I went for a neighborhood run. Of my own accord. Let me regale you with the details for 700 words.
No. It wasn’t that long of a run. Here is a 350 word passage.
I need to run more, but it is possible I like running less than I have in a long time. I blame time. Time is going to get a lot of blame in the near future. So, I put on the running apparel and the running shoes, and I went outside. Normally, for whatever reason, I turn right out of the driveway and run around the neighborhood in a clockwise fashion. But today, I turned left. This put me on an immediate uphill, which is probably the reason I normally turn right. When I got near the top of that very tiny hill I turned right again, so that I might turn right one more time and run down a cul-de-sac I’d never seen. Just adding a few extra hundred yards on a nice road, and then back to my main route, continuing the loop around the neighborhood. This was a mile-and-a-quarter, a good distance for a sprinting horse, or a jogging me. Let all of them see my athleticism! I go back and forth, when I run, thinking I should do this more so I can get marginally faster at it, just in case something marginally slower than me ever chases me in the most comical sequence nature has ever devised. But then I think, things sometimes hurt too much for that, anyway. Again, I blame time. Also, I have a bike. And a car. And locks on the house. And what’s going to chase me? But, maybe, if I ran a bit more, I wouldn’t notice an ankle ache because of a knee pain. That could be an upgrade? Also, sometimes we go for runs, and wouldn’t it be nice for that to be a pleasant experience, or something approaching almost, you know, acceptable, rather than something you gut out? And that’s my goal now, right now, to run enough to make it not something you have to grit your teeth through. And, also, to recover all of the speed, such as it was, that I enjoyed in my teens. Who do I see about making those arrangements?
Just wait until you see my next run.
I know you’re as invested in the fig tree’s progress as I am. Behold, today’s view of the fig tree!
We’ll be googling Fig Newton recipes in no time.
The hydrangea really work well here. These things will just show off for months.
I had to bring the aloe plant back inside. Being a succulent, it does not tolerate chilly temperatures and, being stupid, we’ve had temperatures in the 40s and 50s the last several nights, the plant was turning a tiny bit yellow. Fortunately I noticed it early. It should be fine.
Considering we are now well in the middle of April, it should be warm enough for everything to be outside by now, but what can you do? I mean, aside from lighting up the atmosphere and hoping for no abnormal frosts as May draws near?
Let us turn, once more, to We Learn Wednesdays, where we learn all about this county via it’s historical markers and bike rides. You see a lot more at the speed of two pedals, and today’s marker is the perfect example. This is the 32st installment and the 53rd marker in the effort. I learned, a month or two ago, that this one was out there somewhere. But in my mind it was elsewhere on this same road. So imagine my surprise when I saw it yesterday.
I’ve passed it several times in my automobile — OK, usually at night — and had no idea. I’ve also passed it several times on my bicycle. Some things you just have to be looking for, even if you aren’t aware of it at the time. And I was only aware of this because of a nearby town crier. (We have a town crier nearby, how great is that?)
Jim Cook Jr, the crier, tells us that Christian Piercy was trying to flee the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. He got out of Philadelphia, hoping to find some refuge for his family, but he started showing symptoms on the stagecoach. So they kicked him off. He turned to the strangers around him for help, but everyone was terrified of the illness. One man took him in. He put him in a barn — or a humble log cabin, depending on the version you hear, and Piercy died soon after.
Piercy had risen to the rank of major in the Philadelphia militia. The militia in that state was an organizational mess:
Pennsylvania had two major shifts in government during the war, and also major changes in the types of militia forces that defended the home front.[1] The shifts in government were actually instigated by the militia, and so they also dramatically impacted the militia system, besides profoundly upsetting the population.
And, what’s more, not everyone wanted to serve, and we don’t just mean the Quakers, Mennonites and other pacifists. That same article tells us that substitutes made up about 42 percent of the total militia force between 1777 and 1780. But Piercy answered the call in the summer of 1777, just after the Pennsylvania’s first-ever Militia Law required mandatory enrollment of all white men between the ages of 18 and 53. Two of his brothers also mustered.
He was apparently wounded, says a modern descendant in an ancestry forum, in a rearguard action about 20 miles outside of the capitol, in a September 1777 rout of the American forces. Our man served and suffered at Valley Forge that next winter, and stayed in the militia after the war, until 1789. It is difficult to tell, from here, what else he did during his time in uniform. Some of the Pennsylvania militia were serving as home guard, others were ordered to battle.
In 2020 Piercy got a brief mention in The Atlantic, which notes that he died alone in that cabin, almost immediately after he arrived. He showed up that same year in a Washington Post story. (Ahh, 2020, when everyone was drawing parallels.)
Piercy was of German descent, and he and his family were part of a proud and longstanding Philadelphia tradition of cutting edge pottery. He lived right on the river, and his shop was nearby, as well. Just a few years ago, local businesses were still discovering some of his works hidden in their collections.
In July 1788, he helped led a group of potters in the Grand Federal Procession in Philadelphia.
Three hours long and a mile-and-a-half in length, the Grand Federal Procession was an ambitious act of political street theater, scripted by federalist supporters of the newly ratified U.S. Constitution and performed in the streets of Philadelphia on the Fourth of July 1788. From its commencement at Third and South Streets to its conclusion on Bush Hill north of the city center, the procession involved an estimated 22,000 Philadelphians: 5,000 men in the parade, with a vastly more diverse crowd of 17,000 men, women, and children watching from streets and windows, fences and roofs. Organized by rank and occupation, the marchers were roughly divided between federalist gentlemen (bankers, merchants, members of the Marine and Manufacturing Associations) and thousands of artisan-mechanics who, as the city’s producing class, were central to the ideology of federalism.
That’s a big parade.
There was a brilliant description of the entire order of march in the 1930s.
A flag, on which was neatly painted a kiln burning, and several men at work in the different branches of the business — Motto — “The Potter hath Power over his Clay.”
A four wheel’d carriage drawn by two horses, on which was a Potter’s wheel and men at work, a number of cups,- bowls, mugs, & c. were made during the procession; the carriage was followed by twenty potters, headed by Mess. Christian Piercy and Michael Gilbert, wearing linen aprons of American manufacture.
In the line just in front of Piercy and the potters were the Whip and Cane Manufacturers, “Let us encourage our own manufactures,” the Black-smiths, White-smiths and Nailers, “By Hammer in hand, all Arts do stand,” and the coach-makers, “The Clouds dispell’d, we shine forth.” All of these people were working on the floats as they came by for spectators to see. Behind the men making their pottery on the move came the Wheel-wrights, with five men working on a plow and wheel ahead of 22 of their colleagues, a dozen tin-plate workers, and then the skinners, breeches makers and glovers, 61 strong, under a flag that said “May our Manufacture be equal in its Consumption to its usefulness.” Then came the tallow chandlers, with the mottos “Let your light so shine,”
“The Stars of America a light to the World,” and “United in One.” Twenty of them came through, each with an olive branch in hand.
Street theater is a good name for it.
That was 1788. He died in 1793. Hopefully it was a life of peace and clay in between.
They buried him right away, presumably as a contagion or logistical concern. His wife survived him, and she had the marker put in place. It’s on private farmland, and I didn’t feel it was proper to walk up there, but if you just look in the distance, on the left side of this photo, there’s a flag fluttering in the breeze. That’s where Piercy was buried.
He was just 49 years old.
We’ll see another great marker next week, I’m sure. I just have to go hunt them out between now and then. If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.
That’s enough for now. Tomorrow, we’ll check back in on the happenings in the greenhouse, see another cool video and maybe more! See you then!
