H Street Revisited

Now that H Street is coming back into its own, I wanted to pick my father’s brain about what it was like back in his day, in the 1920s. I decided we ought to take a tour, and see what was left, so we climbed into my pollen laden car and went back in time.

Our first hurdle was driving down H Street from Northwest to Northeast Everywhere we went the streets are being ripped up or there is new construction. Plus Dad couldn’t see through all the green funk on the windshield so that was a handicap, but we finally found the block where my grandfather, Peter Cokinos, had his candy shop at 1103 H Street. There’s a convenience store and an empty space there now, but back then he used to make candy and ice-cream in the basement. He made a very good living at it, too, and retired in about 1926.

I asked Dad if there were any other Greeks around back then, and it sounds like you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting a half dozen families - including branches of our own clan. Jim Cokinos, a first cousin, to Papou, had a deli at 10th and K, and the Kendros family lived nearby. There was the Kavakos Grill at 8th and H which became a nightclub during World War II, plus The Rendezvous which the Kalevas family ran. The Chaconas Bar and Grill was at 10th and H, and the Bacchus Grill was at H and 15th ( owned by the Bachhus family not the god)
He also remembers the Paramount Grill was run by two Greek brothers. It was "a blue collar sort of breakfast place". (Imagine that.)

Besides all the Greeks ,there was also Whall's Department Store which was 2 stories high and carried everything. There were three movie theaters- the Apollo, the Empire and the Princess - all of them gone now. (The Atlas which is now a performing arts center
didn’t open until the late thirties.) There were lots of beauty shops and barbershops- altogether a thriving business community.

Our next stop was 919 11th Street, the house Dad and his older sister, Catherine were born in. Peter Cokinos bought this house brand new probably in 1914. The block is a little worn down now, the fluted columns on the houses have been replaced, but it's still standing. Our family moved from here to Macomb Street around 1927.



We nabbed a mail person and continued down memory lane.
A few blocks away, at the corner of Montello and Neal, we found
Samuel Wheatley Elementary. Dad didn't recognize it at first as it had gained two large additions since he went there, but the whole school is empty now. This is where Dad and Aunt Catherine walked to school,
and where they learned to speak English for the first time.

Next it was over to the DC Farmer's Market. ( not to be confused with Eastern Market) A lot of the stalls are boarded up now. Of course, Dad remembers when it was all going full force, though it took us a while to find Litteri's Italian market. The paint has faded, but little else has. changed, and Mom thought she even recognized one of the countermen. After waiting a couple of years for a couple of sandwiches which were actually worth the wait, we picnicked with the carpenter bees at my son Kit’s school, Hardy which is being housed in a building that was the Hamilton School. The school is located on Brentwood Parkway just off Florida Avenue, within walking distance of his grandfather's childhood.

Big Bend Revisited :: Torrey Yucca

Thursday, February 28th - - As I was driving from one place to another, I kept seeing this strange looking plant. It stood anywhere from four to six feet in height. Usually the bottom half was still brown and dry looking, but on the upper portion were long green spikes and a huge flowering head. There are quite a few pull-outs along the park roads but it seemed there weren't any of these plants in those areas. I finally found a pull-out with several of them somewhat near the road, while on my way to Boquillas Canyon.




This is the Torrey Yucca... The University of Texas at Austin website has some information about the plant as well as some pretty neat photos.







Many of the specimens I saw had only one flowering clump adorning the top, but this one, as well as others, are sporting two.







What appears at first glance to be one
huge flower turns out to be a clump of many small flowers, in varying
stages of development.

Yucca Blossoms

Close up of some yucca blossoms.

Embracing Wrinkles

One question I am often asked about cycling to work, is how to avoid wrinkles on business and formal attire. I don't have many pictures of myself dressed up, but I do cycle in suits and dresses that fall into the business/ formal category. And rather than avoid wrinkles, I tend to choose clothing that either doesn't wrinkle easily, or that is meant to look wrinkled. This habit is a hold-over from a life of constant travel combined with a hatred of dry-cleaning and ironing boards, and it lends itself well to cycling. Here are some suggestions I can make from personal experience.

My go-to fabric for looking presentable in the warmer months is linen (shown above). I own several linen skirt and pant suits, and I mix and match them to create a variety of outfits. People tend to think of linen as a limited, "afternoon tea at a resort" sort of fabric, but in fact it comes in many weights and textures. A dark, crisply tailored linen suit can look formal, while a pastelgauzy linen dress can look whimsical. But what all linens have in common is that they actually look good wrinkled; wrinkles are part of their "personality." That's what makes them great for tossing into a suitcase, and it's also what allows me to get on and off the bike as many times as I want without worrying whether my skirt needs to be frantically smoothed out before a meeting.

I am also a fan of "twist-dried" designs. There may be a formal name for this process that escapes me, so someone please help me out. But what I mean is that there is a style of shirts, skirts, even evening dresses where the wrinkles are part of the garment's very design. This is achieved by drying the article of clothing in a wrung-out, or twisted manner. The resulting wrinkles are clearly intentional. They add a sense of structure and the illusion of subtle colour variation to the fabric once it is dry. Typically, the twist-dried effect is produced by the manufacturer, but you can create it on your own by simply drying any shirt, skirt, or dress (crisp cottons and silks with no pockets work best) in this fashion. Having wrinkles as an inherent design element of your outfit eliminates the need to worry about them.



To some extent, the same idea can be generalised to textured fabrics. Tweed, seersucker, lace, embroidery - the texture both disguises wrinkles and somewhat prevents them from forming.



If your dress code limits you to more conventional suiting, I have found that wool skirts and trousers tend to be more forgiving as far as wrinkling goes than other fabrics. They still wrinkle, just less so. Not getting on and off the bicycle saddle every time I stop (but leaning the bike and putting a toe down instead) has been helpful in preventing wrinkles from forming as well.

Of course for dresses there is wool jersey, though it has become increasingly more difficult to find ready-made. I've been working with a designer to help create a cycling-specific dress with a couple of interesting features, and one reason we chose jersey is for its non-wrinkling properties. While I prefer wool or bamboo jersey, cotton jersey and various artificial blends work well in this respect also and are easier to find in stores.IbexandIcebreakerhave begun to make wool jersey dresses, and while theirs tend to lean toward the more casual, it's a promising sign. The nice thing about jersey fabrics, is that they not only resist wrinkling, but also have some give to them, allowing you to move easier on the bike.



One last suggestion I can make for those whose clothing is wrinkle-prone, is to try throwing a coat on over the outfit. Granted, this works best in cooler weather, with stiff wool coats. But in warmer weather even a thin trenchcoat can be helpful.

While cycling to work is easy if your typical wardrobe already lends itself to it, I think it's important to address the concerns of those who would like to ride in their regular clothing but, for whatever reason, find it impractical. Sometimes it is a matter of having the right bike or accessories, other times it's a matter of making minor alterations to your wardrobe without inherently changing the way you dress. What are yours strategies for dealing with wrinkles and other forms of dishevelment that cycling may impose on your clothing? If it were crucial in your line of work to always look crisp and impeccably groomed, would you still ride to work?

It's Looking Better...

One day this past week was spent at the Allen County Public Library attempting to determine the validity of the statement made in an article by Carrie Bray in 1949 that her great-grandfather (my 3rd great-grandfather) John Bray had arrived in Indiana on March 5, 1816.



An affidavit by Daniel Bray in the Revolutionary War pension file of his father John Bray, stated that “Some time in the early part of the year 1816, he went to the land office of Cincinnati to enter the North East quarter of Section No 25, town No 2, range 3 West. That owing to some mistake in the land office he could not effect an entry and he was obliged to return home and that his father John Bray, then went to the office and entered the said quarter...”



So the “problem” was: When was the land actually purchased and why did Daniel state that it was in Range 3?



The book “Indiana Land Entries Volume I” by Margaret R. Waters, published in 1948, contains the records for Indiana that are from the Cincinnati Land Office. It covers the area known as the “wedge” in the southeast corner of the state.







The map above shows the status of the Indiana Territory in 1810 with the four counties in existence at the time: of Knox (Kn), Harrison (Har), Clark (Clk), and Dearborn (Dea). The “wedge” mentioned in the Waters book was the area known as Dearborn county in 1810 as well as neighboring portions of Clark County.







By 1814 there were a few more counties in the Indiana Territory. Franklin and Wayne counties were created in 1811 while Switzerland was created in 1814 from that Dearborn “wedge” area as well as from portions of other counties. The two maps above are from the Genealogy Inc. website.



In the introduction of her book, Margaret R. Waters states that the records were copied solely for genealogical purposes to enable a searcher to learn if an ancestor located in Indiana and if so, where and when. To save time and space the acreage and final certificate numbers were omitted. A minimum amount of information is given (name, property description, date of entry) but enough to determine if the person of interest entered land in what would become the state of Indiana.







At the top of page 79 was the entry for John Bray showing that he entered the “NE 1/4 of S25 on 3-5-1816”. The line just below John, includes the name of Edward Ray who may be the same person who married Jane Bray, daughter of John. The previous page (78) showed that the land was in Switzerland County in T2N, R4W of the 1st PM (Township 2 North, Range 4 West of the 1st Principal Meridian).







The map above (from the Waters book) shows the “wedge” area of land from the Cincinnati Land Office included in the book “Indiana Land Entries Volume I”.







This enlarged portion of the previous map shows the townships that comprise Switzerland County. The dotted lines show the boundaries of Switzerland and Ohio Counties. (Ohio County was created in 1844 from Dearborn.) The land that John Bray purchased was in T2N R4W, which is in that tiny red triangle bordering Range 3 West.







Portion of a Switzerland County Map from the My Indiana Home website showing the location of Braytown in Craig Township.



Luckily for me, the Allen County Public Library has a series of microfilms called “Ohio Land Records” which includes the records of the Cincinnati Land Office. Film OLR-110 contained “Cincinnati Land Office Entries, 1814-1829” and it was even indexed by page number. Most of the page numbers were missing or illegible but it didn't take long to find his entry since I had the date he entered the land.







Cropped portion of the page showing the entry for John Bray (last entry on the image). The date at the top shows the transaction was made on March 5th 1816. The text in the column on the right states “John Bray of Franklin County applied to enter the North East quarter of Section 25 Town 2 Range 4 West - Containing 159 44/100 acres and produces the Receiver's Receipt No 30668 dated this day for $79 72/100 amt [?] being the one fourth part of the purchase money of said quarter Section of Land.”



So it seems that the date of March 5, 1816 as given by Carrie Bray in her 1949 article correlates to the date of purchase of the land. It also confirms the statement made by Daniel Bray in his affidavit that he went to the land office in Cincinnati “some time in the early part of the year 1816”.



But there was a surprise in the land entry document - the statement that John Bray was “of Franklin County”.



In searching the web for information, I came across the site Cincinnati Land Office Records, which appears to be a part of the Ohio Memory project even though those records are not included in their list of collections. The site contains images of the original land patents issued to the purchasers. There are only a little over 300 documents currently online but it is going to be an awesome site when they get more documents published. Anyway, at the bottom of the second paragraph of “About this collection” it states

“In certain instances it has been impossible to determine the correct state of origin of the purchaser; generally this is due to the fact that both Indiana and Ohio have identically-named counties, such as Franklin County. In these cases, both Ohio and Indiana have been listed as the state of origin.”

So that might present a little problem. However, Franklin County, Indiana is so very close to Switzerland County while Franklin County, Ohio is further north and east, closer to the central part of Ohio. Since we don't know the whereabouts of John Bray between 1805 and 1816 (as mentioned in The Evidence at Hand) it is possible that he could have ventured further north, but I don't think so. Perhaps that is just wishful thinking on my part. If he was “of Franklin County, Indiana Territory” then that would be evidence that he was actually residing in the area and would definitely be eligible for membership in the Territorial Guard Society of Indiana.



We have the record of the land entry on March 5, 1816 and the statement by Daniel Bray that he, then his father John, went to the Cincinnati Land Office in the early part of 1816. Does that constitute enough evidence to be able to say that they were then residing in the Indiana Territory?



What other records exist during that time period that can be used to help substantiate the claim that John Bray resided in the Indiana Territory in 1816?

The Keweenaw Peninsula :: Fort Wilkins

Sunday, August 7th - - It was an extremely cloudy and overcast day on Saturday with a forecast of rain in the afternoon. The rain didn't materialize until Sunday morning but I spent a leisurely day Saturday getting caught up with everyday tasks – grocery shopping, laundry, etc. And, of course, working on the computer and writing blog posts. You not only learn to take advantage of the “good” days (the pretty ones with blue skies and sunshine) but also the “bad” days that are somewhat dreary and sometimes a little depressing.



Sunday morning I headed northwest, catching US 41 and following it all the way to the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula and stopped at Fort Wilkins Historic State Park for the night. The further north I drove, the nicer the weather got. The rain stopped and the sun came out. Blue skies returned.



In the 1840s when the copper rush took place the US Government built Fort Wilkins due to a concern with possible disorder and violence amongst the miners and local natives. The Army built 27 structures, including a guardhouse, powder magazine, seven officer's quarters, two barracks, two mess halls, a hospital, storehouse, sutler's store, quartermaster's store, bakery, blacksmith's shop, carpenter's shop, icehouse, four quarters for married enlisted men, stables, and a slaughter house – all to house the operations of two full-strength infantry companies. Several of the original structures still survive while others have been reconstructed following archaeological excavations.



It was an interesting self-guided tour. Apparently they have costumed interpreters on-site during some periods of the summer, but not while I was there! However, there are plenty of informative displays all around that provide a good deal of information.





The Officer's Quarters and another building reflected in the old glass windows of another building.





I thought it was interesting that the four buildings housing the married enlisted men and their families were outside the gates of the fort!





One of the other things that I thought was really interesting is that they displayed copies of original documents – some census records, muster rolls, etc. and they have documented the lives of most of the men who served at Fort Wilkins!



This graphic, with reflections abounding, tells the tale of the soldiers stationed at Fort Wilkins. Wouldn't it be neat if one of your ancestors had served there?



In total, two hundred seventy-one enlisted men served at Fort Wilkins between 1844 and 1870. Records for all but ten have been found. What became of these soldiers after they left here?

• One of every twelve died in the army – half of them from natural causes.


• One of every ten serving here in the 1840s was a battlefield casualty in the Mexican War.


• One of every nine enlisted men to serve here left the army by desertion.


• Less than 4% (one of every twenty-six) re-enlisted.

More photos of Fort Wilkins via Google Images.

Blue Skies and Sunshine!

Tuesday morning (August 17th) I left Sue and Fred at the campground in Seward under cloudy, overcast skies and drizzling rain. They will be going to Haines, about 900 miles away, with a short visit to Juneau and Skagway before heading back through Canada to the Lower 48.

We had hoped to pay a visit to Exit Glacier but, due to all of the rain, the road to the glacier was closed on the day we arrived in Seward. It is one of the few glaciers in Alaska that is accessible by road and you can walk a short trail from the parking area up to the face of the glacier. That is, you can if the road is open! On Sunday (the 15th) they were evacuating everyone from the area.

I spent most of Tuesday at the Library getting blog posts written and scheduled and reading a few other blogs. I did take several walks around Seward in between the downpours. It was rather nice walking in a drizzling rain but a chill would set in and I'd head back to the Library! I also stopped in at Kenai Fjords Visitor Center to see if the road to Exit Glacier was open, it wasn't. That night I stayed at the Forest View Campground again. About 8 o'clock I noticed that patches of blue were peeking through the clouds.

Wednesday morning I awoke to sunshine and blue skies!! The road to Exit Glacier was only a few miles from the campground so I drove on out. There are several pullouts where you get a nice view of the glacier.

Exit Glacier. So close, yet so far away.

Two miles from the glacier the road was barricaded and a Ranger was directing traffic to the nearby trail parking lot. She said that there had been a tremendous amount of rain the past month over the glacier. It had gotten over 12 inches of rain on each of two different days! The glacier deposits silt in the river and as water comes down it carves new channels to get through that silt.

A new channel had been made and it was undercutting the road. Water was still flowing over the road so they could not determine the extent of the damage yet.

I could have walked the two miles to the parking lot and then another half mile to the face of the glacier. However, I would have had to ford the water streaming over the road and there was no guarantee that I'd actually be able to get to its face. I was happy that I had at least been able to view it, albeit from a distance, and decided to continue on my journey.

Later that afternoon I stopped at Bird Creek Campground in Chugach State Park along Turnagain Arm about 25 miles south of Anchorage. It is nice, for a primitive campground (pit toilets and no water). There were quite a few fishermen getting their lines wet at Bird Creek, which flows into Turnagain Arm.

The Alaska Railroad runs between the highway and Turnagain Arm.
The sunset Wednesday night was incredible. Clouds had moved in and the sun was having a great time in lighting them up!

To the Southeast.
And the Southwest.
And the West.
Fantastic!