You’re missing

Please excuse the silence. I’m in a state of shock right now. My youngest brother John passed away earlier this month, less than three weeks after our father’s death from cancer. He died of a heart attack in his sleep. John had high blood pressure and a heart condition called bundle branch block, though I had never thought that this was life-threatening. He was under severe stress in recent months, both because our father was ill and because he had lost his job at the social services agency where he worked for almost twenty years. He told me he sometimes went three days in a row without sleeping. In his last email to me, he said that he was ready to concentrate on finding a new job but that it was scary because he’d never really had to do it before. My partner Jenn has created a website for John, which includes a slide show set to the song “You’re Missing” by Bruce Springsteen (one of my brother’s favorite musicians). Well over 75 people came to a memorial gathering for John on June 14, though it was put together at short notice. John had many friends, and all of us will miss him.

Edward Wisner's fountain

Many thanks to the reader in New Orleans who noticed my post on Edward Wisner and commented on it. He sent this photo later, taken during a scavenger hunt, and added, "After reviewing the photo again, I realized that it must be the fountain that you mention in the article. It's located in West End Park near where the Southern Yacht Club was located (the yacht club was destroyed by fire in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina). In fact, that whole area was heavily damaged by the storm surge. "

I enjoy the wetland motif of lily pads and cattails that was used to create this memorial fountain. Maybe someday I can see it in person.

My father, William B. Wisner

I’m sure one reason I’ve been preoccupied with family history recently is that my father has been seriously ill for the last few months. He passed away early on the morning of May 15, and my brothers and I were at his funeral mass on the 17th, where I spoke a few words. An obituary appeared in the local papers, which mentioned the Hospice of St. Lawrence Valley, which helped look after him. The hospice workers provided much-needed support for Pop’s wife Marcia, kept Pop’s spirits up, and enabled him to stay at home and out of the hospital (which he hated). Donations would be put to good use.

Edward Wisner, “Father of Reclamation”

Edward Wisner (1861-1915) is described in The Wisners in America as the “father of reclamation” due to his success in draining swampland in Louisiana.

For a number of years Edward Wisner was an editor and banker at Athens, Mich. Because of ill health he was compelled to give up those activities. So he travelled extensively in the South, locating finally in North Louisiana, where for many years he carried on land colonization and lumber selling. He also edited a newspaper at Monroe, La. In 1900 he moved to New Orleans, and he and his associates acquired more than a million acres of swamp lands in the delta of the Mississippi, largely lands west of that city.

The book quotes from “his close friend and associate, Judge R.E. Milling,” who spoke in 1917 at the unveiling of a fountain in honor of Edward Wisner:

“About twenty years ago a passenger on one of the Southern Pacific trains was standing on the platform of the rear car observing the country, and after having passed through miles of the low-lying prairie of St. Charles and Lefourche Parishes, inquired of someone standing near why such lands were not in cultivation. The person addressed happened to be a native — yes, not only a native, but one of that knowing kind who especially knew all about those lands, and he proceeded to enlighten the stranger to the effect that what appeared to be land was not real, but what was known as trembling prairie, formed by decayed vegetable matter, upon lakes that existed in the country, that what he saw was a mere coating and underneath was water of great depth. The passenger then asked, If such was the case, how did the railroad bed stand. He was answered that the railroad company had hauled in vast quantities of dirt and stone and built the road-bed. He remarked: ‘That is possible, but, if your statement is correct, what holds up the telephone poles? Why don’t they sink down into the great lake of which you speak?’ “Such was the introduction of Edward Wisner to the low-lying marsh or prairie lands of Southwest Louisiana. He did not accept the statement made by the native as such statements had been accepted by hundreds of other persons making such inquiries, but he returned and investigated, and upon investigation he found that what was presumed to be water underneath was blue clay which was rendered almost liquid by the amount of water it contained. Making this discovery, he at once saw the possibilities of the development of these lands.”

Reverend Henry Wisner and the Wolves

The page and a half devoted to the Reverend Henry Wisner (1807-1878) in The Wisners in America doesn’t promise much excitement at first. Wisner was born in Camillus, New York, to a family “all noted for their sturdy, moral and religious integrity.” At the age of twelve, Wisner “became the subject of divine grace” and began teaching school. “His great modesty, which was almost a mental disease, long kept him in the background, but in 1830, unsolicited on his part, he received his first license as an exhorter, and the following year his license as a preacher. The same year he was married to Miss Byancy House, a woman worthy to be his companion.” No examples are given of Rev. Wisner’s extraordinary modesty. Two paragraphs later, his eulogy is being read, and he is praised as “a man with an unsullied reputation.” Then comes the good part.

About the same time (November 9, 1878) Mr. DePew wrote a long article in the Yates County Chronicle (New York), giving a thrilling account of how Rev. Henry Wisner spent a night in a tree in the mountains of Pennsylvania in 1835, being trapped by pack of wolves after he had lost the trail in crossing the mountains, one night in his itinerary. To console himself and to pass away the time, while suffering all sorts of discomforts in the tree, he preached a long sermon on that occasion taking as his text, “There shall be no night there.” To prevent freezing, for it was the 12th of November and a sleet storm was raging, he grabbed the branches over his head and lifted himself up as far as he could and then he would suddenly drop to the branch on which his feet rested, a gymnastic exercise, or a species of dance, the music of which came out of the thick walls of darkness in the nature of blood-curdling yells of the blood-thirsty wolves.

George W. Wisner, Abolitionist Reporter

On my way to work, at the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street, I pass by the clock of the old New York Sun paper, turned pistachio green with verdigris and bearing the slogan “It shines for all.” It was a treat to discover recently that my ancestor George W. Wisner was not only a reporter for the Sun, beginning when it was founded in 1833, but was a boisterous abolitionist. The Wisners in America quotes from a serial article called “The Story of the Sun,” which appeared in Munsey’s Magazine beginning in May 1917:

When George W. Wisner, a young printer who was out of work, applied to the Sun for a job, Benjamin Day told him that he would give him four dollars a week if he would get up early every day and attend the police court, which held its sessions from 4 A.M. on. The people of the city were quite as human then as they are today. Unregenerate mortals got drunk and fought in the streets. Others stole shoes. The worst of all beat their wives. Wisner was to be the Balzac of the daybreak court in a year when Balzac himself was writing his “Droll Stories.” ... The big story on the first page of the fourth issue of the Sun was a conversation between Envy and Candor in regard to the beauties of a Miss H., perhaps a fictitious person. But on the second page, at the head of the editorial column, was a real editorial article approving the course of the British government in freeing the slaves in the West Indies: “We supposed that the eyes of men were but half open to this case. We imagined that the slave would have to toil on for years and purchase what in justice was already his own. We did not once dream that light had so far progressed as to prepare the British nation for the colossal stride in justice and humanity and benevolence which they are about to make. The abolition of West Indian slavery will form a brilliant era in the annals of the world. It will circle with a halo of imperishable glory the brows of the transcendent spirits who wield the present destinies of the British Empire. “Would to heaven that the honor of leading the way in this Godlike enterprise had been reserved to our own country! But as the opportunity for this passed, we trust we shall at least avoid the everlasting disgrace of long refusing to imitate so bright and glorious an example.” Thus the Sun came out for the freedom of the slave twenty-eight years before that freedom was to be accomplished, in the United States, through war. The Sun was the Sun of Day, but the hand was the hand of Wisner. That young man was an Abolitionist before the word was coined. “Wisner was a pretty smart young fellow,” said Mr. Day nearly fifty years afterward, “but he and I never agreed. I was rather Democratic in my notions. Wisner, whenever he got a chance, was always sticking in his damned little Abolitionist articles.”... Wisner was stretching the police-court pieces out to nearly two columns. Now and then, perhaps when Mr. Day was away fishing, the reporter would slip in an Abolition paragraph or a gloomy poem on the horrors of slavery. But he was so valuable that, while his chief did not raise his salary of four dollars a week, he offered him half the paper, the same to be paid for out of the profits.... The influence of partner Wisner, the Abolitionist, was evident in many pages of the Sun. On June 23, 1834, it printed a piece about Martin Palmer, who was “pelted down with stones in Wall Street on suspicious of being a runaway slave,” and paid its respects to Boudinot, a Southerner in New York who was reputed to be a tracker of runaways. It was he who had set the crowd after the black: “The man who will do this will do anything; he would dance on his mother’s grave; he would invade the sacred precincts of the tomb and rob a corpse of its winding-sheet; he has no soul. It is said that this useless fellow is about to commence a suit against us for libel. Try it, Mr. Boudinot!”

Continuing the story, The Wisners in America says, “When Wisner’s health became poor, in the summer of 1835, he expressed a desire to get away from New York. His partner, Day, paid him $5,000 for his interest in the paper — a large sum for those days. Wisner then went West and settled at Pontiac, Mich. There his health improved and he became a noted lawyer and was a member of the Michigan Legislature. “Reference to the charts will show that George W. Wisner was a brother of Moses Wisner, the Governor of Michigan from 1858 to 1860.”

Henry Wisner and the Declaration of Independence

My ancestor Henry Wisner is described in The Wisners in America as the only New Yorker to have voted for the Declaration of Independence. The following is from Franklin Burdge’s 1878 essay on Henry Wisner, quoted in the book. I enjoy the fact that a Tory journalist found “old Wisner” so irritating.

Henry Wisner was a tall man, vigorous and erect even in old age. Like his neighbors, he had little learning, but had natural abilities and pleasing address, and was appointed justice of the peace. He married, probably about 1740, Sarah Norton, of Queen’s county, and received with her a farm there. He owned a few slaves and considerable land about Goshen. His house was a mile south of the village, on the Florida road. It was a stone house, but is no longer standing. It is said to have once entertained George Washington and Baron Steuben. Wisner was prominent in the boundary war between New Jersey and Orange country, and in 1754 it seems there was a company of Jerseymen formed to take him and Colonel De Kay “dead or alive.” Wisner served in the New York Colonial Assembly from 1759 to 1769. The only Bill of any interest introduced by him was on December 12, 1759, to enable himself, John Alsop, John Morin Scott, John Van Courtlandt and Joseph Sacket, part proprietors of the patent of Wawayanda, to sell enough of the undivided land to obtain 1500 pounds to be applied in draining the Drowned Lands. They were an extensive cedar marsh annually submerged by the rise of the Wallkill. Drainage has since largely rendered them capable of cultivation to the profit and health of the inhabitants.... Wisner strenuously espoused the side of Colonial rights and warmly opposed the pretensions of the English Parliament. Rivington’s Tory paper (in 1781) put “old Wisner” among the “tyrants” and “unfeeling malefactors” of whom the Loyalists complained the highest. On August 15, 1774, Orange county chose Wisner and [John] Haring to attend the Continental Congress, then about to be held in Philadelphia, to concert measures of resistance to British aggressions. The Congress began in Carpenter’s Hall on September 5, but Wisner did not take his seat until the fourteenth.... The Second Continental Congress met in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, May 10, 1775, but Wisner did not appear until the fifteenth. He was not a prominent member of this body, but took part in its patriotic measures, including the wonderfully fortunate selection of a commander-in-chief of the American armies. [Wisner’s signature appears to the left of Washington’s on this document.] Wisner’s attention was early directed to a humble but very important subject, of which, in a letter dated Philadelphia, December 21, 1775, he writes: “Having for many months been seriously affected with the great disadvantage the colonies labor under for want of ammunition, I thought it my duty to apply myself to the attainment of those necessary arts of making saltpetre and gunpowder, and having far exceeded my expectations in both manufactures, I think myself further obliged to communicate the so much needed knowledge to my country at large.”... He was otherwise serviceable to the patriotic cause by having spears and gun flints made, and by repairing roads in Orange county by which provisions and other necessaries were transported to the American army. He also attended to collecting lead and to the manufacture of salt, and to fortifying the Hudson against the passage of the British vessels.

Burdge then takes up the question of whether Wisner and the other members of the New York delegation to the Second Continental Congress voted for independence, and if so, why their names did not appear on the Declaration. The delegates wrote home for instructions on June 8, 1776, and were apparently told they had no authority to vote for a break with England. In a second letter dated July 2, 1776, the delegates said they intended to refrain from voting, but a postscript showed that events had overtaken them:

It is probable that this letter was written by Wisner, as he sent it to the New York Provincial Congress with a note of his own saying: “Since writing the inclosed, the question of Independence has been put in Congress and carried in the affirmative without one dissenting vote.” This means [Burdge comments] that no colony voted against it, but that on July 2, 12 colonies, acting for 13, resolved that the united colonies are free and independent states. This then is the genuine national birthday.... Now we have neglected testimony of the intelligent and honorable Thomas McKean, a Delaware member present on July 4, that Henry Wisner voted for Independence. It is contained in four letters, one dated September 26, 1796, and printed in Sanderson’s Biographs, another dated August 22, 1813, and lithographed in Brotherhead’s Book of the Signers, a third dated January, 1814, and printed in volume 10 of John Adam’s Works, and a fourth dated June 16, 1817, and printed in the appendix to Christopher Marshall’s diary.... It is discreditable that there is no monument or other record bearing the names of the voters of Independence. The so-called signers of the Declaration are members of the Congress after August 2, who were then required to commit themselves to the cause. On July 4, about 12 of them were not at the Congress, and two and probably more of them, refused to vote for Independence. These 14 gentlemen have had immortality given them by the carelessness of history, to the exclusion of Henry Wisner, who better deserves it. Wisner’s duties called him to New York, (July 12) before the Declaration of Independence was engrossed on parchment and ready for signing, but he continued an unattending member of the Continental Congress until May 13, 1777, when a new delegation was elected by New York.

My ancestor Johanes Weesner

It’s been fascinating to me to uncover nuggets of my family’s history in the 1918 book The Wisners in America — but it may not be of much interest to anyone else whose name isn’t Wisner. My apologies to the non-Wisners out there. The book begins with the arrival of the first Wisner:

Johanes Weesner, of Switzerland, was the progenitor of most of the Wisners now living in this country. He came to America about 1714 (the exact date has not been established nor is it of much importance), with 10,000 troops of Queen Anne’s Swiss contingent, who had fought against Louis XIV, of France, under the Prince of Orange, and later under the Duke of Marlborough.... Perhaps the most reliable information we have about Johanes Weesner is contained in “A Memorial to Henry Wisner,” published by Franklin Burdge, of New York, in September, 1872.... It will be noted that Burdge says: “Johanes Weesner was born in Switzerland and fought against Louis XIV, of France, in the allied army under the Prince of Orange, and afterwards under the Duke of Marlborough. When their warlike toils were done, Queen Anne undertook to provide some of the foreign troops a home in the colony of New York. “The emigrants encamped for some months on Governor’s Island. Then Johanes Weesner went to work on the farm of Christian Snedicor, of Hampstead, Long Island. Snedicor owned land on the Wawayanda Patent, in Orange county, and he sent Weesner there to bring part of it under cultivation. By paying 30 pounds Weesner became the owner of a farm on July 23, 1714. It is supposed the situation is the present town of Warwick, near Mount Eve, on the border of the Drowned Lands. The district was called Florida as early as 1733. Johanes Weesner died a little before May, 1744.”

The book goes on:

That Johanes Weesner was a thrifty and industrious man, and with the hearty co-operation of his family, accumulated considerable property for those days, thus displaying shrewd intelligence and fine judgment is indicated clearly in his will... It reads: “In the name of God, Amen, I, Johanes Weesner, of Florida, in Goshen, in Orange county, yeoman, this July 6, 1733, I leave to my eldest son, Hendrick, 30 pounds. I leave to my son, Adam, my dwelling house and land I now live upon, with all the buildings; and he is to pay to my son Hendrick the 30 pounds above mentioned. I leave to my youngest daughter, Mary, now living with me, 140 acres of land, which I purchased of Barent Bloome, June 7, 1732, situated in Orange county, near Goshen, as by deed. “After payment of debts, I leave to my three daughters, Catharine, wife of Thomas Blain, Ann, wife of Philip King, and Mary, all the rest of my personal estate. “If my dear and loving wife, Elizabeth, should survive me, she is to have the use of all my estate, and no division is to be made during her life. I make my wife Elizabeth, and my good and trusty friends, Michael Dunning and Daniel Denton, both of Goshen, executors. “Witnesses, John Smith, Joseph Sutherland, Josiah Keeder. Proved in New York, May 19, 1744.”

Hendrick’s son Henry Wisner, the grandson of Johanes Weesner, later became a member of the First and Second Continental Congresses, and the only New Yorker to vote for the Declaration of Independence.

Back to Governors Island

I see Governors Island nearly every morning when I walk over the Brooklyn Bridge on the way to work, though it was a while before I even knew what it was. The island intrigued me for a long time, especially when it was barred to the public: a low wooded island with a few buildings scattered on it, and a massive octagonal white structure with vertical black bars on its sides. The white octagon was so somber and impressive that I thought it must be a monument of some kind. (I only learned later that it provides ventilation for one of the tunnels under the East River.) During the winter, when I walked home over the bridge after dark, it was eerie to see only one or two electric lights on the island. The island was an oasis of quiet and darkness, only a few hundred yards from the glowing glass towers of the financial district. Once the island was opened to the public (though only during the summer, and for limited hours), I tried to get there once or twice a year on the ferry. My favorite spots were the round fort at the island’s corner, with its walls of soft red brick and deep embrasures, the broad sloping meadow that spreads out from the second, star-shaped fort, and the long row of deserted frame houses where officers used to live. Cicadas shrilled in the hot grass, and Canada geese stalked along the footpaths. Governors Island is one of the most peaceful spots I know in the city. I feel a sense of connection there, so it was a little strange to read in The Wisners in America that Governors Island was the first place in the New World where my ancestor Johanes Weesner lived. He and about 10,000 other Swiss soldiers arrived in New York around 1714 were “camped” on Governors Island for several months before finding new homes.

Wisner Park in Elmira, New York

This postcard, a copy of which I own, shows Wisner Park in the small upstate city of Elmira, New York — not far from Skaneateles in the Finger Lakes region, where I grew up. The settlement of Wisnerburg merged with Newtown in 1792, and Newtown was officially renamed Elmira in 1808. (In Orange County, where my family has had roots since the 1700s, there’s a town called Wisner, a little bit west of Bear Mountain State Park. I’ve been to the park but didn’t know about the town.) I dimly remember childhood visits to Elmira, which seemed nice enough. Mark Twain married his wife there in 1870, and is buried there. But there are sinister notes in Elmira’s history. A book called Death Camp of the North describes the Civil War prison camp there, where according to Wikipedia, “a combination of malnutrition, prolonged exposure to brutal winter weather, and disease directly attributable to the dismal sanitary conditions on Foster’s Pond and lack of medical care.” A maximum-security prison, the Elmira Correctional Facility was established in 1876. Although it was billed as the first “reformatory,” the policies of indeterminate sentences and corporal punishment used by warden Zebulon Brockway resulted in prisoners ending up in mental hospitals.

Family history

For many years I’ve been aware that I’m descended from a Swiss soldier (or “mercenary,” as family tradition has it) who arrived in the American colonies before the revolution. I knew, too, that I had an ancestor named Henry Wisner who was a member of the First and Second Continental Congresses, and who missed signing the Declaration of Independence for reasons not entirely clear. On a trip to Washington when I was in high school, I went into the lobby of the National Archives and was thrilled to look inside a glass case and see his signature on a document called the Articles of Association. My father recently gave me a book called The Wisners in America: A Family of Patriots and Pioneers, by G. Franklin Wisner. Published in 1918, it has a heavy green binding, softened with age, and an ornamentally embossed title in faded gilt. There are many fold-out pages of genealogical charts in the back, on smooth brittle paper that has to be handled carefully. One of them traces the line from Johannes Weesner (the original Swiss soldier) to my paternal grandfather. I had seen the book many times but had never felt the impulse to delve into it. I hadn’t gotten much farther than the Wisner coat of arms, which also appears at wisner.com, the website of a manufacturer of antique-looking view cameras. The motto is Amore nonvi, which my father used to say meant “Nobody loves Violet.” (It’s just possible that this is incorrect.)