The Old Stone House

Richmond's The Old Stone House: Its History and How It Became the Edgar Allan Poe Museum - Rose Marie Mitchell

   This is me just trying to get more insight into Richmond Hill's history. Was anything built up on the hill before John Coles' "mansion" and the church? Surely some wooden structures right? Was there logging? hunting? pasture?
   Jacob Galt Ege lived in the house still standing. Perhaps with inventories from Jacob Jr, Samuel, and Jacob Galt Ege, my friend and coworker P, who is an amazing historian and genealogist, can put together some family info about the Black folks enslaved and living in the house during the Ege ownership.


notes

• circ 1644 Fort Charles on north side of river, moved to southside 1646
• "even though there had been a trading site at the falls for many years, Richmond did not grow until the troubles with the Indians reached a certain degree of peace about 1659 and the power and influence of William Byrd I..."
• Stegge Jr 1652 800 acres patent on north side of James (?)
• Stegge Sr to VA in 1632, merchant and ship owner, divided time b/w VA and London, seems to have played both sides in civil war years
• Stegge and Byrd memorial marker in Manchester
• big four mills - Gallego, Haxall Mills, largest in country until after civil war
• at incorporation, Richmond pop about 250
• half acre lots cost 7lbs, "required" to build a house within a few years
• "Byrd also gave the vestry of Henrico parish "any pine timber that can be found on that side of Shockoe Creek and the woods for burning bricks into the bargain"
• Mayo a surveyor in Barbados b4 coming to RVA in 1723 with brother Joseph
• Byrd trying to attract Germans to his land in "Roanoke;" didn't work out too well, but many Germans came to Richmond
• Jacob Ege, 1713-1784, came from Wertemburg via Philly, tailor then cooper
• perhaps Ege buys lot32 from John Gringet in 1742, was old stone house already there? or built by Ege?
• owned enslaved workers; 1784 earliest tax book from Richmond; Frank trained as a silversmith with Jacob Jr, who trained with bro-in-law Gabriel Galt, who also owned enslaved people
• Jacob, Gabriel and others wanted Masonic hall, fund raised, finished in 1787
• Jacob Jr - 19 enslaved people in will
• Galt's Tavern, northwest corner of E and 19th, place of much business
• John Enders and Sally (Sarah) Ege married in OSH 1814
• "Several of Enders's slaves burned down all the buildings between 21st and 22nd street when they found that his will did not set them free as they had expected. Another slave was the center of a story in the Baltimore Sun for 27 May 1843. The news in Richmond was that a slave, the property of John Enders, was tried for stealing a box of tobacco, found guilty and sentenced to be hung on the last Friday in June"
• 1786, enslaved man, Ben, buys freedom from Samuel Ege and other family members who jointly own him
• make a copy of geneologies and inventories
• Falls Plantation house was stone with chimney squarely in middle
• where did OSH stones come from? most people say from ballast stone discarded
• legendary history says stones came from Powhatan's house or Fort Charles
• dendrochronological study suggested built about 1754
• false - not used as Washington's headquarters
• story of British Calvary galloping down church hill, "the most beautiful sight"
• 1824 Marquis de Lafayette revisited Richmond, and stopped b OSH; hoped to see Samuel Ege, who had been a commisary with him; Poe was part of honor guard that followed Lafayette
• R. Lyman Potter - "The Wheelbarrow Man"
• 1890's "Revenue in the form of an entrance fee came to Julia Isaacs from the curious who wanted to see the few Washington souvenirs she had inside. During this time an energetic, young, glib-tongued Negro boy acted as the tour guide. His gift for the gab had him entertaining the visitors with the stories which found their way into the History booklet."
• 1921 - Archer and Annie Boyd Jones leases OSH from APVA to renovate it and create Poe Memorial
• All of Poe's working or living places in Richmond have been demolished. Left standing today in the city are only three homes belonging to people who were important to Poe while he was in Richmond - Elmira Shelton's house, the Adam Craig house, Jane Craig Stanard's birthplace and Talavera"

Sentinel on the Hill

Sentinel on the Hill: Monte Maria and the One Hundred Years - Monastery of the Visitation, 1966, Richmond, VA

Who wrote this? I suppose the research was a collaborative effort, but the writing voice sounds individual. There's one anecdote that seems as if the author is writing about herself in the third person, but now I can't find it; it's a personal little remembrance by "a young sister" who received advice from a named older sister.

Is the magnolia tree we have the same as the "giant" magnolia mentioned many times here? It's possible, and H is sure that it is, but I'm inclined to say no. Its current position doesn't seem to match the descriptions.

There's got to be more pictures, somewhere, of the grounds and buildings, especially during the school days...right? I'd especially love to see the makeshift chapel inside the "old mansion," any pictures of the "slave quarters" transformed into a dormitory (said to be wooden), and after the destruction of the old house - the new cloistered porch in byzantine style with arches.

Only three employees are mentioned by name, Anderson Early, Earsell Jeffers, and Old Mr. Martin, but at least one other "laundress" is mentioned, as well as other contract workers. Is there a way to find out how many folks were regularly employed over the years?

notes

• The past, the present, are not only here embodied in bookform, but as a living fact
• God is found in all things, great or small. The spirit of the visitation is one of this simplicity.
• Bishop McGill bought a piece of cornfield beyond the city limits (later the cathedral)
• "Bishop McGill purchased at a cost of $15,000 from Thomas Ellett, executor of Loftin N. Ellett, the half square on Church Hill fronting on the south-side of Grace Street and extending from 22nd to 23rd streets with an old-fashioned but comfortable wooden residence thereon"
• wrote to Venerable Mother Mary Paulina Millard, superior of the Visitation Monastery in Baltimore
• Mother Mary Paulina, elected superior of Georgetown in 1830, 35yrs, served four triennials, later chosen foundress in Washington-Bethesda and Brooklyn. Now at 71, again a foundress for Richmond
• Mother Juliana will be Superior, and we will have six sisters...we will go from here to Richmond on a steamboat... Sr Mary Louis Williamson
• first conducted to St Joseph's Academy where the daughters of St Vincent de Paul graciously welcomed
• [this history claims house first built by John Coles, but that is mistaken, "In its great sweeping hall, Washington and Lafayette danced and made welcome]
• the stately house with its four chimneys (the sisters could never find but two), dormer windows, shingled roof
• also unnoticed by Father Hitzelberger, but breath-taking for the sisters, was the magnolia tree with its head lifted to the sky and its great branches like outstretched arms sheltering the garden and the wind-blown paths
• at noon the good Sisters of Charity came, carrying a picnic lunch for the sisters and priests
• the small chapel, a few feet square and situated on the groundfloor
• we place you like sentinels to guard our discese, to draw down graces upon our priests and people
• first students - non catholics as well as catholics, numbered  ten boarders and forty-six day students
• Miss Lizzie, our next door neighbor, spy for the federals, helped prisoners escape from libby prison (?)
• the boys tried to destroy her fruit, she won them over with ice cream party
• St Patricks built in 1859
• two schools, not four blocks apart, opening in september 1866, in richmond!
• "our school is still very poor; but persons tell us that next year it will be better, if we do not have another war, which is threatening...last week the James overflowed
• death of Mother Juliana; Mother Paulina took her back to Georgetown
• Henry Stratton gave $1000 in cash for education of Mary, Eliza, and Nellie...with this ready money the sisters were able to transform the old wooden structure that was originally the slave quarters, into a large refectory for the young ladies; and by raising the roof of the first story and adding a second, airy and attractive dormitories were constructed
• Sept 9, one year after the foundation, our Blessed Lady made a "secret Visitation" to the heart of a girl of twenty-one. Born in County Kerry, Ireland, Catherine Mary Sullivan...moved to Washington DC, first postulant in Richmond
• sometime in 1870's,  City Council permitted sisters to bury in the convent
• Bishop Gibbons at the commencment, "I am sure that nothing that has influenced you under the teachings of the good sisters will ever lead you to become in after life women's-rights women. You will never mount the rostrum to advocated the so-called rights, but in reality the abuses of women"..."among women the needle is mightier than the ballot"
• from the very beginning, grates had been erected in the chapel and parlors, with a small turn for business transactions
• 1868, twelve members, and school growing
• during these years, the fatherly physician of the sisters was Doctor Beal. The good doctor, Jewish and a very religious man, asked for no other renumeration than their prayers
• John Tabb often told the story of how proudly his 'mammy' would show him off and say, "He's the ugliest baby ever born in Virginia"
• in the garden a shrine to Our Lady
• May 8 1877, Bishop gave deed to house to sisters
• Bishop Keane 1883 bought Taylor-Palmer house gave to sisters, twenty rooms
• also "by yielding up the terraces running south to Franklin St. to the city; the city in turn, close the street which will become your property
• "...sewing for the Franciscan Sisters today. They're awful poor. They work for the colored folk and are having a hard time getting started"
• Sisters of Visitation, Franciscans, Little Sisters, Sisters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity
• "a life vowed to perfection isn't a prolonged endurance contest, as the world would have you think. No, dear children, it is a leap into the arms of God
• St Francis coat of arms: heart, pierced by two arrows - love of God and love of neighbor - love is bitter and sweet - encircled by crown of thorns
• Bishop Van and Mr and Mrs Fortune Ryan, 1894 Mrs Ryan gives check of $5000 for chapel
• in the niches - statues of the sacred heart of Jesus, Blessed Mother, and St Joseph
• Sister Bessie, remained in the monastery as a benefactress
• plays every spring in the lawn
• Living through it, who will ever forget that summer of 1914? The outbreak of World War I; the sorrowful news of the death of the saintly Pius X; the anxious waiting for the election of a new Pope - and then Benedict XV was given a world filled with sadness, gloom and fear
• started an Alumnae Association
• idea to raise funds for an academy building that would lend itself to dormitories for the boarders, a refectory, kitchen, infirmary and parlors would be included
• golden jubilee in 1916, lots of music, organ violin favorite hymns
• fidelity, prayer, sacrifice - these were the means sister employed to spread the fire of God's love over the face of the world; and these words reveal a part of her secret greatness, though hidden behind convent walls for sixty-four years. We dare say no one in the city of Richmond was better known than Sister Mary Francis de Sales Gahaghan
• sisters from all over - bavaria, dingle county kerry, mobile alabama, germany, mexico
• the visitandine life embraces the prayer of labor in which the nun moves in the atmosphere of union with God, and finds Him in her service to her neighbor
• for example, Sister Claude Simplicia, her corn bread and coffee were nationally known; Teresa Josphine - laundry, rub-and-tub with a prayer; Sister Mary Martina "queen of the walk" in her cherished henhouse and chicken run "every biddy knew her voice and the touch of her hand, and never did they fail her when she looked for an egg. those were the days when an egg was worth its weight in gold..."
• "in the folds of her mantle or tilma, the Indian mother carries her youngest"
• annual retreat when the school closed for the summer
• 1918 or so, academy had to refuse 60 applicants b/c not enough space; Bishop O'Connel raising money in earnest for new dorm
• cost $46,093.25
• Mrs Dooley tried to keep the Major from going back to his catholic faith; a priest slipped in to hear a confession close to time of death
• Mother Mary Magdalen Dooley at first only left $5000 in his will; but had to re-do will b/c she didn't have kids; and new law not clear if wife could leave to whomever she wanted; so divided up more equally
• Paray-le-Monial, vision of the sacred heart of Jesus revealed to St Margaret Mary of the visitation order
• dorm construction during the summer, supposed to be ready for the new school year; sisters helped clean up
• "she was a delightful little Rebel - always!" MMM Dooley, story of her talking with Gen Lee
• 1927 MMM Dooley died, left a lot of money to sisters
• not sure if could keep up with education standards, discussions with Bishop to close school
• secret vote, unanimous
• last graduation June 10 1927
• vocations increased
• reunion on the academy grounds
• Annecy, home of Visitation
• remodeling academy buildings
• "to restore the 'Old Mansion' so as to render it habitable and safe would have been far too costly, and it was necessary to relinquish any idea of saving even a portion of it or the grand, wide-spreading trees about it. Fain would the sisters have cried, "Woodman, spare that tree!"
• "however, upon the foundation of the Old Mansion, a cloistered porch in Byzantine style, with open arches on the south, east and north, was erected and close by a greenhouse was in the planning"
• two sisters sent to Wilmington to learn firsthand the economy of a non-teaching community
• requirements for entrance into novitiate - suitable health, body and soul; a right intention; 10-12 mo postulant; then reception of habit; one year after taking habit then temporary vows; then three years and perpetual vows
• "the most soul stirring event in the religious life is the solemn profession
• priests at St Peters and St Patricks acting as chaplains
• Then 1931, A.J Van Ingelgem,  81yr old, Belgian born priest in VA for long time, retired and became chaplain; Buddy his dog; built cottage for him; eccumenical spirit; died 1935; many other beloved chaplains
• "Father has made friends in the little Ethiopia wherein lies his domain; as one small colored boy put it, 'He's a real priest and we like him.' ??
• great crucifix in the little cemetary "God's Acre"
• plans made to transform second floor of chapel into tribune for sick and several infirmary rooms
• Sister Mary Fidelis Sanders - skilled builder and contractor; (copy that poem!); also served as portress
• Anderson Early, longtime employee, Testimonial, celebrated Jubilee; note left by grandson (copy that page)
• "Old Mr. Martin, another loyal caretaker of a later time"
• "A laundress, Earsell Jeffers, worked for the sisters for a great number of years"
• "Love Love Love" was an ending that Reverend Mother Mary Elizabeth continually used in her letters to all Visitandines to whom she had occasion to write
• the "Minor Seminary of St John Vianney" - Chester Michael one of the first rectors
•  1960, Sisters of Bon Secours arrive in Richmond, good friends with Monte Maria, help with care for sick, etc
• Queen's Party - held on eve of Epiphany, one time out of year where talk at dinner
• genesis of print shop; started in coal cellar (on the west end?); Operation Homefront; Our Lady of Thule (airbase in Greenland)
• Sister Fidelis designed and built cinderblock print shop; on may 21 1960 cornerstone laid by Mother Mary Gertrude
• Mary Louise Verleysen, Belgium, inspired by Katherine Drexel, "who devoted her life and fortune to the care of the Indian and Negro races," ends up at monte maria
• "the story of the monastery of the Visitation in Richmond has always been closely linked with the lives of the bishops of the diocese"
• "a religious of the Visitation is taught that seven-eighths, so to speak, of her time should be given to thanksgiving. For as St Francis de Sales once said, "Gratitude is your special means of union with God and with neighbor"
• a picture of Blessed Mother of Perpetual Help at top of the stairs leading to the sisters choir and around the corner from the infirmary
• Joseph Bliley devoted to the sisters
• grave setting with giant iron crucifix at one end, the giant magnolia at the opposite, and the solemn line of hemlocks
• "Old Church Hill struggles between slum and historic restoration"
• "there will always be a need for souls to consecrate themselves entirely to God, with lives separated from the world, dead to its vanities and fleeting pleasures in order that they may the more deeply and positively involve themselves in the course of its salvation

Will of Richard Adams 1800

My mother in law helped me work through some copied pages of Richard Adams' will.


...and a small piece of land adjoining which of purchased of Mr. Lewis containing in the whole about one and a half acres and all the Negros there delivered into his ??? I give to my daughter Tabitha her heirs and assigns forever a tract of land in the county of Boutetourt containing by patent 958 acres lying next the Soucet?? Springs also ten Negros their value to be fixed at the average price that the Negroes belonging to my estate shall be appraised so at the time of my death ?? one share in the James River canal I give to my daughter Elizabeth Griffin her heirs and assigns forever a tract of land in the county of Goochland which I purchased of William T?? containing 600 acres lying on Rouck? Creek and ten Negroes their value to be fixed in the same manner as those Negroes given my daughter Tabitha. I give to my three daughters Ann, Sarah, and Alice their heirs and assigns forever all my lands on Rappahanock River in the county of Essex? to be equally divided between them also all the Negroes I have delivered into their possession. I give to my son Lo? Richard his heirs executor administrators and assigns forever all the rest of my lands in the county of Henrico and all lotts and houses in the City of Richmond with all the buildings and improvements thereon, but his? devise to my son Richard is in no manner to effect or control the devise foresaid to my said wife and I do further direct that my said son Richard pay unto his mother my said wife the sum of 50lbs ??? manner of Virginia ???

...during her natural life and of the ??? that may arise from the lands and lotts. I have hereby given him  and ten Negroes there value to be fixed in the same manner as those Negroes I have hereby given my daughters Tabitha and Elizabeth Griffin. My Brother Thomas Adams devise by his last will and testament gives me all his lands in the County of Augusta and Amherst subject to the payment of his debts in ??? of his Slaves, my will and desire is that all those lands as such ??? as shall remain to me by virtue of his said devise be equally divided between all my children as shall be living at the time of my death to whom their heirs and assigns forever
I have made a Power of Attorney to my son-in-law Mayo Carrington, husband of my daughter Ann to sell and dispose of a tract of land in the County of Patrick remainder of a tract of land ??? to me by Patent containing 5470 acres the remainder of which is supposed to be about 4000 acres. My will and desire the said Mayo Carrington continue to act in selling and conveying the said lands and whatever moneys may be raised from his sales of the said lands and the remainder of any part that may not be sold I give to my daughter Ann her heirs and assigns forever. I give to my daughter Sarah her heirs and assigns forever a tract of land in the Calf Pasture which I purchased of William Wright in the county of Augusta containing by estimation 100 acres. I give to my sons Richard, John and Samuel Griffin their heirs and assigns...?

...forever my Coal Pit tract of land in the County of Goochland which I purchased of Richard Wilkinson and the coal removed in a tract of land I sold Matthew Woodson adjoining containing 97 and 1/2 acres, it being part of the original tract purchased of the said Wilkinson, subject to the payment 100lbs to each of my daughters Tabitha, Elizabeth Griffin, Ann, Sarah, and Alice as such of them as be living at the time of my death to be paid out of the first proffits that shall be made from the sale of ??Coal Pit??, the rest of my estate, Negroes, Stocks of black?? cattle, horses, and stocks of any other kind and ??? estate of whatever ?? or ?? to be equally divided between my eight children hereafter named that is to say Richard, John, Samuel Griffin, Tabitha, Elizabeth Griffin, Ann, Sarah, Alice or to such of them as shall be living at the time of my death, to them their executors administrators and assigns forever, except as much Stock as will be ??sufficient??  to Stock or Plantation for my loving Wife if she choose to settle one in that case I do hereby give her twenty cows four work horses thirty sheep and four good breeding Mares to her and her heirs forever.
Lastly I appoint my much esteemed friend Charles Carter Esq. of Shirley,  Peter Lyon Esq of Hanover County my three sons Richard John and Samuel Griffin, William Marshall and George W. Smith Executors of this my final will and testament (written with  my own hand and hereby revoking all those wills....??? made....testament

...hand?? and affixed my seal this 30th day of January 1800
Richard Adams
Signed Sealed and Published
in the presence of Willaim Smith, Bowles Cooke (??Goche), Wm Dandridge?Bandrige?, Joseph Seldin, ????Virginia?
At a General Court held at the capital in the City of Richmond the 4th day of November 1800, this will was proved the oath of Bowler Cooke, Wm Dandrige, Joseph Seldin, ??? thereto and ordered to be recorded.
Peter Lyons Esq, Richard Adams, Samuel G. Adams, William Marshall and George W. Smith executors in the signed??said?? will named this day in court renounced the executorship thereof in the 14th day this same month John Adams another executor in the said will named this day appeared in court renounced his executorship thereof and Charles Carter the other ?? having henceforth also renounced his executorship of the same on the motion?? said John Adams who made oath and together with Mayo Carrington, Richard Adams, George W. Smith, Samuel Adams, Wm Marshall his ??securities?? ??enclosed?? into and acknowledged their bond in the penalty of one hundred thousand dollars conditioned as the ??directs certificate is granted him for obtaining letters of administration of the estat of the said Richard Adams ??? with the said will annexed?? in due form
Wilson Allen

The Disordered Mind

The Disordered Mind: what unusual brains tell us about ourselves - Eric Kandel

What's the angle?
   Kandel is a neuroscientist and writer, whose work on learning and memory led to a Nobel Prize. He's also quite the art buff, and has written extensively about art and creativity. I loved this book, and his writing. It is textbooky: deliberate (he starts each chapter with a brief outline, then finishes with a brief summary), clear syntax and pace, lots of vocabulary - which he defines along the way. Only it isn't 1,000 pages with tiny cramped type, thank goodness. I especially enjoyed his careful combination of psychological and neurological research. The disciplines need each other, he stresses, and need to find some common language.

What is depression?
   Kandel writes that "depression is probably not one but several different disorders, with different degrees of severity and different biological mechanisms." Later in his discussion he describes depression and bipolar disorder as disruptions of the "connections between the brain structures responsible for emotion, thought, and memory." More or less, though, he proceeds without a definition of depression; I guess he basically assumes the DSM criteria. 
   He doesn't spend time trying to distinguish between "normal" down-times and depression episodes, or between grief and depression, or between environmental and biological "triggers." He's interested in a biological analysis of what depression looks like in action, in the brain, and he highlights the research of Helen Mayberg, who has identified a sort-of neural "circuit" for depression. Mayberg focuses on several "nodes" of this circuit, especially "cortical area 25." Kandel also mentions promising research into the stress-response system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
   He doesn't specifically hypothesize that one day, doctors will diagnose depression biologically rather than psychologically, but we could assume that would be theoretically possible, based on his vision of a more complete convergence of the two disciplines. More likely, in the nearer future, neuroscientists and geneticists will predict more and more accurately someone's risk for becoming depressed.

What are the genetics of depression?
   He doesn't say much about this, just that the "understanding of the genetics of depression and bipolar disorder is still in the early stages." He does cite some research into the likelihood of depression for an identical twin whose counterpart has depression, (40%) as compared to siblings (less than 8%), as compared to the general likelihood of having depression (6-8%).

How can you treat depression?
    Kandel doesn't recommend anything, but is optimistic about the ability of neuroscience to analyze the efficacy of drugs and therapies with new imaging techniques and animal models. He's also optimistic about the ability of scientists to identify new and better ways to intervene in the neural circuit(s) of depression.


notes

• modern studies of consciousness and its disorders suggest that consciousness is not a single, uniform function of the brain; instead, it is different states of mind in different contexts
• Philippe Pinel (late 18thc) - argued that psychiatric disorders strike people who have a hereditary disposition and who are exposed to excessive social or psychological stress
• Santiago Ramon y Cajal (late 19thc): cell has four parts
• body
• dentrites (receptors)
• axon (long arm)
• presynaptic terminal (synapse is area b/w terminal and dendrite)
• dynamic polarization - info flows only one way (from dendrite to body to axon to terminal)
• action potential - potential voltage between outside (+) and inside (-) cell body 
• when cell "fires" the ion channels open and charge switches
• action potential is all or none
• signal intensity is determined by number or frequency of "fires"
• can divide genetic illnesses into two groups: simple (Mendelian?) or complex
• Identical twins
• autism 90%, bipolar 70%, schiz 50%, depr 40%
• siblings
• 20%, 5-10%, 10%, <8%
• general pop
• 1-3%, 1%, 1%, 6-8%
• copy number variations - sections deleted or copied
• de novo mutations
• arise spontaneously in sperm
• number of mutations increases with paternal age
• 20 yr old - avg of 25 mutations; 40 yr old - avg of 65 mutations
• recent study revealed that teens with autism have too many synapses (not enough synpatic pruning)
• de novo mutations occur more frequently in genes that code for synaptic proteins
• as Darwin first pointed out, emotions are part of a preverbal system of communication that we share with other mammals
• Kraepelin used same diagnostic criteria from general medicine
• what are symptoms?
• what is course of disease?
• what is final outcome?
• he distinguished b/w disorders of thought and disorders of mood; dimentia praecox and manic-depressive illness
• the average length of remission in major depression is about three months
• depression is probably not one but several different disorders, with different degrees of severity and different biological mechanism
• hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis
• excessive concentrations of cortisol destroy synaptic connections between neurons in the hippocampus, the region of the brain that is important in memory storage, and neurons in the prefrontal cortex, which regulates a person's will to live and influences a person's decision making and memory storage
• the amygdala determines what emotion is recruited, and the hypothalamus carries it out
• Helen Mayberg: neural circuit of depression has several nodes, two of which are particularly critical
• cortical area 25 (subcallosal cingulate cortex) - thought, motor control, and drive come together; also rich in neurons that produce serotonin transporters - proteins that remove serotonin from the synapes (these transporters are very active in depressed people)
• right anterior insula - receives info from senses about physiological state and helps generate emotions to respond
• serotonin and dopamine are modulatory transmitters - tunes whole circuits or regions
• mediating neurotransmitter - acts directly on target cell (excitatory or inhibitory)
• modulatory - fine-tunes action of mediating neurotransmitters
• studies of depression suggest that whenever area 25 becomes hyperactive, the components of the neural circuit concerned with emotion are literally disconnected from the thinking brain, leading to a loss of personal identity
• Freud's three key observaions
• children have sexual and aggressive behavioral instincts
• children suppress and render unconscious the conflicts between early needs and prohibitions, as well as early traumas
• the patient's relationship with the therapist reenacts the patient's early relationship (transference), and plays a central role in the therapeutic process
• Mayberg - used electrodes to slow firing rate in area 25
• about 25% of people with major depression go on to experience a manic episode
• differences in the brains of depressed and manic states have been difficult to document
• understanding of the genetics of depression and bipolar disorder is still in the early stages...they disrupt the connections between the brain structures responsible for emotion, thought, and memory
• the emerging view of schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder that, unlike autism, manifests itself later in life has arise from the considerable genetic research done on the disease
• positive symptoms of sch. - disordered volition and thinking
• negative symptoms - social withdrawal and lack of motivation
• many typical antipsychotics act by blocking dopamine receptors
• may involve problems in serotonergic and histaminergic pathways, as well as in dopaminergic pathways
• in schiz, synaptic pruning appears to go haywire during adolescence (too much pruning going on)
• polymorphism, common variation - more than 1% of world's pop; rare variation, or mutation, is less than 1%
• autism, schiz, and bipolar share some genetic variants
• about 30% with 22q11 deletion syndrome are diagnosed with psychiatric disorders
• overexpressed D2 receptors
• memory is the glue that holds our mental life together
• Larry Squire - two major memory systems
• explicit or declarative - conscious memory
• implicit or non-declarative - motor and perceptual skills, automatic
• both kinds can be stored short term or long term
• alzheimers, parkinsons, huntington - protein folding disorders, protiens clump up, kill neurons
• Alois Riegl - the beholder's share, creative process involved in viewing art
• creativity related to the lifting of inhibitions
• left and right hemispheres inhibit each other; damage to left side can actually enable more creative action of right side
• almost 30% of people on the autism spectrum exhibit special skills in music, memory, numerical and calendar calculations, drawing, or language
• creativity doesn't appear to be related to IQ
• sensory feedback neurons - create internal sense of body and relative position of limbs - proprioception
• in the broadest sense, the task of every circuit in the nervous system is to add up the total excitatory and inhibitory information it receives and determine whether to pass that information along. Sherrington called this principle "the intergrative action of the nervous system."
• prion - misfolded precursor protein - they self-propagate, cause other proteins to misfold
• emotions are states of readiness that arise in our brain in response to our surroundings
• the study of emotions and moods helps reveal the porous boundaries between unconscious and conscious mental processes
• 1st step of emotion - unconsious and outward; 2nd step - subjective and internal
• emotions classified along two axes
• valence - how good or bad something makes us feel on a spectrum from avoidance to approach
• intensity - degree of arousal
• four key areas for emotion
• hypothalamus - executor of emotion; controls instinctive behavior
• amygdala - orchestrates emotion; links unconscious and conscious aspects of an emotional experience
• striatum - habits
• prefrontal cortex - evaluates whether a particular emotional response is appropriate; interacts with and exerts some control over amygdala and striatum
• direct and indirect pathways to the amygdala
• emotion so important in decision making and morality; directs and narrow choices
• all positive or pleasurable emotions traced to dopamine
• a reward is any object or event that produces approach behavior and leads us to sped attention and energy on it
• heritability of addiction moderately high: roughly 50%
• addiction - pleasure decreases while memory/habit conditioning strengthens
• pharmaceutical companies have devoted very little effort to developing drugs to treat addiction
• sex and gender identity are determined separately, at different times in the course of development
• sex
• chromosomal - 23rd pair xy or xx
• anatomical - external genitalia and other visible differences
• gonadal - presence of male or female gonads - testes or ovaries
• gender specific behaviors triggered in different ways - humans particularly sensitive to visual and auditory cues, a fact successfully exploited by the pornography industry
• the neural circuits that control the gender specific behavior of each sex are present in both sexes
• sexual dimorphisms visible in the brain
• greater variation within each sex than between sexes
• since sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place in the first two months of pregnancy and sexual differentiation of the brain starts in the second half of pregnancy, these two processes can be influenced independently, which may result in transsexuality
• those who identify as transgender in adolescence almost always do so permanently
• a nucleus or cluster or neurons in hypothalamus that contains mating neurons and fighting neurons and then some that can be involved in either
• consiousness
• level of arousal
• content of processing
• Searle - three key aspects of consiousness
• qualitative feeling
• subjectivity
• unity of experience
• reticular activating system - wakefulness
• Bernard Baars - global workspace theory; widespread dissemination of previously unconscious info
• without a good psychology of the conscious state we can't make progress in the biology of broadcasting information, and without the biology we will never understand the underlying mechanism of consiousness
• percept - mental representation of an object
• Benjamin Libet - readiness potential (before an action)
• the process of initiating a voluntary action occurs rapidly in an unconscious part of the brain; however, just before the action is begun, consciousness, which comes into play more slowly, approves or vetoes the action
• Kahneman - fast and slow thinking
• neurology and psychiatry will merge into a common clinical discipline that focuses increasingly on the patient as an individual with particular genetic predispositions to health and disease

A Virginia Family

A Virginia Family and Its Plantation Houses - Elizabeth Langhorne, K. Edward Lay, William D. Rieley

   This tells the story of several generations of Coles' in Virginia and the houses that they lived in. The authors' familiar and sometimes nostalgic tone was difficult to stomach, but it seemed to come from their sympathy and fondness for the Coles. Perhaps such sympathy is essential to analyzing the motivations and actions of historical characters?
   The enslaved Africans, however, were only peripheral characters in this telling. How they helped to build these houses, the time and tasks of maintenance, how the enslaved people would have interacted with the buildings day-to-day, their role in the development of the Cole's gardens, the details of their cash crop labor - all these questions went unanswered, but seem to me very important to an analysis of the Coles' history and their building habits. The authors did discuss slavery frequently, but mostly in economic terms - which is important and helpful, but insufficient to reach their stated goal of creating a "close-up view of four generations of one family of antebellum Virginia" and "a picture of plantation society." Only in Edward's story is there a Black character presented as a person, with mind and motivation, Ralph Crawford.
   I read this book to learn about John Coles the immigrant, but the meat of it has to do with his son, John II and his crew. In any case, it's a treasure chest of art and architecture and social history. I wish these authors had put their many talents into a fuller analysis of plantation life and building.

Profile of John Coles

• born circa 1705 to Walter Coles and Alice Philpot in Enniscorthy, Ireland
• grew up in the merchant class? His father was "port reeve" for 30 years in Enniscorthy
• Immigrated in 1730's?
• married Mary Ann Winston, daughter of Isaac Winston, a member of Cedar Creek Meeting
• 1739 appointed "Processioner," one who walks the bounds of property lines
• May 28, 1741, dines with Byrd II, not sure which house
• "Commissioner of the Peace"
• April 29, 1741, his request to ship 1500 lbs wheat to Lisbon is denied
• Growing tobacco also
• Also cattle, hogs, and horses - for profit?
• Spring 1742, proposes in Henrico Co. Council meeting that the collection of houses on the James by the falls should be incorporated as Richmond
• starts (or receives from inlaws?) plantation along Fork Creek in Louisa Co, near confluence with S.Anna River, near Fork Creek Meeting and his wife's family
• other lands: along Hunting Creek and Black Walnut Creek near the Staunton River (this may have been an active plantation by the time of his death); also in Brunswick Co along Staunton River, also in Albermarle Co on Green Mountain
• bought 15 plots from Byrd II in Richmond, as well as acreage north and along Gilly's creek
• builds "first house on Church Hill;" faces south with a view of the river
• On the vestry, appointed warden and building chairman
• Enslaved Africans in his will, "with all their future increase"
• Primus ("of Fork Creek")
• Phebey ("of Fork Creek")
• Three of their children "names not known to me"
• Cloe
• Beck
• Gabriel
• Primus Jun (Junior?)
• Billy
• Doll
• Lucy
• Jemmy
• Jenny
• Cate
• Abram
• Tamar
• Will
• London
• Dublin
• Nan
• Moll
• St. John
• Betty
• Tabey
• Sebrey
• Richmond
• Wexford
• England
• Phillis
• Bristol
• Sampson
• Scotland
• Cate
• Her young child
• Hannah
• Peter
• Bowston
• Scotland's child
• Dublin's child
• Ireland
• Harry
• Ceasar
• Pharoah
• Tom
• Aggy
• Sharlott
• Sarah
• Children
• Walter 1739
• Sarah Muter 1741
• Mary Tucker 1743
• John 1745
• Isaac 1747
• Friends mentioned in will, to oversee will
• Col Peter Randolph
• Isaac Winston Junr
• Col William Randolph
• wife Mary and brother Williams executors
• died 1747, buried at St John's "under the church"

notes

• on May 28, 1741, we find him dining with William Byrd, perhaps in Coles's own new house
• it was the first house built on Church Hill
• during this period, roughly between 1730 and 1750, planters were crossing the tide line, flocking in numbers into the new Piedmont country
• from the Journal of the Council of VA, which, on April 29, 1741 rejected Coles's request that he be allowed to ship his wheat to Lisbon
• Land and slaves went together
• The land that Coles favored most seems to have been in Lunenburg Co (now Halifax) on the Staunton River
• also land in brunswick co and albermarle
• fork creek, near Anna, near Fork Creek Meeting house, seemed to be home plantation
• possible claim house erected at other holdings, simple  log cabin
• it was coles, in fact, who stood up in the henrico county council meeting in the spring of 1742 and proposed that the small collection of houses on a river should be incorporated as the city of Richmond
• bought the most lots from byrd
• his house chosen by benedict arnold for barracks
• "at the time of his majority in 1769, Isaac was already established as a planter on his father's land in Halifax Co. He was glad to sell his Richmond property to his father's old friend, Col. Richard Adams."
• supposed to have view of river and town; Adams describes flood of 1771 from the porch of his house
• the names of slaves whom John Coles II inherited from his father echo the ties to the old world: S. John, Betty, Tabey, Sebrey, Richmond, Wexford, England, Phyllis, and Bristol.
• the existence of a Coles Rolling Road mentioned in the Albermarle Co Road Orders of 1791 and 1792 indicates that at least during the first years, slaves rolled the hogsheads of tobacco to a point on the James River, whence they could be floated on the flat-bottomed bateaux to the collection point at Westham
• bought a little land from neighbor John Fortune, who was a free black
• ...[Rebecca Travis (motherinlaw)]she paid her own way, as so many widowed and single women did, through the hire of slaves in her possession; many of them accompanied her to her soninlaws plantation
• financial/currency problems around revoluntion. Andrew Drummon, "that you intend, my good sir to lay out the vile trash, which we call money - in young Negroes is wisely determined, everybody's doing the same with us, and that there has been so many belonging to the absent Tories sold..."
• such large acquisitions of land required additional slaves. "required"?
• slave cabins at monticello - 12x14 ft, wooded, earthen floor, wooden chimney perhaps standing a bit apart so that it could be torn loose
• at all the coles houses we find english yew trees, a distinguishing feature of their gardens like the mayduke cherries of their orchards
• watson was paid in beef, pork, bacon, a bottle of rum, a bottle of brandy, a pound of wool, and eight days work of George
• read Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, Isaac
• pinion - small additional wing
• "It is my wish that my old and faithful servant Sally Carr, Fanny and Peter shall have the selection of their masters among my children"
• Virginia custom no longer followed the english law of primogeniture
• 1793, John still paying bounties on wolves, Isaac goes off to william and mary
• punkah, the great fan hung over the diningroom table and operated by a Negro boy pulling a rope, standing out of sight in the back hall
• In 1827 [John III], for example, the plantation showed a profit of 4572.79, about half of which came from the sale of tobacco. In this year he was working with thirty-seven slaves.
• Isaac was working Enniscorthy with thirteen slaves of his own and eighteen of his mother's, yielding in 1809 the not small return of 4340 for the year's work
• new law that freed slaves must leave the state
• 1808 Edward inherits land and slaves, 1819 travels west,
• at the request of his family, Edward had not revealed his plans for their freedom to Ralph and others before leaving Virginia
• "How will you live if you set us free?"
• "They seldom speak of their freedom," Edward noted, "without speaking, and that too rather in a consequential way, of their lands"
• Edward moves to Philly, Edward's son Robert fights for south and dies; Edward heartbroken
• "the age of the plantations had come to an end; of that past era only the buildings, and perhaps a lingering tradition, remain"   ??
• "it is, not one family alone, but a whole vanished culture that these houses represent" ??

Highway 59

Bluebird, Bluebird and Heaven, My Home - Attica Locke

   Last week I heard an interview with Attica Locke on the radio...I think it was during a mid-day errand, so maybe the interview was from "Here and Now"? I can't remember. But I do remember how fascinating her latest book, Heaven, My Home, sounded. 
   The seedbed of this series, she says, is the region itself, east Texas: scraggly pines and farms, ranches and bayous, stretched along Highway 59, Houston to Texarkana. She needed a character to plant in this soil, to show us around, and along came Darren Mathews - Black, Texan, Ranger. How do those three identifiers define him? inspire him? afflict him? confine him?
   Equally fundamental to the story is the social landscape, race and racism in the fall and winter of 2016, just after Trump's campaign and victory. What happened with Trumpism and racism? "Something feels different." Lots of people keep saying that, including myself, and "feel" is the word I most want to understand. Yes we know he emboldened folks to be more blatantly racist, but it has felt different in quality, not just quantity. Different. It's not just that the toxic racist soup we have left on the stove boiled over once again; there might be a new ingredient in there.
   The third leg of her story's stool is an ongoing argument between Darren's twin uncles, William (now deceased) - a Ranger - and Clayton - a lawyer and academic. Both men want to protect and serve their black family and community. William thinks that is best accomplished from inside the legal establishment. Clayton believes that the law and law enforcement are too fundamentally biased against black folks to be of any help. This argument continues in Darren's soul and career - do I protect black folks with the law? or do I protect black folks from the law?
   The plots of these two books are good, the characters are solid, the idioms are fun, and Locke can turn a most handsome phrase. But her sharp racial awareness is the gold leaf of these books; Locke illustrates race and racism a foot, in process, on the move, in the flesh. She can jump right into the sticky 'tar' of stereotypes without getting stuck; catch the butterfly of identity without breaking its wings; pin the tail on racism while still blindfolded-in-love with Texas.



Bluebird, Bluebird notes

• .In the wake of Obama, America had told on itself
• Southern fables usually went the other way around: a white woman killed or harmed in some way, real or imagined, and then, like the moon follows the sun, a black man ends up dead.
• ...for every story about a black mother, sister or wife crying over a man who was locked up for something he didn't do, there was a black mother, sister, wife, husband, father, or brother crying over the murder of a loved one for which no one was locked up. For black folks, injustice came from both sides of the law, a double-edged sword of heartache and pain.
• He got it confused sometimes, on which side of the law he belonged, couldn't always remember when it was safe for a black man to follow the rules.

Heaven, My Home

• Daily, he marveled with a befuddled anger at what a handful of scared white people could do to a nation.
• After Obama, it was forgiveness betrayed.
• ...It gave Darren an odd feeling of dislocation; for a second he actually didn't trust his visibility. He felt as if he'd wandered onto a movie set. He could see the actors, but Darren was reflected in non of the action around him.
• But Darren did not suffer from the peculiar affliction that felled many a well-meaning white person - an allergic reaction to race talk, emotional hives breaking out and closing the throat completely...
• "Don't let anybody steal your grace"
• ...because even here, even in the house where he'd grown up, home was always a reach back in time, glassed as it was in memory. It was still an idea he couldn't exactly touch. Food could sometimes reach it, a pot of peas and ham hocks on the stove. Stories too. But music did it every time. Texas blues were the way home.
• "There is no redemption, there is no future free from their past sins. You give 'em an inch, they'll take a town."
• "...the gilded-lily-white amnesia that is the tourism industry in this town."
• "Perpetuating and profiteering off a fraud - the friction of bloodless prosperity, an antebellum life of civility and grace - while conveniently forgetting the lives that made this town possible."

Acedia and Me

Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer's Life - Kathleen Norris

The Wisdom of the Desert - translated, edited, and introduced by Thomas Merton

What's the angle?
   Norris is a poet and writer, and dedicated student of the Christian monastic tradition. She investigates the role of "acedia" - some combination of despondency, listlessness, depression, restlessness, and irritability - in monastic literature, culture, and her own life.

What is depression?
   For Norris, depression is best understood in a modern sense, either as a disorder or illness: long periods of low mood, low energy, lack of motivation, worthlessness, and hopelessness potentially treatable with therapy and medication.
   She is very aware of the overlap in descriptions of "acedia" and "depression," not to mention "melancholia" and "ennui." But early on in the book she tries to distinguish them ethically: depression is not a temptation or vice, it's not something that you can turn from [repent] or refrain from; acedia on the other hand is the temptation to follow a well-worn trail of irritable and depressive thinking and behavior.
    Perhaps, if we take a cognitive-behavioral and desert wisdom approach, we could say that acedia is one possible cause or contributor to depression. And/or we could say that acedia is an especially tempting and destructive vice for people who are depressed or depressive.

How do you treat depression?
   In recounting her husband's many battles with depression, as well as her own depressive episodes, Norris recommends seeking help from many different angles. Talk therapies, medication, hospitalization, prayer, exercise, writing, rest, retreats, good relationships. The only type of treatment she's clearly against is heavy drinking.
   As for acedia - prayer, discernment, and faithfulness are the main remedies. 
- Prayer. First and last of all, keep praying. Ask God for help, or at least tell God that you feel despondent, disbelieving, frustrated, if you're tired of life and you've had enough of all this junk. 
- Discernment. If you can discern acedia in your thoughts and actions, then name it, or "confess" it. Ask for mercy and deliverance. This will help you resist and turn from it toward God. 
- Faithfulness. Stick to your calling. Keep your little "rule" as best you can. Be patient with God, with yourself, with those around you. Be diligent with your basic tasks and responsibilities. Be gentle.

The promise of acedia
   For the most part, the books I've read all agree on the basic contours of depression - weeks or months of low or bad mood, low energy, low motivation, sleep disturbances, suicidal thoughts or actions, hopelessness, worthlessness. The authors have agreed that there are a variety of safe treatment options but that it's not clear what works or not, or why it works or not. They have all agreed to some basic factors that make you more susceptible to depression: neurotic or anxious personality, negative experiences - especially in childhood, depression in the family, chronic pain or other chronic conditions.
   The sticky interlocking questions have been:

• Is depression an illness, a disorder, and/or simply a basic human behavior-feeling?
• Is there a main biological cause of depression?
• What's the best way to treat depression?
• To what extent, or in what way is depression behavioral or ethical?

   I think including acedia in my thinking about depression can help me to address the fourth question without heaps of shame and guilt.



notes

• the boundaries between depression and acedia are notoriously fluid; at the risk of oversimplifying, I would suggest that while depression is an illness treatable by counseling and medication, acedia is a vice that is best countered by spiritual practice and the discipline of prayer
• under these circumstances [monasticism] acedia's assault is not merely an occupational hazard - it is a given. It is also an interfaith phenomenon.
• a parody of leisure [restless tedium, lazy fidgety frustrated pointless]
• "aversion of the appetite from its own good" Wenzel
• despair - when God appealing but impossible; acedia - when God possible but unappealing
• anger as the seed of compassion
• both a sin and an ailment...Aquinas recommends a hot bath, a glass of wine, and a good night's sleep
• history suggests that we tend to be overconfident about what we know, and that we never know as much as we think we do
• acedia can flatten any place into a stark desert landscape and make hope a mirage
• "whose specialty it is to take a dislike to staying in one place"
• monastic wisdom insists that when we are most tempted to feel bored, apathetic, and despondent over the meaninglessness of life we are on the verge of discovering our true self in relation to God
• acedia's genius is to seize us precisely where our hope lies
• Reinhard Kuhn, The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature
• Mary Margaret Funk, Thoughts Matter
• All the miracles are in the past, the people see only danger ahead
• This is truth as the devil tells it, using the lure of being free to be myself to enslave me in a sterile narcissism
• If the Church has made too much of the sin of pride, which seduces us into thinking too highly of ourselves, it has not made enough of the sin of sloth, which allows us to settle for being less that we can be, both as individuals and as society
• Godly grief vs worldy grief, "that comes from the enemy, full of mockery, which some call accidie. this spirit must be cast out, mainly by prayer and psalmody" Amma Syncletica
• "What God does in us always produces humility" Ruth Burrows
• conversatio morum
• acedia like "hitting the wall"
• one step toward that blessed receptivity for "the little things" is to discern which activities foster our spiritual freedom, and which do not
• "inside us, we bore acedia's dismal smoke./ we have this black mire now to be sullen in
• a fortunate selfconsiousness awakens in sin - Henri de Lubac
• to pray at the hinges of time, at morning, noon, and night, when we might be most open to God but are also susceptible to acedia and its attendant despairs
• Jesus reminds us, however, that it is not proficiency that heals us, but faith, and faith does not traffic with success or failure
• I could not make him want to live, but I could be his companion in making a life worth living
• the touchstone of God at work is the ability to recognize that God is trying to get us to accept a state where we have no assurance within that all is well...where no clear path lies before us, where there is no way..." Ruth Burrows
• Above all, Solomon encourages us to enlarge our capacity for enjoying the good times in life and to expect that rewards will come after pain
• When I return home I will face the same old battles with restlessness, impatience, and anger, and acedia will urge me to discount my monastery retreat as a shipboard romance
• "the monk perceives in the mirror of the psalter his need for reform" Dysinger
• If acedia is a distorting mirror, we might look for a truer reflection on the soul in what Evagrius calls 'apatheia'...a blessed state of equilibrium, free from distraction or regret. I doubt I will ever know apatheia as Evagrius describes it, but no matter: just the thought of it is enough...
• ...reminds me of what the late poet William Stafford used to say about writer's block. He claimed never to have experienced it, because as soon as he felt it coming on, he lowered his standards