GROVER CLEVELAND

Have you thought about President Grover Cleveland lately?  Although we don't often see his name in current publications, he was mentioned in a history column this week. Why? Because he married Frances Folsom on June 2, 1886, making him the only president (to date) to marry in the executive mansion. The simple ceremony was held in the Blue Room and was followed by a honeymoon trip to the foothills of Maryland's Blue Ridge Mountains. (Reporters followed them, snapping photos whenever and wherever they could, much like today's paparazzi.)

Cleveland's wedding in the Blue Room is not his only distinguishing factor--he is the only president to leave the the White House and return for a second term four years later. He  served from 1885 to 1889, was defeated by Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and was then re-elected in 1892 and served from 1893 to 1897.  On his way to the White House he served as a sheriff, mayor, and governor.

Want to know more about our 22nd and 24th president? Then we invite you to stop by and take a look at The Life and Public Services of Our Great Reform President, Grover Cleveland  by Herman Dieck.  It was published by S.I. Bell in 1888. (This book also contains "The Life and Public Services of Allen G. Thurman," a Democratic Representative, Ohio Supreme Court Justice, and nominee of the Democratic Party for Vice President in 1888.)

THEY ARE BACK!

Once again, Charlie Bullis's poppies are blooming.  Just in time for Memorial Day. You can see them while on your way to Bullis Park, where you go to watch youth soccer matches, hike, and fly kites.  So look for that splash of red on the west side of the road, next to the park.

Again we say thank you to Charlie Bullis for leaving us with this annual reminder of the Bullis family and of those who have died in service to our country.

And how are the Bullis poppies connected to bridges? (See last week's post.) Again, those of us who live north of the canal have to drive farther these days to see them because of a bridge closing. But it's well worth the extra effort, and we'll continue doing so. Because ... just because.

BRIDGES AND POPPIES

Two things have been on our minds this week in connection with the Bullis collection. Bridges and poppies. How are these two related? We'll tell you next week.

But first we'll focus on bridges. We volunteers who live north of the canal have to travel farther these days to get to the Bullis Room, all because of a bridge closing. So when we made the trip recently, we wondered how many books on bridges were in the collection. The answer? Lots of them. So to all you bridge enthusiasts out there (and we know there are lots of you, as well), stop by and let us show you this section. And if you are unable to pay us a visit, here are brief descriptions of five of the volumes:

1. Iron Truss Bridges for Railroads, by Wm. E. Merrill, published in 1875 by D. Van Nostrand.

2. Typical Specifications for the Fabrication and Erection of Steel Highway Bridges, (prepared by the Office of Public Roads),  published in 1913 by the United States GPO.

3.  An Essay on Bridge Building: containing analyses and comparisons of the principal plans in use: with investigations as to the best plans and proportions, and the relative merits of wood and iron for bridges, by S. Whipple, published in 1847 by H.H. Curtiss.

4. Highway Bridges and Culverts, by Charles H. Hoyt and William H. Burr, published in 1911 by Government Printing Office.

And,

5. The Principles of Construction In Arches, Piers, Buttresses, etc., being a series of experimental essays made with a view to their being useful to the practical builder,  by William Bland, published 1867 by C. Lockwood.

That's all for the "bridges part" of this post. Next week we'll focus on poppies.

MACEDON HISTORY

The Bullis family's contribution to Macedon has been - and continues to be - significant. So we're looking forward to a presentation on Macedon history, to be held in the Community Room here in the library on May 16.

Author and long-time Farmington resident Reginald W. Neale will display and discuss a series of historic photographs of Macedon. Neale is currently at work on a pictorial publication focusing on Macedon, and it is scheduled for release in August 2013. This current work is part of Arcadia Publishing's "Image of America" series, which chronicles the history of small towns across America using vintage photographs and hometown stories.

Those of us who "hang around" the Bullis Room are looking forward to Neale's presentation, and we anticipate that we will come away with a better understanding of our town. So if you're interested in Macedon history, we hope to see you on Wednesday, May 16, Macedon Public Library, 30 Main Street. The talk is facilitated by the Friends of the Macedon Public Library and is free and open to the public.

GONE WITH THE WIND

An item from a "this-date-in-history" column caught our eye this week. On May 3, 1937, Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Gone With the Wind. And now, 75 years later, her work still stands as one of the great pieces of American literature of all times.  There is a copy of this book in the Bullis Collection. And the collection also contains a significant number of non-fiction books on the War Between the States that Margaret Mitchell skillfully fictionalized.

So ... if you are interested in learning more about the Civil War, we invite you to stop by the Bullis Room and look at some of these books.  And we also invite you to read (or reread) two of our 2011 posts in which we recorded John Lapham Bullis's eyewitness accounts as a young recruit, taken from his letters home to his family.  (See our April 8, 2011 and April 15, 2011 posts.)

We hope you find one or more of these sources of Civil War history interesting and informative.

AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR

This war for our independence started in April, 1775 and there is still a great deal of interest in this part of our history 237 years later. If you are one of those people who are into this part of our history, consider taking a look at this Bullis Collection book:

Camp Fires of the Revolution: or The War of Independence,  by Henry Clay Watson, published in 1850 by Lindsay and Blackiston.

This volume illustrates the foot soldier's perspective of this war by recording stories told around the campfires of those participants.  As the author states, "here we have the incidents of various battles, and the exploit of chieftains, told as if by eye-witnesses, and in the familiar, easily-comprehended language of the farmer and mechanic soldiers of the American army.

The book is illustrated, which adds a great deal to the events and stories told by those Continental soldiers. You are invited to stop by the Bullis Room and read one or two of these tales narrated by someone who was actually there.

BOAT BUILDING

Since Monday's 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, we've been searching through the Bullis Collection for books on that subject. We got zero hits, but we did find four neat books on boating. Here's the list, and you may find one or more of interest (we did!).

1. Practical Boat-building for Amateurs: containing full instructions for designing and building punts, skiffs, canoes, row and sailing boats, with a complete ABC guide to canoe sailing, ABC guide to camping out together with all necessary definitions of nautical terms, by Adrian Neison, published in 1902 by Henneberry, with illustrations. (With a title like that, we need not say more.)

2. Boat Building and Boating,  by D. C. Beard, published in 1911 by C. Scribner's Sons. This edition has many illustrations to guild the would-be boat builder to a successful outcome.

3. A House-boat on the Styx, by John Kendrick Bangs, published in 1896 by Harper & Brothers.

4. Boat Life in Egypt and Nubia, by William C. Prime, published in 1866 by Harper.

So if you're "into" boats or boating in anyway, you might find one or more of these books a good read. We hope so.