Announcements & Fines & Wrap-Up of Mike Pohlen's Road Trip
by Lorine Parks
Dealer and Host Larry McGrew is looking for more players to join our Third Annual Poker Fest, Saturday evening Oct 8th. $60 covers buy-in, dinner and refreshments at the McGrew residence. Larry Garces, pit boss, is assisting.
Raul Lopez is seeking Tee Sign & Hole Sponsors for our Rotary-ARC Golf Tournament Friday, November 4th at the Rio Hondo Golf Course. What better time and place to advertise, than to your friends and colleagues, and for such a good cause. See Raul.
Dan Fox welcomes guests to join him at the shooting range in Azusa on Oct 15th, and Barbara Lamberth reminded us of our signature community Pancake Breakfast at Warren High on Saturday Oct 8. Volunteers are needed from batter mixers to pancake flippers, from 7 am till 11:30. This is our most enjoyable and hands-on activity of the year.
“Save the Date” Sunday November 6 at the Cerritos Sheraton. The Downey Family YMCA is celebrating Downey Rotary, and Hop and Karol Morrison. He’s a Rio Hondo Rotarian and they are both long time Downey residents and benefactors to the community. Tickets $100.
FINEMASTER Ray Brown forewarned everyone that he would be asking questions to familiarize us with our Rotary International Foundation. Gary Wright, our newest member with the longest waiting period ever, was asked, “What is the name of the monthly magazine that is read by every Rotarian all over the world?” And Gary knew the answer: The Rotarian.
WE’RE ON THE HOMEWARD TRAIL Mike and Chris Pohlen, whom we last saw on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, took what is not a first-timer’s trip to the east coast, but one where each stop encapsules a deeper look into the American experience. Mike’s carefully assembled slide show passed by so quickly, that the Hubbub is sharing with the members a thorough recap of Mike’s presentation, as a thank you for a job well done.
Pictures taken through the windshield of the mobile home show that distance is going by quickly. “Welcome to Delaware” is followed without a stop by “Welcome to Pennsylvania.” No, the visit is not going to be at Gettysburg, but at the Hopewell Furnace National Historical Site, which spans two centuries of this part of the great eastern American forests.
Hopewell Furnace is an “iron plantation” in Eastern Pennsylvania. An iron plantation is a community centered around the production of iron from the basic elements of the earth. Since the second millennium B.C., when humans first learned how to free iron from ore, the basic process has not changed. Iron oxide is heated in an intense flame fed by a carbon fuel. The oxygen in the ore combines with carbon monoxide released from the fuel and is expelled as CO2. What is left is iron. Voila, the Iron Age.
Early iron plantations like Hopewell made their own fuel. They slowly burned carefully constructed piles of wood to create charcoal, a fuel that is almost pure carbon and burns with intense heat. Due to the need for great quantities of charcoal, early furnaces were located on woodlands. Important tree species here include oak (white, scarlet, red, and black), black birch, black gum, tulip tree, red maple, sweet birch, flowering dogwood, black cherry, white ash, and beech.
How does the charcoal come into existence? Wood is placed a densely packed pile, called a charcoal pit. The black layer seals the wood from the air, allowing it to be baked, or roasted, and this incomplete combustion produces charcoal. The wood is baked rather than burned.
Before the Revolution, the British imposed taxes on tea coming into America resulting in the protest called the Boston Tea Party in 1775. Not so well known, however, are the other attempts by the English government to control American economic life. One of their major thrusts was directed at our iron industry. The British, in the years before the Revolution, passed laws prohibiting American colonists from making any iron products except in the form of rough, cast iron bars. The idea was that these would be shipped to England for refinement into finished products. American ironmasters ignored these regulations, however, and turned out huge amounts of wrought iron products that were commercially competitive. By the 1770s, colonial furnaces, which had great advantages in the form of water power and use of local natural resources, were well established.
A visit to Hopewell Furnace, nestled in the rolling foothills of southeastern Pennsylvania, gives rise to many reflections; the following are suggested by the guide books. It is easy to forget that, prior to the Industrial Revolution, labor often had a communal aspect to it. People lived and worked together in pursuit of common endeavors that would be done today in factories or by other large-scale mechanization. This was not only true in farming communities, but also in other kinds of economic activities, including ironworks of eastern Pennsylvania.
The builder of the furnace, Mark Bird, along with most ironmasters in the 18th century, was a slave owner. In 1780 Bird was listed as the largest slave owner in Berks County. He had 10 men, 4 women, 3 boys and 1 girl.
These slaves worked at his forges in Birdsboro and are said to have dug Hopewell's original headrace that turned the water wheel supplying air to fire the furnace, and all this occurred not in the agrarian South but the “industrialized” North.
Beginning in 1835 this remote area around Hopewell figured prominently in the Underground Railroad movement. Runaway slaves from the south came across the Pennsylvania border and over the intervening hills to the home of the Quaker owners of Scarlet's Mill.
“Welcome to New Jersey” takes us to the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, where Edison’s home and laboratory are a step back in time. What were Thomas Edison's top three inventions? Edison earned 1,093 United States patents, but these are considered his greatest: the electric light system, the phonograph, and motion pictures. It was Edison who said, "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." Mike assures us that Edison only slept four hours a night, although he did take refreshing catnaps during the day.
Only other stop in New Jersey? Morristown National Historical Park, which commemorates the site of General Washington and the Continental army's winter encampment. This is “where America survived” from December 1779 to June 1780, through what would be the coldest winter on record. No battle was fought here, but try to envision six feet of snow on the ground, no shelter, inadequate clothing and food and more likely not even having shoes. That will begin to give you an idea of what winter was like here. To help visitors, there here is a thirty minute movie that is History Channel quality.
Among the show pieces are furniture that was used while Washington was there, including his bed. Mrs. Washington stayed here too, because it was safer than at Mt. Vernon.
“Everyone knows the hardships of Valley Forge,” Mike said. It is estimated that between one to three thousand soldiers died during the 1777-78 Valley Forge encampment while only about one hundred died at Morristown.
The difference? It wasn’t the winter, it was the army’s inexperience. For most of the soldiers at Valley Forge it was their first winter camp with the army. The camp and hut construction wasn’t up to the standards later used at Morristown. The men lived in damp conditions and did not properly take care of camp sanitation. As a result many men sickened and died.
By the winter of 1779-1780, however, most of the soldiers were veterans and had grown accustomed to the harsh military life. They knew how to properly set up a winter camp and most had been inoculated against smallpox. Consequently, though the men suffered and lacked proper food and clothing, they were able to survive the worst winter of the 18th century.
Undoubtedly glad they live in southern California, Mike and Chris had a priority, after leaving George Washington’s endurance trial: getting to see their family and the grandchildren who live in Vermont. From New Jersey to Middlebury, Vermont, it’s a blur of signs across intervening New York State.
And we still haven’t gotten to the real reason for this trip. We’ll postpone the high point and finale of our motor home journey till next week, and leave the Pohlens to enjoy their family time together.
Now we have our weekly bonus, Wayne Wilcox’s interview with one of our fellow Rotarians. In Wayne’s own words: