[ cannon blast ] ELYSE: Tonight on History Detectives: Mysteries from America's beginnings.
This is about the sale of another human being.
It really makes your blood run cold.
Is this the music for "The Star-Spangled Banner"?
[ playing "The Star-Spangled Banner"] GWENDOLYN: X marks the spot.
Amazing.
ELVIS COSTELLO: ♫Watchin' the detectives♫ ♫I get so angry when the teardrops start♫ ♫But he can't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart♫ ♫Watchin' the detectives♫ ♫It's just like watchin' the detectives♫ TUKUFU: Funding for tonight's presentationuberi.
Early American history is a complicated matter with a constant conflict between ideals and social reality.
On tonight's episode, we present four mysteries that reflect that struggle, mysteries from our early wars to the origins of our national anthem to the inhumanity of our slaveholding past.
America's beginnings, next on History Detectives.
My name is Jeanie Hans.
I'm from Wichita, Kansas.
My grandfather purchased a lot of Civil War memorabilia.
And when he opened it, he was horrified to see really what he had.
It's this bill of sale.
It's for a slave girl named Willoby.
She would've been almost 60 when the slaves were emancipated.
I want to know what happened to Willoby.
Did she make it through emancipation?
I'm Eduardo Pagán, and I'm in Charleston, South Carolina.
It's a beautiful city with a very complicated past.
In the era of our nation's history when people were bought and sold, Charleston played an important part in that trade.
Oh, my gosh, this is it.
What it is recording is disconcerting to say the least.
This is about the sale of another human being.
It really makes your blood run cold.
This is from the state of South Carolina.
It's clear that Asa Brown for $335 is selling to Stephen McWhite "a Negro girl aged about 17 years named Willoby, 23rd day of November in the Year of our Lord 1829."
You know, what actually captures my attention immediately is her age.
I think that the document states what happened on this date.
I'd like to know if Willoby was ever emancipated, if she died a slave, if she ever had a family.
There are many dead ends and brick walls when it comes to researching African American genealogy.
I might not come up with much.
- We're hopeful for anything.
- Okay.
My first step is to meet with Nichole Green, director of the Old Slave Mart Museum.
- Very nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
She suggests we walk over to Charleston's Old Exchange building.
I sent Nichole a scan of this bill of sale so she could help me get a head start with some of the research.
This site, which was just an empty lot, was a very active site for slave sales during the time that Willoby was sold.
There would've been large crowds, sometimes hundreds of enslaved people waiting to be sold.
Oh, my.
This is the bill of sale.
I imagine you've seen several of these before.
Yes, I have.
I see here that it's just one enslaved person, a Negro girl named Willoby.
- EDUARDO: Right.
- Beautiful name.
Is about 17 years of age.
At 17, she would've been, I would say, a number one woman.
Number one woman would indicate her value on the market, is that what it means?
Yeah, and what went on was slave traders came up with different -- almost a shorthand to describe enslaved people.
And instead of saying that I have a woman here, she's within childbearing years, she has a good disposition, instead of saying all of that, the shorthand was I have a number one woman.
I was curious about the price.
In 1829, $335 was a lot of money.
Today would be anywhere between $25- and $30,000.
- Really?
- Yes.
Nichole speculates that the high price was due to Willoby's health and age but also the year she was sold, 1829, 21 years after the ban of the international slave trade.
So that means that after 1808, it was illegal to bring enslaved Africans into this country.
For the most part, the domestic slave trade grew after that.
What do you think happened to the prices of the enslaved people that were already here?
- Oh, I'm sure they went up.
- They went up drastically.
So we know that Willoby was sold to Stephen McWhite.
What can you recommend that I do next to try and trace what happened to her?
Nichole lays out our challenge.
Birth or death records are very rare.
As property, slaves appear in ledgers and inventories or are listed in the census by age, sex, and a tick mark in slave schedules.
Only after emancipation are freed people listed in the census by name.
But finding them is still difficult.
Like in this bill of sale, it's just Willoby.
You have no idea what her last name is.
So some people look at that as -- that 1870 census as a wall, and trying to get past that is very hard.
To get us started, Nichole looked for documents relating to Asa Brown, the man who sold her, and Stephen McWhite, the purchaser.
And she found a will.
Stephen McWhite passed away in 1831, so just two years... - Okay.
- after he bought Willoby.
"I, Stephen McWhite of South Carolina and parish of St.
Stephen."
So that tells us where she was living.
You see, "Fifth, I give and bequeath to my sister Mary Daniels one negro woman named..." Willoughby.
Although Stephen McWhite's will mentioned 17 Negroes, Willoby was the only slave given to Mary Daniels.
Again, she was alone.
From what you describe, it sounds like they had no idea what their future was going to be like.
No, most of them didn't.
Nichole says Willoby's new owners lived in the Marion District in the region of the state surrounding the Pee Dee River.
I think your best bet would be try to pick up Willoby there.
What was Willoby's new life like in the Pee Dee region, over 100 miles from Charleston?
I'm re-creating the journey that Willoby would've taken in leaving Charleston.
I'm heading to the Marion County Archives and History Center.
But along the way, I'm stopping to meet historic preservationist Joe McGill, who's from the Pee Dee region.
He asked me to join him at two restored slave cabins to give me a better idea of what Willoby's life was like.
This is the document that I told you about.
The fact that it is an original, that's rare.
African Americans doing their genealogical research, it's difficult for them because papers like this don't exist.
Joe notes that Willoby was sold alone.
When I see slave sales, it's usually by lot.
This purchase seems quite purposeful.
There are all kinds of things that go through my mind.
Was it for breeding purposes, was it for his own personal pleasure?
Joe can only speculate, but at that time the Pee Dee region was undergoing dramatic change that required a great demand for labor.
Unlike the low country, which was acclimated to growing rice, this part of South Carolina was more acclimated to growing cotton.
They had to clear the land.
And in clearing the land, there's opportunity.
In the first half of the 19th century, the slave population in the Pee Dee area tripled to keep up with the demand of both the timber and cotton economies.
When Willoby arrived in 1831, she was 19, alone and vulnerable.
These cabins were built here in 1836 on the Gregg Plantation.
It was a cotton plantation.
She would've been living in a place similar to this.
Can you give me a sense about personal relationships?
Marriages, for example?
A lot of times, the slave owners would recognize marriages between slaves.
If Willoby fell into that category, then she would be considered one of the lucky ones.
But there is always that desire for the slave owner to have a product to match the outcome of his agriculture production.
Yeah.
To that end, you get into selective breeding.
I don't know what case Willoby would've fallen into, being owned by the Daniels.
Twenty-nine years pass between Willoby's arrival in the Pee Dee region and the Civil War, with South Carolina the epicenter of secession.
How much do you think she would've known about all of these events that were happening around her?
There are networks for slaves.
You know, a new slave being brought into the property brings with him or her some type of information.
Right.
Did she stay on the Daniels' land?
Did she live to see emancipation?
If I'm going to get answers to these questions, I have to get some information about her owners, Mary and James Daniels.
So I'm meeting with Cynthia Greenlee-Donnell, who's a scholar at Duke University who's doing research on her own family that lived in the Pee Dee area.
She and archivist Maxcy Foxworth will guide me through the Marion County records.
That is the original bill of sale.
How wonderful.
This is a story of survival in and of itself, this document, that it still survives after 1829 in floods and fires and all sorts of things.
You've told me that she ended up in the James Daniels family, and I have pulled his probate file.
It is the account of his estate, how it was settled after his death.
Let's take a look at what we've got here.
The file was compiled in 1857.
Now, this one... Willoby would've been approximately 46.
The life expectancy for a slave at the time was less than 40.
Was she still alive?
Look at that handwriting.
All right, this is some sort of receipt, it looks like.
"Cash paid,"James Daniels paid taxes for one Negro...
But this makes no mention of the slave's name.
All right, let's see what we've got here.
Ah, let's take a look at this.
And it looks like there are names here.
Tom, Nelson...
I think that's Willoby.
Yeah, I think that's Willoby.
Cynthia explains that slave names were recorded phonetically, and spelling inconsistencies were common.
It's got to be Willoby, Willoby and Esex.
Willoby had survived, at least to the eve of the Civil War.
But who is Esex?
Why are they paired together?
Are they husband/wife?
We don't know yet.
But clearly it's Willoby and Esex.
So there was a relationship there.
The last mention of Willoby is in an addendum to James Daniels' will from 1858 where her value is priced at $400.
What happened after the death of her owner?
Did she live to see emancipation?
Can we find her on the other side of the 1870 census wall?
It wasn't unusual for slaves to adopt the last name of some of the slaveholders for whom they worked, so let's try Daniels first.
All right.
I don't see a Willoby here.
We next check McWhite for Stephen McWhite.
All right, McWhite.
And so when we get to the Ws... Ah, yes, yes, yes, right there.
Yeah.
Willoughty, though, it's not Willoby.
Willoughty McWhite, age 55.
She's listed with a head of household, probably a husband.
He's Sire McWhite, 60 years old.
Yes.
Is that Esex?
Ten years later, the 1880 census lists Six McWhite as 70.
So we have to be creative.
The census was taken by a person who could get things wrong.
They could have messy handwriting that we later, as transcribers, don't understand.
They could've heard things wrong as well.
Right, so how do we go from Esex to Six to Sire?
Well, it's relatively easy in documents.
Documents don't always disclose their mysteries to us.
Six McWhite and Willoby are husband and wife, and they've got an 8-year-old granddaughter, Jane.
I've got to tell you, my mind is racing now as I'm thinking about that.
What we're witnessing here, at least through the documents, is an entire revolution in Willoby's life.
She went from being property in 1829 to being a wife who was keeping house in 1870.
And being free and independent, yes!
I have one more thing to show you I think you'll be really interested in seeing.
All right, what is this?
I ask Jeanie to meet me at a special location in South Carolina.
Well, I warned you that it would be a very difficult journey, that there wouldn't be much that we'd be able to find.
But we did find some information about her.
You did!
I walk Jeanie through the documents that fill in more details of Willoby's life.
This is a copy of the 1870 census.
Willoughty.
I think there's very good evidence to believe that this is our Willoby that we're talking about.
So what that tells us is that she lived to the point of emancipation.
- Oh, isn't that great?
- That is amazing.
Wait until you see this.
W... what is that, a T?
"W.T.
Daniels and others to Six McWhite"-- There's our Six.
It looks like a deed.
"For the sum of $150, purchased 160 acres."
So Six and Willoby were able to purchase a sizeable piece of land from their former owners.
- This is fairly rare, yes.
- Yeah.
It's extraordinary, and very early, in 1882.
And it's rare because this is a large parcel of land.
It is a large tract, yes.
It's also a sizeable amount of money by 1880 standards.
What does it say to us about the transition from slavery to freedom?
It says an amazing amount of what -- about what is possible.
Where we're standing right now was part of that property... - Really?
- that they purchased.
Right here.
And this is where she experienced life as a slave woman, and this is where she experienced life as a freed woman as well.
What a great end to something.
That, you know, we wanted to see a future for her, and she had a future.
During production, History Detectives tracked down a few of Willoby's living descendants, some who continue to live in the area.
They declined to participate.
Since shooting completed, Jeanie has reached out to a few members of Willoby's now large and thriving family.
She looks forward to a possible meeting.
ELYSE: Coming up, was this ornate powder horn carried into an early battle to seize control of North America?
And later, a family divided by the American Revolution.
But first: I'm Charlene Robbins from Salem, Oregon.
A few years ago, my father was going through his music cabinet and came across this manuscript.
We started asking my dad questions about it, and he explained that in 1917, this committee was formed to standardize "The Star-Spangled Banner."
When I saw John Philip Sousa's name, I started to realize that maybe this was rather important.
I had the opportunity to go to the Antiques Roadshow.
At that point, the appraiser appraised it for between $10- and $15,000.
What I would like to know is what role did this document play in "The Star-Spangled Banner" becoming our national anthem?
I'm Elyse Luray, and I'm on my way to meet Charlene and see her copy of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and I can't wait!
I saw it on the Antiques Roadshow, but I haven't seen it in person.
I mean, how does one get a copy of "The Star-Spangled Banner"?
Right, right.
When my father graduated from high school, he took music lessons, and his teacher was Dr. Gantvoort.
And on the last day of lessons, Dr. Gantvoort gave this manuscript to my father.
Charlene's father explained that a government committee had been formed in 1917 to standardize the music for "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Dr. Gantvoort is one of the men who served on this committee.
So the names are here.
The only one I know is Sousa, John Philip Sousa.
He was the famous band conductor.
What are these, the D... this is the key for who they are.
That's correct, and they each have their own staff line.
Notice that they broke the song down measure by measure.
Here's measure one, two, three.
Charlene had done some research about the committee but had never figured out exactly what this document is.
She thinks it might be some sort of ballot.
Each committee member appears to have given an opinion on what each measure of the music should sound like.
They then went back and voted -- there was a vote -- and it was for and against.
That's absolutely fascinating.
But there are still things she has no answers to, including a curious pencil mark.
And nothing else is in pencil on the entire thing.
And I have absolutely no idea why.
You've done a lot of research yourself, you've taken it to the Antiques Roadshow.
What can I do for you?
Well, I have a question about who wrote the manuscript.
The other thing I would like to know is what role did this manuscript play in "The Star-Spangled Banner" becoming our national anthem?
All right, this is great, because the piece has already been authenticated and it's been valued.
So I think the next step is for me to go where "The Star-Spangled Banner" was born, which is my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland.
Charlene's manuscript dates from 1917, but the national anthem wasn't adopted until 1931.
So I'm not sure about her document's place in history.
And I can't read music, so I'm going to meet with David Hildebrand, a musicologist at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore.
Couple questions for you.
Is this the music for "The Star-Spangled Banner"?
[ plays opening of national anthem on piano ] I think so.
It's melody by committee.
It's a bunch of different opinions as to how each measure of "The Star-Spangled Banner" should go.
So what they're really discussing here is the melody, just the melody.
- And how do we know that?
- Well, there is no harmony.
A melody is just a string of notes by itself.
[ plays "Happy Birthday"] That's a melody.
But if you start to put chords to it... [ plays "Happy Birthday"] Ah.
you're filling out lots of other notes, and you're giving it a sense of harmony, literally.
So what they're arguing over here is simply the contour of the melody and the rhythm of the melody.
David explains how the melody was based on an 18th-century tune from a British gentlemen's singing club.
Francis Scott Key had written the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner" during the War of 1812, after Fort McHenry in Baltimore had survived a bombardment by the British.
But over 100 years later, there were many versions in use and the Department of Education had formed a committee to standardize the melody.
The committee members appear to have shared a vision for the most part.
Now, wait a minute.
They couldn't agree here.
They stop.
There's a big question mark.
They're tied 2-2-1.
On what?
On what's the best average melody for this measure.
For these three beats here, they're in such disagreement that they must have decided, "Well, we'll come back and finish it later."
Okay, and that's where they say "the land of the free" and they hold it really high, yeah, okay.
Yeah, it's a very -- it's the climax of the song.
It's the most important part of the song.
Okay, so there's no decision at that point.
It's left in pencil and with question marks, so I'd say there's no decision.
It'd be interesting to see where it goes after this.
David explains the head of the committee was an educator named William Earhart, but its star was band leader John Philip Sousa.
My goodness, everybody knew him.
You know, his tunes, all you really need is a... [ plays opening of "The Stars and Stripes Forever"] and everybody knows the band is getting rolling, they're ready to play.
And he single-handedly really helped popularize this melody.
[ playing "The Star-Spangled Banner"] His band played it around 1,000 times in public.
This was his showpiece.
He went on a bit of a mission.
He really felt that this was America's song.
And what about Damrosch?
Damrosch was the biggie next to Sousa.
The two of them towered above the others.
I mean, he came from a dynasty of musicians; that's how they're known, the Damrosch Dynasty.
At a time when classical music was popular music, Damrosch was a celebrity.
A conductor and composer, he directed the New York Symphony Society, later the New York Philharmonic.
Sort of like Leonard Bernstein, he became well known at that time.
David says whoever wrote this had synthesized the opinions of Damrosch, Sousa, and the other committee members.
This is not a working document.
Someone compiled all of the different opinions, sketched them out, laid them over, and then probably re-copied it.
But David doesn't know who wrote it.
So handwriting expert John Reznikoff has offered to take a look.
- Good to see you, John.
- Great to see you.
Yeah, I'm excited to show you this.
Can't wait to see.
First of all, have you ever seen anything like this before?
This is the first.
It's in great condition, right?
Oh, it's beautiful.
The History Detectives office provided John with writing samples from each committee member.
One by one, Gantvoort, Sonneck, Damrosch, and Sousa's penmanship failed to match.
Okay, so there's only one person left, and that's Earhart.
Was the manuscript even written by a member of the committee?
Okay, let's try a whole word.
All right, see that "and"there?
And, yeah.
- REZNIKOFF: Wow.
- Yeah, they're exact.
Everything: the A, the N, the D. This is a match.
Well, he was the head of the committee, so that kind of makes sense.
I actually think it makes it a little more valuable, right?
That's pretty cool.
I totally agree: more valuable, more historic.
That's awesome.
I know who wrote the document, but I'm still not clear what role it played in making "The Star-Spangled Banner"the national anthem.
Vince Vaise at Fort McHenry has offered to search their archive but first shows me the rampart the British had attacked in September 1814 which had inspired the watching Francis Scott Key.
So the British started bombarding the fort, firing these huge, 200-pound exploding shells, and they would also fire rockets as well.
So these ramparts we're now walking on, a lot of the defenders were hunkering down behind the ramparts.
And really during much of the battle, we're just sitting here taking it.
The attack continued all night.
Scott Key feared that it was hopeless for the American defenders.
Then, at 9:00 in the morning, the huge 30' x 42' flag was hoisted as a special act of defiance.
And that's when Francis Scott Key saw it.
That's when he's like, "Yes," you know, "the flag is still there."
And that's when he really gets that rush of inspiration.
Vince doesn't know a lot about the committee who wrote our document but says they may have more information in their library.
Okay, so History of the Star-Spangled Banner.
History of the Star-Spangled Banner.
- Let's take a look.
- Alrighty.
Ah, "Committee on National Songs."
All right, so the Committee of National Songs comprised of -- all right, let's open this up.
It's an account of the committee's work.
According to John Philip Sousa, they've gone over the matter of standardization of the anthem in the most thorough and painstaking manner.
It sounds like they spent a lot of time on this.
And look, this is footnoted.
"For comment and report of this committee, see the letter of John Philip Sousa to W.A.
Moffett, U.S. Marine Band Library File."
Okay, so if that file has a letter from John Philip Sousa, they've got to have other letters, right?
I would think so.
Master Gunnery Sergeant Mike Ressler will help me search the archive at the Marine Band Library in Washington, D.C.
But first, a surprise from the United States Marine Band.
[ playing "The Star-Spangled Banner"] Called "The President's Own" by Thomas Jefferson, the U.S. Marine Band's primary mission is to provide music for the president of the United States.
[ music ends ] That was fabulous.
Thank you.
Let's go down the library where the archive is located.
We have a tremendous amount of information about "The Star-Spangled Banner," and we'll look and see what we can find.
[♫] Here we are.
This is music-specific titles.
We have information about lots of different pieces.
But this is the section that we want to take a look at.
This is all on "The Star-Spangled Banner."
As the United States prepared to enter the First World War, a patriotic fervor had gripped the nation.
In 1917, "The Star-Spangled Banner" became the official national anthem of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps.
- All right, so what's in here?
- Let's see what we have.
We sifted through the file for a direct link to Charlene's document.
Here's a letter dated November 18, 1917.
We find the letter from John Philip Sousa that had been footnoted at Fort McHenry.
What's it say?
He says, "I am in receipt of a letter from the chairman of the committee, Mr. Will Earhart, which I enclose and which is self-explanatory."
Let's see if we have the copy of the letter from Mr. Earhart.
Earhart, yeah.
And here it is.
It's a three-page letter.
What I found next connected the dots.
I ask Charlene to meet me at Fort McHenry.
So I brought you here to Fort McHenry because the subject matter of your document was born here in 1814.
I explain that her document had been written by the committee's chair, William Earhart, and how it had been a cornerstone in making "The Star-Spangled Banner"our national anthem.
And it's interesting how I figured it out, but there was a footnote in a book which led me to the Marine Band Library.
At the archives, we uncovered a letter written by Earhart to the other members of the committee.
It says, "To the members of the Committee on National Songs: You will note that in the manuscript, we had no majority version in measure 30."
I noticed this on 30, because it says 2-2-1, question, question, and I couldn't figure out what that means.
That's exactly talking about this very difference right here.
Okay, so that's referring to this?
It is.
I have a copy of their finished published version of the anthem.
- Let's see how this compares.
- Okay.
The published version was note for note what was on Charlene's document, including the changes in measure 30.
The fact that we have Sousa's letter talking about Earhart's letter and then we have Earhart's letter which specifically says that there's a discrepancy in 30, and our document shows this discrepancy that they're talking about.
And then we have the final version that's printed.
I mean, in your opinion, isn't this probably the final draft?
I think that this is the final version that the committee agreed upon, the final standardized version of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Committee head Earhart had conducted a second ballot by letter on measure 30.
That verdict had swung the vote in favor of Walter Damrosch's choice, the familiar rising melody of baseball games and Olympic medal ceremonies.
That's wonderful.
That's wonderful.
My father would be thrilled to know how much attention has been given to this manuscript.
The military's official use of the song and the standardization of the melody have been the foundation for its adoption as our national anthem.
It was very important, because it codified the anthem.
The committee that was responsible for standardizing this version carried tremendous weight.
So I think it really helped to catapult "The Star-Spangled Banner" forward to the point that in 1931, Congress finally passed legislation, and it was signed by President Herbert Hoover, making it our national anthem for our entire country.
Thank you so much.
Charlene surprised me.
She wanted to donate the manuscript here at Fort McHenry.
I would like to introduce my sister, Carmelle Knudsen, who is a co-donor along with me.
It is really our pleasure to be able to donate this to you today.
We thank you very much, both of you.
Well, I think it's just wonderful for this to end its journey where its history began.
My name is Bob Burns.
I'm from southern California.
My dad was in Bemidji, Minnesota, when he was a young boy.
He was sticking his bare feet in the mud, and he felt something down there.
It was an old powder horn.
There's the name of a Captain Richard Cobb dated 1762.
Maybe a fort or a trading post.
A lot of wildlife.
When I was a young boy and I'd look at the horn, I'd wonder who this Richard Cobb was.
After almost 100 years in my family, I'd like to know the story behind the powder horn.
- Bob, so nice to meet you.
- Same here.
So your dad found this powder horn when he was a boy, right?
Yes, a little over 95 years ago.
And how old were you when he first showed it to you?
Oh, I think I was probably 8 or 10 years old.
I always wondered about it.
Powder horns held gunpowder for a soldier's musket.
As a child, it certainly fired his imagination.
I had never seen anything like that before.
Bob shows me the different markings, including a strange tower-like structure.
It's maybe an old fort, it may be an old trading post.
What about the date, 1762?
I always wondered about it.
I sort of skimmed through the history book on the French and Indian War.
The war was a fight between Great Britain and France for control of the North American colony.
But the American provincial troops and local militias who fought alongside the British got a close look at King George's army and its tactics just 20 years before Lexington and Concord.
Captain Cobb might've been part of that.
It may tell us about a crucial time in American history.
For a little, small item, I believe it's trying to tell us quite a bit.
Who was this Richard Cobb?
It may indeed be that Captain Cobb served in the French and Indian War.
His anglicized name suggests he was a British soldier or one of the provincial troops fighting for King George's army.
I can't recognize right off the bat if this is a particular city.
The animals that are here -- a deer and a fish and a rabbit -- are probably familiar animals in almost any part of the British colonies.
But something's a little odd.
If the horn had been submerged underground, could it really be in such good condition?
Well, I don't know much about powder horns, but I know someone who does.
[ phone rings ] - WES: Hey, Gwen.
- Hey, Wes.
Hey, how are you?
I just got a story about a powder horn, and I want some advice.
WES: Well, here's the thing you need to know about powder horns: a lot of them have been faked.
Uh-huh.
He says authentic horns run a variety of styles.
Some of them are very simple.
The really elaborate ones are much rarer - and much more collectable.
- Interesting.
If it's a really good French and Indian War powder horn, it could be worth five figures.
Uh-huh.
Wes recommended I have someone take a close look at it.
So I'm heading to Fort Ticonderoga, a former French defensive position known as Fort Carillon at the southern end of Lake Champlain in what is now New York State.
The fort was a gateway to French territories in North America.
It was assaulted by a large force of British and American provincial troops in 1758.
Chris Fox is the museum's curator.
Chris, I'm trying to solve some mysteries about this particular horn.
Take a look at this.
This is a nicely engraved powder horn.
It's fairly simple.
Why would animal horn have been used for powder horns?
It was a very versatile material, and a lot of things were made out of horn in the period.
Just like plastic today, horn in the 18th century could be heated and formed into different shapes.
Can we be sure that this was made in 1762?
Why don't we go inside.
We'll take a look at some of the additional powder horns in the museum's collection for comparative, and I think we'll be able to answer that.
Okay.
[♫] An average, very simple horn which just simply has the owner's name engraved on it, one or two animal figures, and some very basic decoration.
Oh, I see.
And then on the other end of the spectrum, we have this great powder horn.
Belonged to a soldier named John Miller.
This one is magnificent!
The floral decoration, nice sloop.
Now, my colleague, Wes Cowan, told me that there has been a big market the last 40 years for fake powder horns.
Why would that be?
Powder horns have really come to be pretty well accepted as a really unique form of American folk art.
And for that reason, they've become very desirable.
The family story is that this powder horn was found buried in the ground.
It doesn't make sense to me.
It doesn't make sense to me, either.
Horn is a fairly durable material, but in an environment where it's been buried in the ground, it's going to end up looking something like this if not even worse.
This powder horn may have spent somewhere around 125, 150 years in the ground.
Something's not right here.
Ours has none of this damage or decay.
Wes did warn me.
So should we be concerned that ours is fake?
Well, powder horns are tricky beasts to authenticate sometimes.
What I see on horns where they are not authentic pieces is instead of being nice, sweeping lines around curves, they tend to be very stuttery almost.
And if you look at the lines carved into the Cobb horn, they're not necessarily perfect, but they're nice sweeping lines, lines cut with a confident hand, as opposed to somebody who's been really paying attention to every single little cut, trying to get it just perfect.
The wooden base plug here shows lots of good age.
It blends nicely with the edge of the horn, kind of almost polished from the wear.
I have no doubt that that is a perfectly legitimate, authentic powder horn.
And a nice example.
So how would you recommend I try to identify Captain Richard Cobb?
Chris says the vast majority of these horns turn out to be owned by American soldiers.
He suggests we check two volumes that list provincial officers from the French and Indian Wars.
- There is a Richard Cobb... - Yes.
who is listed as a second lieutenant serving in 1754.
And there's one other source that I found.
Okay.
Captain Richard Cobb commanded a company that took part in the attack on Ticonderoga.
Ticonderoga had been a miserable defeat for the British and their American allies.
Poor leadership contributed to as many as 2,000 casualties.
I'm curious: had Captain Cobb's war experience shaped his view of the British only two decades before the start of the American Revolution?
I've reached out to David Lambert at the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
Isn't that beautiful.
Now, I found a reference to a Richard Cobb in 1754 and 1758, but I'm trying to confirm that it's the same person.
Well, I can assure you that it is definitely the same Richard Cobb.
There was only one.
Richard Cobb was from Taunton, Massachusetts, and he was involved very early on in the French and Indian War.
So where were the Massachusetts regiments in 1762?
David tells me 1762 is a dead end when looking for Richard Cobb.
His name does not appear in any muster rolls for that year.
Instead, he thinks a different carving reveals a clue to Captain Cobb.
The spire on the left was what caught my eye in the image, and I'd like to show you something that I found.
It's an engraving by Paul Revere in 1768.
All right.
And if you look at the shape of the spire, it looks very much like Old North Church, a very crude depiction of the steeple, but one can get a sense of what he was trying to display.
Yes, you can see the similarity.
David says the cityscape is Boston.
And one that's really interesting about this is that the buildings are in the background and not in the foreground, and so this would be the Charles River.
So the person is actually situated in Cambridge and looking across the river to Boston, which is very rare.
By 1762, he says, the French and Indian War was drawing to a close.
Many Massachusetts troops were stationed in and around Boston, and this may have been Cobb's view.
So the odds are then that Richard Cobb was in Boston in 1762.
David thinks the horn may have been a gift marking Cobb's service.
It's almost like a commemorative piece to remember his time in war.
What were you able to find about the rest of his life?
Well, Richard Cobb was living in Taunton.
Cobb appeared to stay close to home in Taunton, Massachusetts, raising eight children.
So we have here his obituary from the Massachusetts Spy of November the 19th, and what it reads, "We hear from Taunton that on Wednesday the 4th instant, it being the training day, the following melancholy accident happened there.
Captain Richard Cobb of that place, having loaded a gun very deeply, laid it on the ground, and discharged it with a fuse.
The gun split, and fragments about eight inches of length struck him below the knee and entirely separated his leg, leaving the remainder of the bone and the joint most miserably shattered."
And he died from the effects of it shortly after.
Of the surgery.
It's a tragic thought that he would've had such a terrible ending for a man who was a hero in the French and Indian War.
And David points to the date of the obituary.
November 19, 1772, three years before the start of the Revolutionary War.
On the eve of revolution, Cobb left a widow.
They'd had eight children.
I still have this nagging question of how this horn ended up in Minnesota.
I did an in-depth search on all of his descendants.
They moved up to Vermont and went westward.
But through all the research I did into the 20th century, I found no evidence that they ever made it to Minnesota.
But I did find a very exciting item.
Well, Bob, thanks for bringing us this powder horn from the 1760s, the years just leading up to the American Revolution.
I tell Bob that I don't know how the horn ended up in Minnesota, but a Captain Richard Cobb did serve at the Battle of Ticonderoga.
This was almost certainly his.
I have the probate record from Richard Cobb's death, and as you can see, it says that his armory included one handgun, one cutlass, and not one but two powder horns.
Oh, my gosh.
It actually -- they're documented, then.
David Lambert had made a startling discovery.
The great-grandson of Richard Cobb actually donated some artifacts.
A powder horn of Simeon Cobb, Richard's son.
Cobb's son had turned against the British and even served under Washington himself.
That's wonderful, Simeon Cobb, 1776.
So this powder horn probably went into the Revolutionary War.
As this one served in the French and Indian War.
A father and son's powder horns, probably put together for the first time.
I can't believe you found this.
I'm blown away, I'll tell you.
That's... (chuckles) amazing.
ELYSE: And for our final story, an encore presentation.
Meet Shep Williams from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
He has an almanac with scribblings that might be a window into the first fumbling days of the United States.
I don't know who owned this, but he might've lived right in the middle of the Revolutionary War.
Hi, Elyse.
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
Come on in.
- Here it is.
- Okay.
An almanac from 1775.
Okay, Nathaniel Ames.
It's been in my mother's side of the family for a number of years, passed down, and there are some interesting annotations in the margins.
Someone had apparently been using it as a diary.
For instance, in April, on the 19th of 1775, it says there was a battle fought, which we assume is the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
Further on, it notes that "Charlestown burns by the Regulars."
What about all these names; have you ever researched them?
- No, I never did.
- Okay.
One cryptic notation has always held Shep's fascination.
On April 25th, the author notes, "Son Jos.
sailed for England."
The date is just six days after Lexington and Concord.
And what exactly do you want me to find out?
Who owned the almanac and the significance of his notes.
I'm going to take it with me, and I'll see what I can find out.
Very good.
On the cover, it says, "An Astronomical Diary, Almanack, Year of our Lord, 1775."
And it's by Nathaniel Ames.
An almanac, it was like a calendar.
It told you holidays, it told you about the sun rising, the moon setting, the tides.
The typeface and paper seem to be 18th century.
It's in really good condition; I'm kind of surprised, because you would expect someone to be holding it a lot, but there is wear to it.
There's nothing here to identify the owner, but the entry that caught Shep's attention could be a lead.
"Son Jos.
sailed for England with Captain Brown."
The author mentions their son again.
It says here, "wrote my son Joseph"-- Cay or Tay -- "via Barnstable."
I don't know what "Cay"or "Tay"is; it could be a last name, it could be a middle name, it could be a nickname, but it's definitely something to go on.
Joseph Tay or Cay...
I'm not getting anything.
There's lots of notations about when people died.
Josiah Brown, Reverend M. Bowman, Joshua Vose.
Most of these individuals lived in Massachusetts, several from the town of Milton, less than 10 miles from Boston.
There are entries on battles, deaths, and generals.
Was our author also in the military?
My strongest lead may be the writer's son Joseph, who departs for England just six days after the beginning of the revolution.
Are you escaping the war, are you part of the war?
Who would be able to do that?
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis of Mount Holyoke College is one of America's foremost scholars in Revolutionary War-era New England.
Hi, Elyse, welcome to Mount Holyoke.
Thank you.
Have you ever seen an almanac like this before?
Sure, this is an Ames almanac, Nathaniel Ames.
It's probably the most popular almanac in mid 18th-century New England.
A lot of the people that are listed on this almanac are from Milton, Massachusetts.
Does that mean anything to you?
Ah, Milton is the main town in Suffolk County.
It's a place where there are wealthy merchants with some reasonably nice houses, many of whom end up being Loyalists.
But it's also surrounded by a population in Suffolk County that's among the most radical Whigs, or Patriots, in America.
Joe explains how, in 1774, delegates from Boston and town leaders from Suffolk County drafted what were known as the Suffolk Resolves, a sort of precursor to the Declaration of Independence.
The issues being raised in Massachusetts in 1774 are all the issues that are going to bring about the American Revolution.
The Suffolk Resolves essentially said we don't recognize the legitimacy of the British government's decisions.
The Resolves urged colonists to "acquaint themselves with the art of war as soon as possible."
And if you said anything hostile about the Suffolk Resolves or something positive about the British army, you were called out: your name was printed in the paper, people were told not to talk to you.
So there's a real split, a real civil war going on here between Patriots and Loyalists.
It says here, "Son Jos.
sailed to England with Captain Brown," and it's six days after the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
Who would go to England in 1775?
The fact that this man sends his son back to England suggests to me that it's highly possible that this man is a Loyalist.
Joe puts me in touch with Maya Jasanoff of Harvard University, an expert on Loyalists during the revolution.
She asked to meet at the Boston Athenaeum Library, with its outstanding collection of Loyalist reference material.
She suggests that the date of the almanac and the departure for England are early in the revolution and might be clues.
So a year later, in 1776, the British actually lost control of Boston to the Patriots, and they decided to evacuate.
So this guy was leaving even before it seemed really necessary to go.
But Maya's not familiar with a Joseph Cay or Tay as a known supporter of the British crown.
But if he was a Loyalist, there is one place we could try to find him.
There's a great biographical work called Sabine's American Loyalists, and it's a list of a lot of Loyalists; we could maybe check and see if he's there.
Originally published in 1847, Lorenzo Sabine's Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution is a 1,200-page reference compendium.
C-A-S, Cayford.
Cayford could be an abbreviation.
Yeah, but it says Richard, so that can't be it.
No.
- Is there a Joseph?
- Nothing like that here.
Let's check the letter T. Okay, let's go to the Ts.
Huh, now here's something interesting.
- This is Taylor.
- Joseph, okay.
"Of Boston, merchant, graduated Harvard in 1765"-- that's our time period.
"Went to England," that's great.
"Was a member of the Loyalist Club in London in 1776.
Proscribed and banished in 1778."
You know, the parents aren't given here, but we do know that Joseph Taylor graduated from Harvard in 1765.
And in fact, there's a book that describes all of the people who graduated from Harvard.
It's called Sibley's Harvard Graduates.
And would that maybe tell us who the parents are?
Let's check there.
Here we go, here's Joseph Taylor.
Oh, it's pretty big, all right.
He sailed to England on April 24, 1775.
That's one day before what our almanac says.
You know, with those dates so close and with the number of ships coming out of Boston Harbor being pretty few at that time, I think this really makes sense.
Okay, so he's the son of William and Faith Taylor.
All it says about the father, William Taylor, was that he was a merchant and a member of something called King's Chapel.
The King's Chapel is the Anglican chapel here in Boston.
There's a guy of that name who was one of the presenters of the Suffolk Resolves.
But the Suffolk Resolves was a revolutionary document denouncing the king.
You know, there were actually a number of families who were divided by the revolution.
It was quite a civil war.
One of those families was Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Father, whose son, William, was actually a Loyalist and who ended up going to England and spending the rest of his life as a refugee.
The almanac records the birth of a nation, but is it also the record of a family forever torn apart?
Maya sent me to the Library of Congress, where some of the Taylor family correspondence is archived.
Julie Miller, a specialist in early American history, helps me locate the correct files.
Okay, diary, unidentified journals, Jonathan, Charles... here's William.
We eventually uncover a small file of letters between a Patriot father and his Loyalist son.
The handwriting is a match to the almanac.
Um... he's talking about just life in Boston.
Because these are essentially family letters.
All right, let's see.
Son Joseph Taylor, Milton, 1779.
Oh, but listen to this.
Shep will want to hear this.
I ask Shep to meet me at the King's Chapel in Boston, where William Taylor had been a member.
- Okay, you know where we are?
- I certainly do.
- What's behind us?
- King's Chapel.
Okay, do you know why I brought you here?
I haven't the slightest idea.
The people that were members of this church during the American Revolution were Loyalists.
I believe that this document has a direct link to the Loyalist movement.
I explain how we identified the almanac's owner as William Taylor, whose Loyalist son fled to London during the revolution.
But the father was a Patriot and signer of the Suffolk Resolves.
Had the relationship survived the birth of a nation?
Oh, but listen to this: "I sincerely wish you happiness in this troublesome world and hereafter in a future state of glory, and I'm your affectionate father, William Taylor."
Clearly, even if they're on completely different sides of the turmoil that's going on in the war right now, they love each other.
Yeah, I think it's pretty evident when you read these papers that they were a close family and that they felt this distance between them.
Okay, we're standing in front of the grave of the gentleman who wrote in your almanac.
His name is William Taylor.
Wow, "William Taylor, Esq., died February 1789."
That's him.
Amazing, you found his grave!
It was an amazing investigation, and I never expected to have something so rare.
It's mind-blowing to think that that's been sitting in tin boxes and whatever in our family for over 200 years.
It's just incredible.
WES: It's been 10 years and 100 episodes.
Wow!
Visit us on the web to celebrate.
All right, let's torch this thing.
Check in every week to see photos and clips from our first nine seasons, vote in our fan favorite polls, and watch exclusive behind-the-scenes videos.
Let's make it happen, I'm ready.
Go to pbs.org/historydetectives.
I'll see what I can find out.
Fantastic.
WES: This just speaks Americana.
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