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Why should Americans oppose the decision of the now disbanded “Congressional Naming Commission” to remove from Arlington Cemetery the Moses Ezekiel Reconciliation Monument—one of the greatest works of art in that hallowed ground?
A fundamental reason to halt the monument’s removal is found in its 1914 unveiling proclamation by President Woodrow Wilson who said, “the monument represented the best of America—a spirit of reconciliation, democracy, freedom, heroism and patriotism.”
Two contemporary strategic reasons to oppose removal is that such an act validates the communist agenda to erase Americans’ connection with their virtuous history, and destroy the American military fighting capability.
That radical agenda was accelerated by Covid lockdowns of 2020 and the death of George Floyd. That’s when urban rampages swept through the country, with unprecedented property destruction, orchestrated by Antifa—a far-left coalition of cells of violent anarchists—and the Marxist-led Black Lives Matter. Targets for destruction then shifted to American heritage monuments—first, the statues of Columbus, who discovered and opened the Americas, and then came the toppling of Confederate leaders.
So determined and organized are the radical America-hating history destroyers, that in many states now there are no monuments or statues of Columbus or Confederate Civil War heroes left standing. This partial erasure of history will not appease the evil powers leading the radical assault on America from within. They fully intend to take down the Founders next and then the United States itself.
So, it’s time to take a stand and put an end to this subversion and destruction. And it turns out that the Moses Ezekiel Reconciliation monument in Arlington Cemetery is just the place to stand our ground, fight, and win.
First, consider the fact that the most hallowed ground in America known as Arlington Cemetery is inextricably linked to the leading George Washington and Robert E. Lee families. Arlington House was built on the 1,100-acre plantation by Lee’s father-in-law, the adopted son of General George Washington, as a shrine to his father, the beloved first U.S. President. The Arlington House plantation was later inherited by his daughter Mary Custis, wife of Robert E. Lee, a man morally opposed to slavery. Lee was miraculously able to finalize the legal process that freed the 169 plantation slaves—while carrying out his wartime leadership military duties—before Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
After Lincoln mobilized 75,000 troops to fight against South Carolina and six other states’ secession—a right established in the original Constitutional Convention and discussed at various times by other sections—Virginia chose to secede from the Union in April 1861. The Lee family was compelled to leave Arlington House, a day before the federal government seized the house and plantation. Part of that property became a burial ground for fallen soldiers early in the Civil War. By 1864, the Lincoln Administration ordered the Arlington planation grounds be set aside as a National Cemetery for the military. Thus, from the property of Robert E. Lee originated the most hallowed ground in America—the final resting place for veterans who gave in full measure fighting for the cause as they saw it: allegiance to ideals of freedom and self-determination.
Thirty-five years later in 1898, the Spanish American War erupted. Former Confederate soldiers, many adult children of Confederate veterans and several Confederate generals like “Fighting Joe” Wheeler fought alongside “Yankee” soldiers from northern states, bringing a swift American victory in Cuba and the defeat of Spain in just four-months. The contribution of the former Confederates now fighting under the U.S. flag was instrumental in establishing America as a “superpower” on the world stage.
President McKinley, a Union army veteran, recognized this healing and solidarity that led to victory in the Spanish American War. Addressing the nation, he pronounced: “Sectional feeling no longer holds back the love we bear each other… The Union is once more the common altar of our love and loyalty, our devotion and sacrifice.”
In June 1900, McKinley supported a bill to establish a Confederate section in Arlington Cemetery. Connecticut Senator Hawley, a Union veteran worked with Confederate General Marcus Wright to reinter some 260 Confederate bodies from various burial places to a designated section of Arlington Cemetery. In 1906, Secretary of War William Taft was given authority to erect a monument of reconciliation in that burial area, Section 16.
Moses Ezekiel, a world-renowned American sculptor, the first Jewish cadet at Virginia Military Institute who served in Confederate army, was chosen to create a monument to capture the spirit of reconciliation, memorialize hundreds of soldiers buried in Section 16, and be recognized as a “Peace Monument” in Arlington, commemorating the reunification of the North and South.
In 1912, then President Taft, presided over the cornerstone dedication ceremony, describing what was to follow as “a beautiful monument to the heroic dead…” and calling the ceremony “a benediction of all true Americans.”
Two years later, President Woodrow Wilson unveiled the completed monument “to declare this chapter in the history of the United States closed” and “…an emblem of a reunited people.” Further, he said that “such a monument would be a symbol of our duty and our privilege to be like the country we represent.”
Fast forward – The removal of the Moses Ezekiel Reconciliation monument from Arlington Cemetery that was conceived and blessed by three U.S. presidents, would not only dishonor those presidents, but also the veterans of the Union and Confederate armies that came together in reconciliation. Those people, having a closer proximity to bitterness and conflict certainly had more animosity between them, yet chose the nobler path of reunification and reconciliation.
That today’s U.S. Military leadership would participate in undoing that, and preside over taking down one of the greatest American heritage monuments, and reopen the wounds of the past on settled matters is sick—and aligned with the communist agenda to use race warfare to divide and destroy America. The Arlington Reconciliation Monument is in fact a time capsule carrying valuable historical lessons from the past. Those lessons include showing us how former foes in a war over interpretations of the Constitution and States’ Rights settled their differences on the battlefield, then worked through the difficulties of Reconstruction, and finally found magnanimity to reconcile and erect memorials commemorating what was noble and good.
The Department of Defense under Secretary Lloyd Austin continues steps toward removing the monument from Arlington. One of those necessary steps was holding a public meeting on August 23, 2023, to assess the environmental impact of removal. In that four-hour zoom meeting over 100 citizens from diverse states thoughtfully expressed their disapproval and revulsion of the memorial’s removal. Several commented that dramatic shortfalls in military recruiting are the direct result of acute dishonor inherent in the removal of the monument. One wounded warrior from the Iraq conflict, who had suffered from PTSD, gave a moving testimony of his healing that came about over weeks of visiting and praying at the memorial. Only a single participant favored removal.
The Reconciliation Monument was Moses Ezekiel’s last and greatest work. Removal of this monument is profanely sacrilegious, illegal, and would be seen as antisemitic. Ezekiel’s burial beneath the foot of the monument makes it his gravestone. It was also the culmination of his life’s work, showing reconciliation through artistic genius of dramatic high-relief figures around the monument drum base and a female figure at the top turning a sword into a plowshare.
Elected office holders and military leaders who would disturb such a profound memorial headstone that embodies the essence of American ideals of tolerance and unity—the “e pluribus unum”—are in violation of the spirit of the oath of office, to which they pledged allegiance.
As retired U.S. Senator and former Navy Secretary, Jim Webb, recently stated: Removal of the Reconciliation monument sends a message of a “deteriorating society willing to erase the generosity of its past, in favor of bitterness…conjured up by those who do not understand the history they seem bent on destroying.”
This profound and sacred monument should be left untouched so it can continue to speak for itself to present and future generations.
Scott S. Powell is senior fellow at Discovery Institute & author of Rediscovering America. Ann H. McLean, a UVA Ph.D. serves on The Jefferson Council, the Virginia Council, and the Republic of Virginia preservation groups. To help preserve this memorial go to: https://www.DefendArlington.org.
I am sure I speak for many – I am done having the heritage of the nation being removed to make people who are never happy – happy. It’s time this destruction ended.
The ONLY way to end this is to remove the UN from the world. It is happening across the entire world and white people are being forcibly displaced by Muslims and Africans who are being orchestrated by the UN.
9/11 happened in the wrong building.
Turn the UN facility into Homeless Shelter move the whole Rotten United Nations to Moscow get these World Criminals off American Soil EVICT THE UN
There’s only two ways for that to happen.
¹ Find out who the chickenshits are who are promoting and/or enabling this bullshit & make clear it won’t be tolerated.
² buy more ammo than leftists buy votes.
We are drenched in evil.
The illiterate commie barbarians aren’t going to stop until patriots stop them. Sad but true.
The woke left wants to erase American history
The woke left wants to erase America.
NO, the communist left wants to destroy the United States. Previous communists such as Antonio Gramsci, Richard Cloward, Frances Fox Piven, Saul Aliinsky, Howard Zinn, have given the blueprint for doing this. It just took a communist, groomed in the Soviet Union, to come along and get things rolling. That would of course be, Barack Hussein Obama.
Whoever you are, I think you know your history! Appreciate your comment and your reading this. You are exactly correct. Ann H. McLean
BO wasn’t’ groomed in the Soviet Union. He was groomed in Indonesia and Hawaii by a scummy, insane mother, two insane scummy grandparents and a black man named Frank (Marshall Davis).
There is much more to BO’s story…read up.
I think the woke left are nothing but sheep needing a sense of belonging. The real question is who is herding these sheep? And who is behind the herdsmen as well? I don’t think we yet know how deep this runs, but the ultimate goal to destroy us by invalidating our history and erasing our pride. Expect more of this (sadly).
I don’t know who came up with such a despicable idea as this, but whoever they are, they have no love or respect for America. And by what right are they allowed to do such things??? Reading this is like a double whammy to the gut. As for those responsible for dreaming up this shameful act…can’t you find something better to do with your time? Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye & disregard the beam in your own??? (Luke 6;41)
Easy question to answer in re who came up with the idea: twenty members of Moses Ezekiel’s extended family wrote to the Washington Post calling for the removal of their ancestor’s statue in 2017 immediately after the Unite The Right rally.
If Picasso’s descendants announce that they want his paintings burned or if Frederic Remington’s descendants say a hammer should be taken to his statues, do we listen to them?
Should we also burn books if sine if the distant descendants of a writer sign a letter?
We all know who is behind this push . In 2008 we had a guy who wanted to fundamentally change America . This is a result of that pledge and , this is what one gets when the sheep buy into promises not made clear in their intent and the vote for a candidate raise and indoctrinated in Communist ideology. Patriotic Americans the time is now to stand up and say no to this wilful destruction of our history and heritage .
Nope. Like I said, Moses Ezekiel’s descendants are behind this push.
Edward Ayers is also.
They’re called democrats. Though Webb is one, since 2006, but his objection to this cancellation and removal is too little, too late, and he knows it.
Well-said. Huzzah!
Barack Obama is the answer.
Elizabeth Warren for starters
WTH does the DOD have to do with the removal of a monument that some defunct commission (whose raison d’être was to name things, not remove things!) decided it was a good idea to get rid of? Lloyd Austin apparently doesn’t have enough to do in his cabinet post even though implementing the woke DEI agenda must be time consuming. At this point, one ought to be grateful that Arlington Cemetery hasn’t been plowed under. Nonetheless, it could be at risk of having a monument to George Floyd gracing its field of green — never mind that Floyd was not in the military. The Preservation of Historic Monuments & Properties Commission should have the final say — that is their raison d’être.
Thank you for posting the link to help preserve this monument..
Replace it with Idol to their God Obama to leave their little offerings to and to pray to as they dance around it like with the Golden Calf
Hmm , Yes and we all know how that turned out . May it end in the same manner ! And God’s wrath destroy them all !
The only thing that needs to be removed from America are leftists and islamists.
By force if necessary. They are using force and violence (riots) to destroy America. The only thing that will defeat them is using more force against them.
It’s time to organize the warriors or lose it all.
This”Re-Write”of History Must STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We need a law to ban removal of monuments for political reasons. However, the signs should give a historical background and the strengths and weaknesses of the person or people involved. Posting the arguments for and against the monument, both past and present would be helpful. People should be able to click on a link and watch a story telling video about each monument. It’s a terrible mistake to erase history.
All Western “civilized” nations have been successfully infiltrated and conquered by evil, demonic forces under the guise of ‘climate change’, ‘wokeness’, ‘equity’, (not equality) and ‘change to a New World Order’.
Remember someone crying “I will fundamenatlly change America”. Oh yeah, O’Bummer. How are you liking the change he brought so far?
Hang onto yer seat, ’cause, like the man said, “you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet”. If you think things are crazy now, you will NOT believe this world by the end of this year.
You will see the end of cash. You know that ‘stash’ youv’e got hidden away. Toiletpaper. That’s all it will be good for. They will crash cash (they have to make you poor enough to eat bugs and be happy and the only way you will be ‘happy’ to eat bugs is because you will be starving.
Get the picture yet ? hey will force you to take multiple ‘vaccine’ jabs, lock you down due to ‘climate emergencies’ and give you a UBI (Universal Basic Income….HI, I’m from the Government and I’m here to help you). income that they can decrease, fine, or lessen for ‘bad’ behaviour.
Wake up-Look up-We are going up–those of us who are ‘saved’, born again followers of Jesus Christ.
Everyone else…tough…you had your chance and rejected Him, the only One who can save you.
Mranatha, come Lord Jesus……(this year).
Rev. Roy………..<
I forget who said, “History is not there for you to like or dislike; rather, it is there to teach.”
This is a beautiful and moving monument. Removing it would be desecrating hallowed ground. The renaming commission has the military renaming bases and ships without apparent historical knowledge and at a significant cost.
Should SecDef go forward, he is guilty of erasing history.
Having visited the site for DefendArlington.org I came across the following:
Not only the Ezekiel monument, but all monuments in the cemetery associated with honoring Confederate soldiers will be removed. This goes hand in hand with the renaming of 9 US battleships which the current administration’s powers that be have deemed politically incorrect. The cost of the demolition of the monuments and the renaming of the battleships has a price tag of $62.5 million. Brig. General Ty Seulig is heading up the operation, apppointed by Sec of Defense.
The goal seems to be to link traditional patriotism with the monsters of history like Hitler. It would be right to tear down their monuments. In fact it was done after WW II. In Germany there are monuments to the German soldiers from WW I. Should they also take down these monuments? In France Napoleon was a war monger who caused the deaths of millions. Should all monuments to him be torn down? In West Virginia, Robert Byrd was once a KKK officer. They have numerous buildings, roads, bridges named for him. Should they also go? Presumably anyone on the Democrat side does not have to worry. Perhaps the Lincoon monument should be renamed or repurposed. It could be changed into a warning against Lincoln as a domestic terrorist., or a monument against the War of Northern Aggression. Or there could be a John Wilkes Booth memorial center in Washington to correct false notions about the Civil War. Such as that it was the first war to end slavery.
This is the “Build Back Better” program! Never having an original thought, Biden, of course, stole the slogan from the United Nations (UN). Remember you must tear down before you can build back better, so as in deconstruction we are in the tear down phase of this wonderful Country! This Country’s history and the monuments built to unity by those that came before us must be preserved! The speech in Puerto Rico, May 29 2008 by Michelle Obama said it all for those paying attention. “ Barrack knows we must change our history and culture….” therein lies the essence of the problem. There are people among us that do not respect America, its founding, founders, Constitution, her history, and culture! They lack a simple understanding of America’s greatness! The people promoting this are not really Americans, but usurpers that can find what they are trying to build back better, throughout history, in the failed and murderous regimes that are the historical example of those terrible communist experiments that killed millions of people! So we must celebrate the freedom our history and culture has given us. We must continue to promote “a more perfect Union” and never give into the forces of destruction!
I believe that if you check the facts, you will find that Robert E. Lee”s father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis, was not George Washington’s adopted son. His father was.
Let’s knock off this ‘woke’ nonsense, because this is communism. There is a dedicated communist among us who is bringing all of this bedlam onto this nation and that SOB is a sex perverted communist named Hussein Obama. The destruction of our culture and our monuments is a strategy to destroy the United States of America. When he was in the communist club at Occidental College he voiced to fellow member John Drew that the United States had to be taken down in a violent revolution as had happened in China and Russia. That’s why BLM and Antifa came into existence. What do you think those 87,000 new armed IRS agents are for? They are not for helping people understand the tax forms. The simple fact is, if people don’t stop voting the democommunist ticket we are going to find ourselves in a full-blown civil war.
I will try to say the following as briefly and succinctly as possible—it will not be easy. Lincoln said (paraphrasing Old Testament scripture): Can two walk together unless they be agreed? Our country is now sharply divided just like it was before the War Between the States, referring to what Lincoln meant by his quoted saying. Untold tens of millions of people are on both sides of a political divide in our country, neither willing to budge or change. The leftists and radical leftists (Democrats, Progressives, Socialists, Marxists, Communists, Anarchists) on one side, and the Political Conservatives, Traditionalists, Republicans, Libertarians on the other side of the divide. It is clear to all thinking people that these sides CANNOT INDEFINITELY LIVE PEACEABLY TOGETHER. Someone must win and someone must lose. And I mean just exactly that, someone must be put down, and someone must prevail, and thereafter dominate and control.
If one looks at the history of Russia, one sees one way of doing it. Over the course of his dictatorship, Stalin murdered tens of millions of Russians. Anyone who dared defy Stalin for almost any reason was sent to the work camps to likely be worked to death,or was just taken out to the Arboreal Forest and shot. There was a long tradition for doing this to deal with political dissent going back at least thousand years in Russian history. Once a people start down this road, history teaches that rarely does that people ever find its way back. No, there must be some other, better way to handling such political dissension.
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By the Grace of God, the United States did find its way back from the War Between the States, for a while, when Northerners and Southerners for the greater good of the country where willing to recognize the good and great on each side and let bygones be bygones. THAT period is past now. Using all kinds of pretexts and excuses and authoritarian reasoning, when modern day young ‘whipper snapper’ Northerners and leftists (i.e., all of the aforementioned groups, some acting in good faith and probably most not) foolishly began demanding total victory and submission by Southerners (e.g., such as removing Confederate statutes, etc.), the goodwill which it had taken decades and generations of Americans to create began disappearing. (And I assure you, if you can find a reason to justify the disparagement of my ancestors and heroes, I can find an equally good reason for the disparagement of yours.) It does not matter who one is, I am as proud of my ancestors as you are of yours. I will NOT disparage my ancestors to satisfy your need for an ego boost. No one with any sense would.
So, back to the problem at issue. How to deal with such a great political divide as now exists in our country? There is another precedent in American history, and it solved more or less the same problem at the time it was used. During the War for American Independence (I myself hate the phrase Revolutionary War, because the word ‘revolution’ sounds too Marxist and/or Russian and/or Old World European), about one-third of the people were Patriots, about one-third were Tory Loyalists, and about one-third were not on any side. Following the Patriot victory, the question arose, how will all of these people with so divergent political loyalties, and a multitude of war sins and atrocities committed against each other, such as those which occurred in the South where it was often brother against brother, now live together? And the resulting answer was, WE CANNOT! But the problem did not just exist in the South, it existed throughout the former American Colonies of Great Britain. Modern scholarship is now bringing this to light.
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Whether in New York State or in the Carolinas, or elsewhere, the result was the same. The legislatures of these new independent States enacted legislation telling their former Tory Loyalist neighbors to GET OUT, GET OUT NOW! And to emphasize the point, Tory Loyalist’s assets were seized, trials were conducted in absentia, if necessary, and Tory Loyalists were given very little time to leave. Those who did not were executed. Most left fleeing in terror. Whole families were attainted. Those who dared to consider returning were threatened with summary execution if caught doing so. It was said of one New York family who fled to Canada that they were so terrified of the obviously very real threat of summary execution that their descendants did not again return to New York State until late in the Nineteenth Century. Of course, much of this post-war retribution occurred immediately after the end of War for American Independence, during the years when the States of our country were organized under the Articles of Confederation. With the adoption of the U. S. Constitution one sees express language in the text of this document forbidding such practices. But the point is, THIS is how our Founding Forefathers solved the problem of severe political dissension abroad in the country in the 1780s. It was not fair, it was harsh, but neither was it the wholesale bloodletting which often happens in other countries following the conclusion of a civil war. And it worked. The American experiment in a constitutional republic survived and thrived until civil war came to it in the middle of the next century. The same sort of solution very well might be needed again in our country in the near future.
You offer no citations for your assertions., nor is it relevant to the discussion at hand on erasing a piece of history.
Wiki, however, has a well sourced piece on the Loyalists:
“Many of the Loyalists were forced to abandon substantial properties to America restoration of or compensation for these lost properties, which was a major issue during the negotiation of the Jay Treaty in 1794. Two successive boards were formed, and under a new convention signed in 1802 by the United States and Great Britain for the mutual payment of claims, the US paid the sum of £600,000, while only £1,420,000 of nearly £5 million in claims considered by commissioners in Britain were judged to be good.[66]
Return of some expatriates
The great majority of Loyalists never left the United States; they stayed on and were allowed to be citizens of the new country. Some became nationally prominent leaders, including Samuel Seabury, who was the first Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Tench Coxe. There was a small, but significant trickle of returnees who found life in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick too difficult. Perhaps 10% of the refugees to New Brunswick returned to the States as did an unknown number from Nova Scotia.[67] Some Massachusetts Tories settled in the Maine District. Nevertheless, the vast majority never returned. Captain Benjamin Hallowell, who as Mandamus Councilor in Massachusetts served as the direct representative of the Crown, was considered by the insurgents as one of the most hated men in the Colony, but as a token of compensation when he returned from England in 1796, his son was allowed to regain the family house.[68] “
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In October 1779, the New York Act of Attainder, or Confiscation Act, named landowners who acted injuriously to the State, declared them guilty of “overt acts of high treason,” and stated that they shall “suffer death” without right of judicial recourse. Mary Philipse Morris was convicted under this law of “high treason”, and under this law in 1779 the government of the Colony of New York seized both Morris’ personal property and Mary’s inheritances. Despite assurance of restitution in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, no compensation was forthcoming. The family relocated to England. Mary Philipse Morris died in York, England at the age of 96 in 1825. Despite the foregoing, however, Mary’s vast real estate inheritance ultimately was protected from the aforesaid 1779 New York Act by a technicality because in her prenuptial agreement with her husband, Roger, a life trust transferrable to their children was created which thereby protected her inheritance. Thus, is the story of the woman who might have married George Washington.
And as Mary Philipse Morris escaped to England at the close of the War, so too did thousands of others on English ships of war to Canada, to England, and to the British possessions in the Caribbean, for similar reasons. These facts cannot be disputed.
Remove the monument, Dig up the Confederate dead and Return Both to a sanctuary in the South. Richmond has been desecrated, Nathan Bedford Forrest and Wife were dug up in Memphis and removed to interior TN.
Gen Lee and Jackson cannot long endure in Lexington.
The US Army posts in the South have All been renamed. The Division is almost Completed. DC is a Feral Coup city of Traitors and Grifters.
Let Us Be Done With Them. Entirely.
My essay, “Removing the Confederate Memorial is erasing history” is on bizpacrewiew.com and substack:
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/09/09/removing-the-confederate-memorial-is-erasing-history-1394419/
Does. anyone besides me remember Francis Miles Finch’s corny, but deeply moving poem, “The Blue and the Gray?” It’s available, free access, on-line. It should be included in any article about removing the monument.
Next they’ll try to remove all the crosses and the stars of David on all the graves and erect their symbols of submission with the crescent moon or their defiance to the God of all creation as revealed through Holy Scriptures by displaying their counterfeit rainbow flags.
Removing our historical statues is part of the Communist plan of removing a country’s history Much of the leadership of the Democrat Party is Communist—Nancy Pelosi’s mentor was Vivian Halinan whose far-left lawyer husband defended Communists and hosted parties for the CPUSA. America better wake up you’re under assault from within by people who are funded by foreign sources.
Why I believe this is can be found in the book “You Can Still Trust the Communists (to be Communists).pdf The book can be found for free online by searching the title. The first 20 pages or so are slow reading but after that, I couldn’t put the book down. An updated hard copy version of this book by David Noebel can be found online.
It’s just part of Barack Obama’s hatred for whites and his efforts to divide the nation on racial lines. He has succeeded.
On August 31st, just 2 weeks ago, somebody drove their truck into the 1885 Kit Carson monument obelisk in front of the Federal Building in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. 3 years ago antifa destroyed the 1866 Civil War Union Soldier and Cavalry monument on the Santa Fe Plaza on Columbus day. The Kit Carson monument destroyer hasn’t been identified nor found despite leaving their truck behind. The antifa vandals were given community service as punishment by the corrupt democrats that run New Mexico. And the democrat mayor of Santa Fe who is from California had called for the removal of both monuments earlier because they were racist.
Thank y’all for standing up to this creek and writing this article!
Thank y’all for standing up to this crap and writing this article!
Yes, my comment is relevant if you will but read what I wrote.
But aside from that, although this comment page is not a scholarly publication for the posting of such, nevertheless, here is evidence to get you started in your own historical research. About three years before the 26-year-old George Washington married Martha in January 1759, Virginia Colonial Col. Washington in 1756 was a French and Indian War ‘hero’ known throughout the British American Colonies. Traveling through New York State he stopped for a party in his honor at the home of Mary Eliza Philipse, daughter of Frederick Philipse II, in Yonkers, New York. Her father was a prominent NYS merchant, landowner, and politician. He had died in 1751, and as a result, at age 22 she had inherited approximately one-third of his quarter million acre estate along the Hudson River. When young Washington visited the Philipse home, it was said that ‘sparks flew’, but love between them was not to be. Later in 1758 Mary Philipse married a young Englishman, an ex-Col. in the British Army, Roger Morris, instead. Morris also had fought in the French and Indian War. Following their marriage, Morris was appointed to the Governor’s Council of the Province of New York. In 1759, Morris built a large country mansion called Mount Morris in northern Manhattan between the Hudson and Harlem Rivers in what is now called Washington Heights. The Morris family lived there until 1775. Roger Morris fled to England at the onset of the War for American Independence. Mary Philipse Morris escaped to England at the close of the War.
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