January 5

It hardly needs to be said that a marriage is far more than the sum of its parts. Our nation’s first president, George Washington, was a wealthy land and slave owner when he married Martha Dandridge Custis on the 5th in 1759. Martha, however, brought significantly more money to the marriage bed than George did. Arlington National Cemetery, which sits on more than 140 acres of prime real estate in Virginia, was built on land formerly owned by Martha.
Washington had no children. His nephew, Bushrod Washington, who at age 38 was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, inherited his estate in Mount Vernon, then home to the largest distillery in the United States of America. The distillery has been restored and it was re-opened on March 30, 2007. Today it produces 5000 gallons of whiskey a year, which is only available for purchase at the estate’s gift shop.
Martha Washington had inherited a great deal of money and land from her first husband, Daniel Parke Custis. The land eventually landed in the hands of Robert E. Lee, who was George Washington Parke Custis' son-in-law. During the Civil War, the land was confiscated and after years in the lower courts, the Supreme Court upheld the Lee Families ownership and in 1882 the United States Congress authorized spending $150,000 to purchase the land for use as the Arlington National Cemetery. Did I hear you ask where did the money come from? Martha’s first husband was Daniel Parke Custis. His grandfather was Daniel Parke, who sat on colonial Virginia’s council and was Queen Anne’s governor of the Leeward Islands. Parke was assassinated in a mutiny provoked by his rather self-enriching execution of his duties to the Queen in the islands.

January 4

Christopher Colt was a farmer in Connecticut in the early years of the 19th century. In 1822, he abandoned agriculture to go into the business of manufacturing textiles. He, his wife and their three sons and three daughters moved to Hartford. To celebrate one son’s 11th birthday Colt gave the child a pistol. The child’s name was Samuel and that birthday gift made such an impression on him that it would set him on the path to success. On the 4th in 1847, Samuel Colt would sell his first pistol, a revolver, to the United States government. His company, Colt’s Patent Fire-arms Manufacturing Company, is today one of the largest manufacturers of firearms.

January 3

On the 3rd in 1870, after years of planning ground was finally broken for the construction of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge. Today this iconic structure is referred to simply as the Brooklyn Bridge. It wasn’t really a groundbreaking, more of a ‘get-this-water-the-hell-out-of-here-breaking’ because the dredging necessary to prepare the riverbed of the East River began on that day.
The first person to cross the bridge was master mechanic E. F. Harrington on August 25, 1876. He did so while sitting in a boatswain’s chair which he pulled across the span as it hung from the first wires connecting the Brooklyn and New York towers prior to the construction of the cables that would connect the two.
The bridge spans a total distance of 5,989 feet of which 1,595 feet 6 inches is over the East River.

January 2

By the second day of the New Year, the enthusiasm and interest, for a new beginning has for most people passed quietly away; the inspiration for achievement has evaporated like water spilled on a Brooklyn sidewalk in August. For most people there is the sudden realization that your feeling of ‘Wow, this is great – another whole New Year’ has abruptly changed to ‘Damn, this sucks - another whole New Year!’ On the 2nd in 1923, Albert Bacon Fall, President Harding’s Secretary of the Interior, resigned his position in Harding’s cabinet due to his role in the notorious Teapot Dome scandal. Fall was also an attorney and represented famed sheriff Pat Garrett when Garrett was arrested and tried for the murder of Albert Jennings Fountain. In 1922, Fall had accepted a bribe of nearly a half a million dollars for fixing an oil lease on Federal property in Wyoming. That is the equivalent of roughly four million dollars in 2007.

January 1

It is quite common when embarking on a new project for a person to choose the first day of a new year as a convenient starting point. On that day, the entire year stretches out in front of you; hope is blithely twinkling on the horizon enticing you with its possibilities. A person would be hard-pressed to feel anything other than optimism. What is it that you want to do? Do you want to lose 10 pounds? Is it perhaps your wish to learn how to play the clarinet? Do you desire to become a writer whose work will be read hundreds of years after you have died? On the 1st in 1660, diarist and inveterate gossip Samuel Pepys made the first entry in the diary that he would scrupulously maintain until May 31, 1669 when he would make his last entry. My guess is that Pepys was fond of alcohol, perhaps a bit too fond of it. His diary entry for New Year's Day, 1661, reads: "I have newly taken a solemn oath about abstaining from plays and wine ...". How many people have made that oath on New Year’s Day?
[ii] Pepys was slowly going blind and his failing eyesight made it impossible for him to continue writing in his diary.

December 31`

Have you made your plans for New Year’s Eve yet? If not, please consider the following. Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was a 19th century English sculptor who became friends with paleontologist Sir Richard Owen (pictured). There is nothing terribly startling or interesting in that is there? It was bound to have happened because they were both British, ran in the same circles, met and hit it off. The men met when they both became involved with London’s Great Exhibition of 1851. Combining their two talents, the pair built a life-size model of an Iguanodon, a fierce ornithopod dinosaur, for the Exhibition. On the 31st in 1853, they hosted a dinner party for twenty inside the Iguanodon, which seemed like a good way to ring in the New Year. While it may not have been quite Capote’s black and white ball, it still must have been very cool.

December 30

Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer who was born at the end of the 19th century. After completing his university studies, he was offered a job by George Ellery Hale, who was the founder and director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. On the 30th in 1924, Hubble made the startling discovery that there existed, outside of our own comfy Milky Way, innumerable other galaxies. The formal announcement of his discovery was made on January 1, 1925. What a delightful way to enter the New Year!