bullis family's contribution to Macedon has been - and continues to be - significant. So we're looking forward to a presentation on Macedon history, to be held in the Community Room here in the library on May 16.

Author and long-time Farmington resident Reginald W. Neale will display and discuss a series of historic photographs of Macedon. Neale is currently at work on a pictorial publication focusing on Macedon, and it is scheduled for release in August 2013. This current work is part of Arcadia Publishing's "Image of America" series, which chronicles the history of small towns across America using vintage photographs and hometown stories.

Those of us who "hang around" the Bullis Room are looking forward to Neale's presentation, and we anticipate that we will come away with a better understanding of our town. So if you're interested in Macedon history, we hope to see you on Wednesday, May 16, Macedon Public Library, 30 Main Street. The talk is facilitated by the Friends of the Macedon Public Library and is free and open to the public.

GONE WITH THE WIND

An item from a "this-date-in-history" column caught our eye this week. On May 3, 1937, Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Gone With the Wind. And now, 75 years later, her work still stands as one of the great pieces of American literature of all times.  There is a copy of this book in the Bullis Collection. And the collection also contains a significant number of non-fiction books on the War Between the States that Margaret Mitchell skillfully fictionalized.

So ... if you are interested in learning more about the Civil War, we invite you to stop by the Bullis Room and look at some of these books.  And we also invite you to read (or reread) two of our 2011 posts in which we recorded John Lapham Bullis's eyewitness accounts as a young recruit, taken from his letters home to his family.  (See our April 8, 2011 and April 15, 2011 posts.)

We hope you find one or more of these sources of Civil War history interesting and informative.

AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR

This war for our independence started in April, 1775 and there is still a great deal of interest in this part of our history 237 years later. If you are one of those people who are into this part of our history, consider taking a look at this Bullis Collection book:

Camp Fires of the Revolution: or The War of Independence,  by Henry Clay Watson, published in 1850 by Lindsay and Blackiston.

This volume illustrates the foot soldier's perspective of this war by recording stories told around the campfires of those participants.  As the author states, "here we have the incidents of various battles, and the exploit of chieftains, told as if by eye-witnesses, and in the familiar, easily-comprehended language of the farmer and mechanic soldiers of the American army.

The book is illustrated, which adds a great deal to the events and stories told by those Continental soldiers. You are invited to stop by the Bullis Room and read one or two of these tales narrated by someone who was actually there.

BOAT BUILDING

Since Monday's 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, we've been searching through the Bullis Collection for books on that subject. We got zero hits, but we did find four neat books on boating. Here's the list, and you may find one or more of interest (we did!).

1. Practical Boat-building for Amateurs: containing full instructions for designing and building punts, skiffs, canoes, row and sailing boats, with a complete ABC guide to canoe sailing, ABC guide to camping out together with all necessary definitions of nautical terms, by Adrian Neison, published in 1902 by Henneberry, with illustrations. (With a title like that, we need not say more.)

2. Boat Building and Boating,  by D. C. Beard, published in 1911 by C. Scribner's Sons. This edition has many illustrations to guild the would-be boat builder to a successful outcome.

3. A House-boat on the Styx, by John Kendrick Bangs, published in 1896 by Harper & Brothers.

4. Boat Life in Egypt and Nubia, by William C. Prime, published in 1866 by Harper.

So if you're "into" boats or boating in anyway, you might find one or more of these books a good read. We hope so.

REMINISCENCES OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth during a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater in Washington. Our volunteers this week decided to take another look at the Bullis Collection's books on President Lincoln, and from the long list we chose this book to highlight this week:

Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln, by distinguished men of his time, by Allen Thorndike Rice (published in 1888 by North American Review.

The book's title is true to its contents:  a collection of accounts and memories of Abraham Lincoln by such men as: General Ulysses S. Grant; Frederick Douglass, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, Honorable Cassius M. Clay,  and Walt Whitman--as well as 28 others. It also includes biographical sketches.

We invite you to stop by the Bullis Room and take a look at it. We also suggest that you allow yourself time to peruse its 656 pages (which includes illustrations, portraits, and facsimiles).  You won't be disappointed.

TEA TIME AT THE BULLIS HOUSE

Over the last three years we have written about Nettie Bullis many times on this blog, as a daughter, sister, business woman, benefactor...  But this is the first time we've referred to Nettie Bullis as a hostess. All because of two contacts:

1. Several year ago we corresponded with a woman who had known Nettie Bullis over 50 years ago, and she mentioned being invited to the Bullis house for tea. We were a bit surprised at the time, because we had never seen reference to Nettie Bullis as a hostess.

2. Then, two years ago we  connected with a second cousin of Nettie Bullis who knew the whereabouts of a Bullis tea set.  This week we received this photo, and we've been imaging Miss Bullis pouring tea and handing around a plate of scones.

This photo is now a part of our Bullis memorabilia. An important part, we think, because it adds another dimension to our understanding of our benefactor.

(There's also a lesson in this  story of how we acquired the most recent item in the collection. It is a result of a contact here, a comment there, and then a question--followed by a reply. A lot of "little" things that involved various people that came together in a desired outcome, which gives us added incentive to keep on keeping on...which is another lesson we've learned from the Bullis family.)

BULLIS HISTORY "POPPING UP"

A couple weeks ago we found a calendar issued at the time of the Macedon Bicentennial (1789-1989), for the month of March. The word "Lapham" caught our eye twice:

1.  "March 7, 1811 - Dr. Increase Lapham born in Macedon. Founder of U.S. Weather Bureau."
(In case you missed it, here is a paragraph from our December 11, 2010 post: "Through the Laphams, the Bullises were connected not only to the renowned Susan B.  Anthony but also to Increase Lapham (March 7, 1811–September 14, 1875), who emigrated from his birthplace in Palmyra, New York to Wisconsin, and is considered the “Father” of the United States Weather Service.")

2. "March 30, 1815 - During this year, Jacob Gannett and Daniel Lapham built first carding machine mill."

Once again, we are reminded of the Lapham family's strong  commitment to their community as well as their inventiveness, creativity, and business acumen.  Nettie Bullis was an embodiment of all these qualities, and this week we again celebrate and honor her birth. Here is a link to our March 19, 2009 post on Nettie Bullis: http://bullisbookchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/03/nettie-bullis.html