Re: [Re: [[DL] Erie Canal] long]

[Celia <dactyle@usa.net>]

Right I looked up the info on the group marriages I'd found in:

"An Underground Education: the unauthorized and outrageious supplement to
everything you thought you knew about art, sex, business, crime, science,
medicine, and other fields of human knowledge."

-it's an amusing book of all the true "dirt" not grit of history, and it's
just the sort of book I want to throw at all the uneducated who keep claiming
the 1950's were some sparkling clean utopia in history.

Anyway here's a quote from the begining of the section in question:

"Pundits dubbed upstate New York the "Burnt over Region" because the fires of
so many revivals had flared there.  Of all the many sects that came and went,
none aroused the national fury like John Humprey Noyes's Perfectionist
movement at Oneida, New York. (The press called it more of a "Free Love"
movement..)"

The commune & group marriage was established and lasted 20+ years, but they
don't go into much detail of all the charges brought against Noyes. I suspect
it was his Eugenics program that finally got him.  It says he moved away to
Niagara Falls due to the controversy in 1876.

Oneida community still exists today although not as a commune or polygamy
-many of the families involved are still up there and some are also still
directly tied to the Oneida business (Silverware among other things.)

;)



Celia <dactyle@usa.net> wrote:
> Ah the Erie canal -beautiful and eerie.
> 
> I went to highschool up in Syracuse area which is right smack in the
> middle of the state and the run of the canal.  Beautiful country with
> rolling hills just shy of mountainous, and thick with forests. Smaller
> lakes, swamps and water falls are in great quantity as well.  Some of the
> more famous ones are Buttermilk falls, and Watkins Glen.
> Your fear factor might depend on what time of year the posse are going
> through. The winters are very bleak, and sometimes dangerous white outs
> occur with the lake effect snow fall.  You literaly can have no vision due
> to snow and see a mile away the very next second. I once saw a storm
> front's approach and cover us inside of a minute.  At first it was a
> beautiful morning with amber sky and sun, then a shadow appeared on the
> horizon.  Slowly the sky changed from amber to purple as a wall of snow
> approached from the left. Then it covered us and the sun was a rapidly
> dimming orange spot in a deep blue field.
> 
> Mother's day back in '97 my mother had snow on the ground up there. With
> cloud cover 7 months out of the year it can be a very depressing area to
> live in the winter(perhaps only beat by Seattle.) This is why even to this
> day College students in Cornell and Ithaca (Ithaqua!) still occasionally
> throw themselves to their death in the beautiful gorges.
> In the valley's we have what we call muck lands.  They're the flat old
> lake beds from before the lakes shrunk back (some of them are still
> swampland), in between the remains of the muddy bands (the muck part)
> there are slightly hilly bits -remnants of the old sandbars.
> 
> Chances are they just couldn't be using the canal in the dead of winter
> -it would be frozen over so I'll try an give you some ideas for warmer
bits:
> 
> Black flies and mosquitoes would definitly be a problem
> peepers at night make a lovely and constant din in the spring particularly
> red winged black birds are common especially in wetlands (just a stroke of
> red on their wings)
> purple loosestrife blooms in the wetlands in the spring and summer
> poison sumac is common as well
> In the midsummer wheat and barley fields are a rich golden brown with
> rippling tufts like the back of an irish setter.
> 
> I would emphasize the darkness of the water, even near the bank it's
> almost black, and the way the trees overhang and shadow the boat.  It's
> cow country (milk cows) and it's amazing how neatly they nibble the grass
> down to almost nothing, so that it looks like there's just a skin of green
> covering the ground.
> 
> Last summer I was up there doing some of the Lake Cayuga wine trail (wine
> industry would be pretty new and potentially controversial up there in the
> 1870's as the furor that led to the prohibition was just begining), I also
> went around to some of the beautiful old cemetarys in the area.  (still
> have to develop some of those photos) Arches for headstones were pretty
> common to the sites.
> 
> I'd do some research on the indian tribes of the area - there were a lot
> of them banded together into the Iroquois nation.  There were communes and
> group marriages(and tons of revialism) check for the one in Oneida I've
> forgotten the name but there's a good bit about it in a book entitled "an
> underground education..?" I'll check on it tonight.  And remember this is
> the state that spawned the mormons. . .
> 
> The Antimasonry movement was well over by the 1870's but someone might
> still talk about the mysterious disapearance of William Morgan after
> printing his expose of the Freemasons. (He was last known to be alive at
> Ft.Niagara I believe) His kidnappers never confessed to killing him, he
> just disappeared...
> 
> (Horseheads NY is where the US cavalry men of the Union buried their
> horses, the Confederate surrender demanded their horses death -not that
> our alternate history can really use that...)
> 
> Just a few tidbits and details that maybe you can use..
> 
> ;)
> Celia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Brad and Lanica Klein <lanicak@att.net> wrote:
> > Hi again,
> >
> > I've got a posse acting as escorts for a very rich lady from Boston to
> > Chicago.  They have made it to Albany, New York with no real problems
> > and are going to take the Erie Canal to Buffalo and then catch a ship to
> > Toledo.
> >
> > As silly as this sounds I never expected them to take the canal. Do you
> > have any ideas for 'weirdness' upon the very calm, peaceful, and quiet
> > waters?  Let's see, it's four feet deep, the boats move at four miles
> > and hour and they are convinced that nothing can go wrong...that tells
> > you how much these players know about the world of Deadlands. Oh yeah,
> > I've started my campaign in Jan. 1864 and am working quickly through
> > main alternate history points since none are familiar with the game.
> > It's now late March, 1864. I would like something subtle, they haven't
> > even met undead yet.  Granted it's only the fourth gaming session...
> >
> > I'm thinking about an encounter with a huckster or a shyster that is
> > staying on their 'semi-private' boat. I have a freed-man and an Irish
> > servant as extras that travel with their employer.  I was also thinking
> > of having someone take offence to either race. Neither of these are very
> > spooky but they're my fall backs.
> >
> > I am going to have one city encounter when the boat is forced to take a
> > long wait at a lock, so I'm asking for help while they're on the water.
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> > Lanica
> >
> >
> > To unsubscribe, send a message to esquire@gamerz.net with
> > 	unsubscribe deadlands
> > as the BODY of the message.  The SUBJECT is ignored.
> >
> 
> 
> "Hah! I'm no longer just a cup of hot water waiting for that teaball of
evil!
> I've blown out the pyschic red lantern, I've closed the proverbial *pyschic
> legs* so GET SNUFFED!  and then we'll talk."
> 
> 
> Danielle (Cup o' Hot water) Morneau
> 
> ____________________________________________________________________
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> 
> To unsubscribe, send a message to esquire@gamerz.net with
> 	unsubscribe deadlands
> as the BODY of the message.  The SUBJECT is ignored.
> 


"Hah! I'm no longer just a cup of hot water waiting for that teaball of evil!
I've blown out the pyschic red lantern, I've closed the proverbial *pyschic
legs* so GET SNUFFED!  and then we'll talk."


Danielle (Cup o' Hot water) Morneau

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