You won’t believe this
[Hat tip:commenter “Paul in Boston.”]
It’s hard to believe, but this book contains the photographs and stories of eight men who fought in the Revolution.
Yes, that’s the American Revolution.
And yes, photos.
[NOTE: I have a home movie of a great-aunt of mine who was born in 1839. The movie was taken in 1940, and it’s of my parents’ wedding. Pretty amazing stuff for a home movie.]
Thanks for the link neo and Paul in Boston. Extremely interesting.
For those that might be interested in first person accounts of the Revolutionary War I would suggest the autobiography of Joseph Plumb Martin.
The setup reminds me of a Jeopardy final question from circa 1990- “The U.S. Government is still paying benefits to the widows of men who fought in what war?”
I’ve seen some of the pics before. Right out of Disney’s Haunted Mansion… style wise.
Yancey: the response is what was the American Civil War.
Some fellas married very late in life and their gals were amazingly much younger.
Teenagers in 1864 were 60 years old in 1911. Then they married some cousin — aged 16 — who lived on and on. ( The boys in town had all moved away; she was not a pretty girl.)
Neo: “I have a home movie of a great-aunt of mine who was born in 1839.”
That’s cool! Does it have sound? If so, does she speak and what does she sound like?
When I was a teenager, helping to research my family’s history I was surprised to see that my grandfather’s grandfather died just 2 years before I was born. And, he served in the civil war. I always wondered what he was like; and to have such a family connection – far, but, still so close – made the history of the civil war more real to me.
One of the nicest recollections I’ve ever read was a recipe on the editorial page of the Boston Globe at Thanksgiving. It was how to prepare and cook a turkey handed down through generations and learned from the Indians at Plymouth Plantation in 1640 or so.
One of the more interesting finds that we made when cleaning out the farmhouse I grew up in prior to sale after my father passed was a home movie clip of my parent’s wedding in 1948. I had no idea it existed before we transferred it to digital media.
DerHahn:
In those days indoor home movies had to be taken using big bright lights. I remember them well.
My parents’ wedding is an amazing document.
And for charles: no, there’s no sound in my home movie. That was beyond the realm of the home movie back then.