Talk:Francis L. Hawks

Latest comment: 10 years ago by Jerzy in topic Dubious

Burial site edit

Saint thomas Church Fifth Avenue by J. Robert Wright says that Reverend Hawks "was buried from Calvary Church". 1549bcp has changed the article to read "He is buried at Christ Church in Greenwich, Connecticut." Wright's phrasing is confusing, though. What does "buried from" mean? I'm willing to take 1549's word for it that Hawks's grave is in Connecticut, but Calvary Church should probably still be mentioned somewhere in the final sentence. — BrianSmithson 09:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

   An obit from the NYT makes the (archaic?) usage pretty clear:
GEN. SCHUYLER BURIED FROM IRVINGTON HOME; Distinguished Company at Funeral of Virginia Wreck Victim. MANY MOURN FOR SPENCER Telegrams Received by Southern Railway Officials Show Widespread Grief at Death of Their President. Special to The New York Times. (); December 02, 1906, Section , Page 4, Column , words

[ DISPLAYING ABSTRACT ]

TARRYTOWN, N.Y., Dec. 1. -- The funeral of Gen. Philip Schuyler, who, with President Samuel Spencer of the Southern Railroad and six others, was killed in a wreck near Lawyers, Va., on Thursday last, was held at Irvington-on-the-Hudson to-day. The body was buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at North Tarrytown.
Tho a diffident search for a dictionary describing that usage got me nothing.
   I'm adding something like "After a funeral at Calvary Church, he was ....", and i hope the article clarifies which C Ch.
--Jerzyt 05:35, 29 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

His Baltimore parish edit

   I found "During the American Civil War, Hawks moved to Calvary parish in Baltimore, Maryland." and wanted to be sure which Calvary he was buried from. The record of the diocesan convention down there mentions "Mt. Calvary" in Bal'mor' (which BTW survives to this day, but has renounced the Episcopal Church for Catholicism), but mentions Hawks having left "Christ Church, Baltimore" for New York. So i'm treating

During the American Civil War, Hawks moved to Calvary [sic] parish in Baltimore, Maryland.

as a momentary confusion by an earlier editor, leaving only one Calvary to have handled the funeral, leaving no need to clarify which one.
--Jerzyt 07:01, 29 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Libel edit

   In the "Scandal and later life" secn, Criminal libel may have existed in the US in his day, but ordinary libel seems more likely, esp'ly since there's almost nothing that a private citizen can legally charge anyone with: rather one complains about the offense to an official, who decides whether to charge the person complained against: the colleague in question has described events that do not take place in civil procedure: charging, and pleading (as opposed to suing, admitting liability, and agreeing to an amount of the damages to be recompensed). They may have correctly stated the real situation (the event having occurred before the Civil War), but in that case, for a modern audience the link must be to Libel#Criminal_defamation_3. And in that section of the other article we should mention (where applicable) the year of repeal of criminal libel in the state in question, if we are going mention cases where it applied.
--Jerzyt 07:38, 29 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Dubious edit

Who says NAR was a Unitarian pubn?
   Our List of Unitarians, Universalists, and Unitarian Universalists numbers about 200 persons, but there are others identified as such in their bios but not included in the list. Our North American Review article lists as "editors and contributors" to NAR 14 persons, of whom 5 seem accepted explicitly as Unitarians (John Adams, William Cullen Bryant, Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, and -- subject to what i would call technical objections (a.k.a. nit-picking) -- Daniel Webster), while Richard Henry Dana, Sr., buried in the family plot of a Unitarian cemetary, brings my count to 6. Three of the remaining e/cs share a surname with respectively identified Unitarians who appear to have been close relatives, but the Unitarian William Cushing was ~68 when Caleb Cushing was born, and died when Caleb was ~10. And Caleb (tho a Unionist) had opposed abolition of slavery, and thus seems unlikely to have been Unitarian even if William really was a relative. Thus i count 9 as probable Unitarians, and 2 as lacking evidence: Nathaniel Bowditch , and George Ticknor (either of the 2 contemporaries of that name). Gulian C. Verplanck, a professor in the Episcopalian General Theological Seminary was clearly no Unitarian; like the aforementioned Caleb Cushing, Lewis Cass's alienation of anti-slavery voters marks him as a third for whom Unitarianism would be far-fetched. I.e., 9 U, 2 no evidence, 3 probably not.
   It is thus that i find the description of NAM as "Unitarian" implausible and mark it Dubious; Hawks's and Henry's rhetoric may have been to misleadingly call it Unitarian despite the apparent absence of a formal tie, and perhaps if pressed they'd have qualified their rhetoric into it being controlled by a group of Unitarians even as token outsiders were given some exposure. The closest to the current version that could be reasonable would be "countering the NAM, which they considered lopsidedly pro-Unitarian", and even that requires a reference saying so, especially in light of the unref'ed current text which makes NAM out as a Unitarian house-organ.
--Jerzyt 10:07, 30 August 2013 (UTC)Reply