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The master builder’s red Mohawk twitched in the rain-winds, his dusky claws clinging to a branch of my summer snowflake viburnum, his short beak clinching a foot-long piece of flimsy twine. At least, that’s the perception of my visitor who provides materials for his mate to use; she knows how to build the 4 x 3” cup-shaped nest for their brood, over the next nine days.
The work continues, outside my study window. I’ve much to learn…
The year was 1786, the setting, Boston’s Bunch of Grapes tavern where former officers from the War of Independence gathered. Among them was the Reverend Manasseh Cutler, with doctorates in medicine, law, and divinity. Such opens David McCullough’s historical novel, The Pioneers—The Heroic Story Of The Settlers Who Brought The American Ideal West (2020).
Besides writing of notables in American history, McCullough wanted to present patriots, unknown to history, whose critical influence directed its development. One of these was the Reverend Manasseh Cutler (1742-1823), First Congregationalist pastor in Ipswich Hamlet, Massachusetts. His vision for the Northwest Territory (north and west of the Ohio River) included the prohibition of slavery, the freedom of religion, and state-funded public education, all of which occurred, despite bitter disputes in the Capitol.
McCullough’s discovery of the archives at Marietta College, located in Marietta, Ohio—the first settlement of the pioneers—gave him access to the diaries and letters of Manasseh Cutler and four other families, together with newspapers, pamphlets, and other books. All of which the author wove into a compelling story of ingenuity and daunting hardships: the virgin terrain to clear for log cabins and farms, the extremes of weather, diseases and accidents, clashes with Chief Pike of the Seminoles, the British threat during the War of 1812, and the lack of funds, also in the country, as a whole.
Despite such hardships, the settlers, many from Puritan backgrounds, rarely gave up. Just got up the next morning and saw what was left and started over.
Knowledge of their perseverance attracted thousands of American and European settlers wanting to experience this world of rich soils with their bountiful produce. Live was different here.
David McCullough, now in his mid-eighties, keeps alive the innate goodness of America’s foundation and development in his historical novels and reminds us to be grateful for our heritage.
“Whoa! Will you look at that! Wow!” Whistles and muffled chatter filled the kids on our court, their boots sliding upon the packed snow—five inches of it—that had fallen during the night. With ruddy cheeks exposed to biting winds, they looked like newly minted explorers wearing snow gear of reds, pinks, and blacks. Some rubbed mittened fists in their eyes, unaccustomed to the sun’s brilliance. Others lugged shovels. Still another sat in the snow and circled handfuls around him, his mouth forming a perfect O.
It wasn’t long before a plan formed. The tallest boy pulled a red wagon and gathered the others around him, their capped heads huddled, until smiles and more exclamations resounded up and down the court. More shovels appeared. The work began. Instead of banking snow from driveways and sidewalks along the curb, it was dumped into the wagon; then pulled to the entrance of the court and emptied into a large yellow bucket. More hands hefted buckets of snow until turrets of a fort appeared. Hours passed.
Still their plan was not fully actualized—there would be another fort built at the end of the cul-de-sac. Their gusto only mounted.
As I marveled at the kids’ industry, I wondered if their imaginations perceived their forts as safe places from which to thwart persons having no business on our court.
Or on a deeper level, whether they intuited such places with their God as,“… fortress, … stronghold.” (Psalm 18:2)
Heart Whisperings 