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Hawker Hunter T. Mark 67
The Hawker Hunter T.Mark 67 was the designation given to five two-seat trainers ordered by Kuwait in the late 1960s as a stop-gap measure before the delivery of the McDonnell-Douglas A-4KU Skyhawk.
The first two trainers were ordered in 1963 and delivered in 1965. The single-seat Mark 57 was delivered in the following year, and then in 1967 Kuwait ordered three more trainers which arrived in May 1969. All five of the trainers were powered by the large Avon 200 series engine, making them similar to the second two-seat prototype rather than the RAF's T.7, which used the smaller 100 series engines.
Engine: Rolls Royce Mk.203 or Mk.207 (R.A.28)
Power: 10,000lb thrust
Crew: 2
Wing span: 33ft 8in
Length: 48ft 10.5in
Height: 13ft 2in
Empty Weight: 13,580lb
Loaded Weight: 17,420lb
Maximum Weight: 24,500lb
Max Speed: 704mph at sea level, Mach 0.93 at 36,000ft
Service Ceiling: 48,900ft
Climb Rate: 10.2 minutes to 45,000ft
Armament: two 30mm Aden cannon
Bomb-load: Capability to carry payload on four pylons under wings
Hawker Hunter T. Mark 67 - History
The above chart shows the approximate first serial number shipped for the indicated year. This number should be used as a point of reference only. It is not necessarily the very first serial number shipped, but it can be used to determine the approximate year your Ruger firearm was shipped.
Ruger does not necessarily produce firearms in serial number order. There are occasions when blocks of serial numbers have been manufactured out of sequence, sometimes years later. Also, within a model family the same serial number prefix may be used to produce a variety of different models, all in the same block of serial numbers. And in some cases, firearms may be stored for a length of time before they are shipped.
For details on your specific serial number you may contact our Service Department: 336-949-5200
For serial numbers manufactured prior to our electronic records, or for an official letter confirming the details on your firearm please download and mail in the Request for Letter of Authenticity form.
Ceiling Fan Parts and Accessories
Hunter fan parts like light kits, downrods, replacement shades, and even specialty bulbs can keep your fan running right. We aim to make it easy for our customers to find ceiling fan repair parts and replacement parts to get their fans up and running again. Enter the model number, and our ceiling fan manual and parts finder shows you a list of available parts for your fan.
Note that not all repair parts are available through Hunter. Some items like capacitors, wattage limiters, and switches cannot be purchased individually. Instead, you'll want to use a complete wiring harness for your model to make repair fast, simple, and safe.
3. Almanac Stamp of 1765 or 1766
(Courtesy of Siegel Auction Gallery) The Battle of Yorktown (Credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
The Stamp Act, passed by British Parliament in 1765, often cited as one of the immediate causes of the American Revolution, was, in fact, a tax. It was levied on American paper used for legal, official or everyday useful documents: ship’s papers, business licenses, calendars, declarations, inventory, etc. 𠅎ven playing cards. The “stamp” was applied to paper to denote that the tax had been paid. While the money demanded by the act was quite low and the act was repealed the following year, the damage was done.
The colonies were incensed at the notion that they could be taxed by anyone outside their elected assemblies. Mob violence and intimidation followed, forcing stamp tax collectors to resign their positions and driving away ships carrying stamp papers at seaports. Colonial orators, like Patrick Henry, as well as newspapers, seized on the issue of English tyranny taking the form of taxation without representation, building the wave to revolution some 10 years later.
PMCC 101 . Who we are and what we do
The Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC, for short) is a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the study, acquisition and preservation of postmarks, postal history and related items and to the research, recording and preservation of post office history and its attendant ephemera. More importantly, it's a community with hundreds of dedicated members (primarily across the United States). We are a premier nonprofit affiliate of the American Philatelic Society.
The PMCC maintains a host of valuable and unique resources, including the world's largest museum dedicated to postmarks (with approximately two million philatelic items in all), at Historic Lyme Village in Bellevue, Ohio. The organization maintains the most accurate directory of U.S. post offices available, as well as the world's most expansive curated collection of post office photographs. We also host an annual convention, located in a different part of the country each year!
Joining the PMCC yields many benefits. Members gain access to closed philatelic auctions, pay members-only prices for new post office Directory listings, and receive the 11-issue-a-year PMCC Bulletin.
PMCC Convention
Join us in 2020 in Jefferson City, Missouri! The PMCC's annual convention has been held annually since 1962.
Postal Glossary
What's a carrier annex? Is there a difference between a post office station and a branch? What does CPU mean? We've got the answers!
Hawker Hunter T. Mark 67 - History
The Max Hunter Collection is an archive of almost 1600 Ozark Mountain folk songs, recorded between 1956 and 1976.
A traveling salesman from Springfield, Missouri, Hunter took his reel-to-reel tape recorder into the hills and backwoods of the Ozarks, preserving the heritage of the region by recording the songs and stories of many generations of Ozark history. As important as the songs themselves are the voices of the Missouri and Arkansas folks who shared their talents and recollections with Hunter.
Designed to give increased public access to this unique and invaluable resource, this site is a joint project of the Missouri State University Department of Music and the Springfield-Greene County Library in Springfield, Missouri, where the permanent collection is housed.
The materials on this website were digitized and transcribed from Max Hunter's original reel-to-reel tapes and typewritten lyrics between 1998 and 2001. The project was led by Dr. Michael F. Murray, with assistance from Kathy Murray (tune transcriptions) and Mark Bilyeu (lyric transcriptions) from the Missouri State University Department of Music.
Mark Hunter , Professor
I welcome applications from students working in the areas of education, health, gender, race, addiction, and development. My own work uses historical-ethnographical methods to explore the political economy of everyday life. My central concern is with how intimate politics—acts embedded in sexuality, friendship, families, and other bonds—are shaped by and shaping social and spatial inequalities. I have written books on HIV/AIDS and education/race in South Africa, and now have a SSHRC-funded project on heroin addiction. For more information please visit my website www.markwhunter.net.
Selected Publications:
Selected Articles
- Mark Hunter. 2017. “Parental choice without parents: families, education and class in a South African township” Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 47 (1): 2-16.
- Mark Hunter. 2016. “Is it enough to talk of marriage as a process? Legitimate co-habitation in Umlazi, South Africa,” Anthropology Southern Africa, 39 (4): 281-296.
- Mark Hunter. 2016. “Introduction: New Insights on Marriage and Africa” (invited introduction for Special Edition on Marriage and Exchange in contemporary African societies). Africa Today, 62 (3): 1-9.
- Mark Hunter. 2016. “The Race for Education: Class, White Tone, and Desegregating White Schools in South Africa.” Journal of Historical Sociology 29 (3): 319-358.
- Mark Hunter. 2015. “The Intimate Politics of the Education Market: High-Stakes Schooling and the Making of Kinship in Umlazi Township, South Africa.” Journal of Southern African Studies 41(6): 1279-1300.
- Mark Hunter. 2015. “The Political Economy of Concurrent Partners: Toward a history of Sex-Love-Gift Connections in the Time of AIDS.” Review of African Political Economy 42(145): 362-375.
- Mark Hunter. 2015. “Schooling Choice in South Africa: The Limits of Qualifications and the Politics of Race, Class and Symbolic Power.” International Journal of Educational Development. 43: 41-50.
- Mark Hunter. 2014. “‘The Bond of Education’: Gender, the Value of Children, and the Making of Umlazi Township in 1960s Durban, South Africa.” Journal of African History 55(3): 467-490.
- Mark Hunter and Atiqa Hachimi. 2012. “Talking Class, Talking Race: Intersections of Language, Class, and Race in the Call Center Industry in South Africa,” Social & Cultural Geography 13(6): 551-566.
- Mark Hunter and Dori Posel. 2012. “Here to Work: the Socio-Economic Characteristics of Informal Dwellers in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Environment and Urbanization April, 24(1): 285-304.
- Mark Hunter. 2011. “Beneath the ‘Zunami’: Jacob Zuma and the Gendered Politics of Social Reproduction in South Africa.”Antipode 43(4): 1102-1126.
- Mark Hunter. 2010. “Racial Desegregation and Schooling in South Africa: Contested Geographies of Class Formation.” Environment and Planning A 42(11): 2640-2657.
- Mark Hunter. 2010. “Beyond the Male-Migrant: South Africa’s Long History of Health Geography and the Contemporary AIDS Pandemic.”Health and Place 16(1): 25-33.
- Mark Hunter. 2007. “The Changing Political Economy of Sex in South Africa: the Significance of Unemployment and Inequalities to the Scale of the Aids pandemic.” Social Science & Medicine 64: 689-700.
- Mark Hunter. 2005. “Cultural Politics and Masculinities: Multiple-partners in Historical Perspective in KwaZulu-Natal.” Culture, Health and Sexuality 7(4): 389-403.
- Mark Hunter. 2004. “Masculinities, Multiple-partners and AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal: The Making and Unmaking of Isoka.” Transformation 54: 123-153.
- Mark Hunter. 2004. “Fathers without Amandla? Gender and Fatherhood among isiZulu Speakers.” Journal of Natal and Zululand History 22: 149-160.
- Mark Hunter. 2002. “The Materiality of Everyday Sex: Thinking Beyond ‘Prostitution’.” African Studies 61(1): 99-120.
- Mark Hunter. 2000. “The Post-Fordist High Road? A South African Case Study.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 18(1): 67-90.
Mark Hunter. 2010. Love in the Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender, and Rights in South Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press Pietermaritzburg, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press (Winner of the 2010 C. Wright Mills Award & the 2010 Amaury Talbot Prize for African Anthropology).
Capodimonte Fleur de Lis Mark (First Version)
Illustration: Lisa Fasol. © The Spruce, 2018
This is the first mark used by Capodimonte in the mid-1700s at the Royal Factory in Naples established by King Charles VII. Prior to this mark being stamped on wares ranging from figurines to tableware, pieces made by Capodimonte were all unmarked. This marking was usually stamped in either blue or gold on the bottom of pieces made during this era. Some pieces were impressed or incised with a similar mark. Most examples with this stamping are considered to be rarities and are held in private collections or museums. They are seldom found by collectors on the secondary market today.
The most notorious person from each of Alabama's 67 counties
Finding the most notorious person from each of Alabama’s 67 counties was no easy task. It’s not like notorious people are publicized like famous people or celebrities. But like every state, Alabama’s history was created by plenty of colorful characters.
Kelly Kazek | [email protected]
By Kelly Kazek
When I created this list, I tried to stick with more historical figures when dealing with violent crimes, to prevent highlighting any recent tragedies. However, political and business figures from any generation were fair game. Remember, while the word “notorious” often has negative connotations, the definition is broader: “generally known and talked of especially widely and unfavorably known.”
Who did I choose for your county? Do you agree, or would you have picked someone else? Let me know by emailing [email protected].
(Photos: Garden by Greg Richter of AL.com/Rice by stuthehistoryguy via FindaGrave.com)
W.C. Rice, religious folk artist, 1931-2004
William Carlton Rice was a legend in Alabama – and was posthumously featured in Time magazine – for his Cross Garden. The "garden" was a collection of folk art crosses and signs on his Prattville property that admonished passersby "Hell is Hot Hot Hot," "Jesus Saves" and "Repent." It also included messages about the evils of sex and other sins. Time Magazine wrote: "William C. Rice, who died in 2004, built this 'garden' as a testament to his salvation by Christ in the late 1970s. While frightening in its fervor, the collection is an example of folk art at its most primitive."
(From the book "Alabama Scoundrels")
Railroad Bill, legendary outlaw, ca. 1856-1896
The legend of Railroad Bill began in the winter of 1894 when railroad employees began noticing a vagrant illegally riding the trains on the L&N Railroad line in southern Alabama near the Florida line. Bill eluded them, hijacking a train car in the process. This incident initiated a manhunt after the railroad detectives gathered a posse and began tracking the man they were now calling Railroad Bill. In 1896 Railroad Bill met his demise in front of Ward’s General Store in Atmore.
(Wallace in 1957/AL.com File/The Birmingham News)
George Wallace, controversial Alabama governor, 1919-1998
George Corley Wallace Jr. was Alabama’s only four-term governor, having served from 1963-67, 1971-79, and 1983-87. He was also Alabama’s only “first gentleman” – his wife Lurleen Wallace was governor from 1967-68. Wallace is known for his pro-segregation stance in the 1960s, famously saying in his 1963 inaugural address he stood for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." He is best known for his “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” when he blocked the entrance to the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop the enrollment of black students. He was shot in a 1972 assassination attempt that left him in a wheelchair. He eventually renounced segregationism.
(Source: Jacque via FindaGrave.com)
Bart Thrasher, outlaw, ca. 1869-1896
Bart Thrasher was one of Alabama’s most notorious outlaws, one who helped Bibb County earn the moniker “Bloody Bibb” at a time when it was an extension of the Wild West. Following the 1890 death of Rube Burrow, Alabama’s previous “King of the Outlaws,” Thrasher stepped into the spotlight as the state’s most vicious and wanted outlaw, committing a streak of robberies and murders that made news across the nation. In 1896, Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff Henry Cole, a famous lawman, killed Thrasher.
(Retrospective article from The Tuscaloosa News, June 24, 1973)
Bill Wilson, wrongfully convicted man, ca. 1880-death unknown
When bones were discovered in spring of 1912 by a local farmer and his son fishing in the Warrior River, local resident Jim House remembered that Jenny Wade Wilson and her 19-month-old baby had not been seen since 1908. Wilson was convicted of murder. In 1915, Judge J.E. Blackwood sentenced Wilson to life in prison. Bill's ex-wife Jenny arrived in Blount County in July 1918 and announced she wasn't dead. She and her daughter, by then 11 years old, had been living in Vincennes, Ind., and had just heard of the trial. On July 8, 1918, Alabama Gov. Charles Henderson pardoned Wilson and he was released from jail. The remains were never identified.
(Source: UnionSpringsAlabama.com)
Maj. Milton Butterfield, man buried beneath church, unknown birth-1864
Milton Butterfield, a major with the 24 th Alabama Infantry killed in Atlanta during the Civil War, is buried beneath Union Springs' Red Door Theatre, which occupies the ca.-1909 Trinity Episcopal Church. In addition, the major was erroneously credited as the man who wrote the bugle call played at military funerals, "Taps."
(Source: Murder by Gaslight)
Charles Kelley, birth unknown-1892 John Hipp, birth unknown-1892
On Dec. 17, 1892, two well-known outlaws gunned down local tax collector C.J. "Jacob" Armstrong. He was waylaid while collecting taxes and the bandits – Charles Kelley and John Hipp – stole the $2,000 heɽ collected. According to journalist Lee Peacock, a mob of about 100 people lynched Kelley and Hipp after their capture. Newspaper accounts said that on Dec. 28 or 29, a deputy at the jail where Kelley and Hip was surrounded by a mob and ordered to release the man. Then, "Hipp and Kelley were taken by a mob of 100 armed, masked men and lynched on the courthouse columns."
Nancy “Nannie” Hazel Doss, “black widow” killer, 1905- 1965
Nannie Doss, born in Blue Mountain in Calhoun County, died in an Oklahoma prison after being convicted of killing her husband Samuel Doss in 1953 in Oklahoma. She also reputedly killed three other husbands, two children, her mother, her two sisters, a grandson and a mother-in-law. She was known as The Giggling Granny and the Lonely Hearts Killer. Her crimes were committed in four states from the 1920s-1953.
Click here to read more.
(Source: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
Pat Garrett, sheriff, 1850-1908
Pat Garrett is known as the man who killed outlaw Billy the Kid. As a cowboy in Texas in 1876, he killed a fellow buffalo hunter but was never prosecuted. He then fought for the right side of the law as sheriff of Lincoln County, N.M. A historic marker in his birthplace in Chambers County, Ala., says, in part: "Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett was born near Cusseta, Alabama on June 5, 1850 . In November 1880 Garrett was elected Lincoln County Sheriff. . Billy the Kid escaped from jail on April 18, 1881. Garrett tracked him to Fort Sumner on July 14 where he was shot and killed . Garrett was murdered by Jesse Wayne Brazel on February 29, 1908. He was buried in the Old Fellows Cemetery in Las Cruces, New Mexico."
William Anderson “Bell Tree” Smith, moonshiner, 1869-1908
Notorious moonshiner Bell Tree Smith was killed in front of a church filled with people in Centre, Ala., in 1908. An article in the Coosa River News at the time said he was killed by a man named Will Chandler, who used Smith's own gun against him, following a dispute of unknown origin. The article, quoted on his entry on FindaGrave.com, says: ""Bill" Smith, the dead man, was a unique character and was known throughout all of this section as "Bell-Tree" Smith. Standing alone in the annals of illicit liquer-selling, was his scheme for disposing of mountain dew. "
Bobby Frank Cherry, bomber, 1930-2004
Bobby Frank Cherry, born in Clanton, Ala., was a member of the Ku Klux Klan who was charged with murder in 2000, 37 years after a church bombing that killed four little girls. The bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963 took the lives of Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins and Denise McNair, and injured about 20 others. Cherry was convicted in 2002 and died in Atmore Community Hospital, where he was transferred from Holman Prison, in 2004.
(From the book "Alabama Scoundrels")
Bloody Bob Sims, outlaw, 1839-1891
Initially, Robert Bruce Sims, born in 1839, seemed an unlikely outlaw. A Confederate veteran, Sims returned home to resume farming in the Womack Hill community of Choctaw County and founded his own church. The sect would become known as "Simsites." After years of being terrorized by Sims and his followers, a posse and hundreds of outraged residents surrounded the Sims home on Christmas Eve 1891, cornering Sims, his wife, their children and several church members. Finally, on Christmas day, the sheriff took Sims and his followers into custody. But an angry mob took the four men and hung them from nearby trees. The woman were spared. Click here to read more.
Hal Hollinger, slave and freedom fighter, unknown birth-death in early-1800s
Hal was a slave of Col. Alex Hollinger, who was born in 1793 in Mobile. He escaped and formed a colony for escaped slaves in Clarke County in an area that became known as "Hal's Lake" or "Hal's Kingdom." According to the Clarke County Museum, sometime in the early 1800s, Hal, an "enormous" and strong slave, took his wife and several others to the southernmost portion of Clarke County. "Now, this place is very desolate, no one lived near there. It was overgrown with enormous trees and thick underbrush. … it was little wonder that the runaway slaves were not found. " Eventually white settlers attacked and were "stunned to find the cabin and a stockade of cypress logs." Hal and three other slaves were killed and the others recaptured.
Rena Teel, soothsayer, 1894-1964
Irene Amanda Vanzandt "Rena" Teel was known as the Seer of Millerville. Born in Rockford in Coosa County, Teel, a devout Christian, later moved to Millerville in Clay County and developed a reputation for helping people find misplaced objects or wayward livestock. The late Alabama author Kathryn Tucker Windham wrote about Teel in her book, "Alabama: One Big Front Porch," saying Teel was born with a caul, a membrane over her face that many people believed meant the child had a sixth sense. She did not go into trances but instead read the grounds left in the bottoms of coffee cups.
Charles Bannister, outlaw, unknown birth and death
Charles Bannister is referred to in a number of historical records as a "notorious outlaw" and a "whitecapper." Whitecapping was a movement in which white males formed secret societies to deliver vigilante justice that eventually targeted blacks. One article from 1894 said Bannister was wanted in Cleburne County for shooting off the leg of a "Mrs. Cotton," and brutally beating Old Man Cotton. Bannister was captured in 1894 and jailed in Birmingham. He broke out of the jail later in the year and was referred to in the Mountain Eagle newspaper as "a bad egg." The outcome of the case is unknown. If anyone has more information, email [email protected].
Alberta Martin, last Confederate widow (contested), 1906-2004
Alberta Stewart was 21 years old when she married 81-year-old Civil War veteran William Jasper Martin on Dec. 10, 1927. William Martin died in 1931 at the age of 86 and, as Alberta became known as the "last surviving Civil War widow" – a title later challenged by Maudie Hopkins. She died in 2004 at the age of 97 and was buried with much fanfare in New Ebenezer Cemetery in Coffee County.
(Source for photo of grave of Gassaway/TIW via FindaGrave.com)
William Reynolds, mass murderer, ca. 1867-1902
William "Will" Reynolds shot nine people, killing seven, in the bloodiest day for law enforcement in Alabama's history. Reynolds was shot and killed the same day. Reynolds opened fire and killed Colbert Sheriff Charles Gassaway, his brother, Deputy William Gassaway, Deputy Jesse Davis, Deputy James Payne, Deputy Pat A. Prout, Deputy Bob Wallace and Hugh Jones. Injured were James Finney and Bob Patterson. According to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund website, the men "were shot and killed while attempting to arrest a suspect for a fraud offense. The suspect was eventually shot and killed after officers opened fire with more than 1,000 rounds."
(Grave of Allen Page by Melody via FindaGrave.com)
The Ward Brothers, outlaws, Irvin (1828-1859), Stephen (1834-1859)
The Ward brothers are buried in the Ward-Witherington Cemetery in Conecuh County. According to journalist Lee Peacock their story is included in "History of Conecuh County, Alabama" by B.F. Riley. The outlaw brothers were executed on Nov. 18, 1859, for murder: “Irvin and Stephen Ward were hung for the murder of Allen Page during a failed cotton wagon robbery near Brewer Creek in Conecuh County, Ala. A posse caught the brothers, who confessed." Peacock said legend states the brothers “were so despised that they were buried facing west instead of the traditional east when they were cut down from the gallows.”
(A late-19th century photo of John Kirkham from Barbara Kim Thigpen)
John K. McEwen, beloved businessman and “reader,” 1856-1939
John McEwen was born and died in Coosa County, and in between was a well-known businessman. For 35 years, he ran a mercantile that he built himself from local stone in the 1890s. McEwen was known for his uncanny "readings" of visitors to his store. He would guess their ages and vocations and was usually correct. McEwen's rock store was also known as an Indian museum and drew visitors from miles around. By the time he donated his collection to the Alabama Department of Archives and History in 1937, heɽ amassed more than 50,000 native artifacts from surrounding counties, including jewels from a long-dead Indian princess, according to a 1928 Associated Press article published in the Prescott, AZ, Evening Courier. Click here to read more.
(Source: Chicago Tribune, September, 1988)
H.T. Mathis, mayor of Florala, 1902-1996
In 1988, Hubert Mathis, the 85-year-old mayor of Florala was impeached and removed from office. Mathis, who had become known as the Voodoo Mayor after signing a proclamation proclaiming National Voodoo Week and allegedly sprinkling "voodoo powder" around City Hall, was impeached for pardoned more than 100 traffic offenders, including 27 charged with driving under the influence. Click here to read more.
(Photo of Ira Thompson from a 1928 edition of Collier's magazine entitled "The Whip Wins.")
Ira Thompson, exalted cyclops of KKK and attorney, 1889-1973
Ira Bowman Thompson was a distinguished Alabama attorney and politician who served in World Wars I and II. He also held the title of exalted cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan and was once charged with "flogging" people but the charges were dismissed. After WWII, Thompson opened a law practice in Luverne in Crenshaw County. According to the book "Politics, Society, and the Klan in Alabama, 1915-1949," he was among 36 suspected Klan members who were indicted for attacks on black and white residents in October 1927. Residents were lashed for such offenses as "loose talk and toting a hip flask," according to a 1928 article in Collier's magazine entitled "The Whip Wins." However, the case, was dismissed in December.
(Guy Hunt with his pardon in 1998/AP Photo/Montgomery Advertiser, Lloyd Gallman)
Guy Hunt, Alabama governor convicted and pardoned, 1933-2009
Guy Hunt, born in Holly Pond in Cullman County, was the state’s first Republican governor since the Reconstruction era. In 1992, he was indicted for theft, conspiracy, and ethics violations, accused of taking $200,000 from a 1987 inaugural account to buy such things as marble showers. He was convicted and resigned in 1993. After making restitution and serving a period of probation, he was pardoned by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles in 1998.
(Source: ECJMartin1 via Wikimedia Commons)
Bill Sketoe, executed man, 1818-1864
Sketoe's Hole is a legendary site where Methodist minister William "Bill" Sketoe Sr. was hanged during the Civil War. Legends often say that he was hanged on trumped-up charges for deserting the Confederate army, although details vary. When he was hanged, his executioners dug a hole beneath his dangling feet to accommodate his height. For the next 125 years, people claimed the hole would always return no matter how many times it was filled. The tale was repeated in Kathryn Tucker Windham's "13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey."
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)
George Washington Gayle, threatened to assassinate Lincoln, 1807-1875
George Washington Gayle, born in South Carolina in 1807, was an attorney who served in the Alabama Legislature, chaired the House Ways and Means Committee and was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. In 1864, Gayle made headlines when he paid to publish an ad in The Selma Dispatch seeking funds in exchange for plotting the murders of Lincoln, Vice President Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward, the same three men who were targeted in John Wilkes Booth's assassination plot. Lincoln was assassinated four months later and Gayle was arrested in Alabama on May 25, 1865. Gayle claimed the ad was meant as but was convicted. In 1867, Gayle received a full pardon from Andrew Johnson.
Lithographers: Lehman and Duval (George Lehman Peter S. Duval)
Sequoya, creator of Cherokee alphabet, c. 1770-1843
Sequoyah, who lived in later life in DeKalb County, is known for inventing a syllabary in 1821, making it possible for the Cherokee to read and write. It was the first time a pre-literate group created such a system. However, Sequoyah's early life made it doubtful he would become so famous. According to the article "The Life and Work of Sequoyah," by John B. Davis, Sequoyah drank heavily and spent all his money on liquor. But he turned his life around and learned blacksmithing and silversmithing. At some point he moved to Alabama. In later life, he traveled Indian territories and had hopes of reuniting the Cherokee people. He died near the Texas-Mexico border.
(An Associated Press photo of Earle Dennison leaving the courtroom)
Earle Dennison, “black widow” killer, ca. 1898-1953
Earle Dennison, nicknamed the Aunt Killer, was executed in Alabama's electric chair in 1953 for the arsenic-poisoning death of her 2-year-old niece, Shirley Diann Weldon, for the insurance money. She was also accused of killing another niece, Shirley's older sister Polly. Dennison, born in Wetumpka, was convicted in 1952 and became the first white woman sentenced to die in Alabama's electric chair. Later, the parents of the two little girls sued the insurance companies, saying they should have been suspicious of Dennison's reasons for taking policies on the children without the family's knowledge. Learn more about old Alabama insurance laws and women who used arsenic in this article.
(Source: Old West Gunfighters)
John Wesley Hardin, Texas outlaw with Alabama in-laws, 1853-1895
On his twenty-first birthday on May 26, 1874, notorious Texas outlaw John Wesley "Wes" Hardin committed the crime that forced him to take an alias and go into hiding for three years, 18 months of which were spent in Escambia County, Ala.: he shot and killed Deputy Sheriff Charles Webb in Brown County. Born in 1853 to a circuit-riding preacher in Texas, Hardin would kill his first of an estimated twenty-seven men when he was fifteen years old, according to the book "Alabama Scoundrels: Outlaws, Pirates, Bandits and Bushwhackers." From late 1875 until the summer of 1877, Hardin's wife, Jane, and their children lived in Pollard, Alabama, with Jane's uncles, who were both lawmen, while Hardin used Pollard as a base and traveled to Mobile and Florida swindling people out of money at cards. He was shot in the back by an El Paso, Texas, lawman in 1895.
(Source: Boaz Public Library)
Walt Cagle, rural philosopher who could tell weather, 1891-1938
Walter Cagle was a large man who lived in an isolated area atop Sand Mountain and gained a reputation for being able to foretell the weather. His visits to the town of Boaz to purchase clothing and supplies always caused a stir among locals, who took it as a sign winter weather was approaching, according to a history provided by Lynn Burgess of the Boaz Library. The local history stated that Cagle’s weight gain began in 1917 after he suffered a strange fever, called a “sleeping sickness” by locals. The 6-foot, 2-inch man soon grew to more than 560 pounds, too large to handle his farm work. According to legend, he spent his time sitting and watching wild animals and could forecast the severity of winter based on their actions, such as how many nuts the squirrels were storing. Cagle died of a heart attack in 1938 and was buried in a 3-foot-wide casket in Thrasher Cemetery.
The High Failure Rate of Second and Third Marriages
Conventional wisdom tells us that those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it, so why are second and third marriage so much more likely to fail? South African writer, potter, translator, teacher, and divorcee based in Israel Leo Averbach returns to explain.
Past statistics have shown that in the U.S. 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second, and 73% of third marriages end in divorce. What are the reasons for this progressive increase in divorce rates? Theories abound. One common explanation is that a significant number of people enter a second or marriage 'on the rebound' of a first or second divorce. Often the people concerned are vulnerable they do not allow sufficient time to recover from their divorce or to get their priorities straight before taking their vows again. They enter their next marriage for the wrong reasons, not having internalized the lessons of their past experience. They are liable to repeat their mistakes, making them susceptible to similar conflicts, and another broken marriage follows.
There are some individuals in second and third marriages who consider divorce manageable and not necessarily a tragedy. They have handled it once, so they will handle it again. They may even recognize the warning signs earlier than they did the first time around and are quicker to react, more determined to minimize the agony.
The growing independence between genders is thought to be one of the reasons for the significant increase in the incidence of divorce in first marriages during recent decades. Women have become more financially independent and men have become increasingly more domestically independent. As these gender roles break down, each gender becomes more self-sufficient in both arenas. When these individuals move on to a second or third marriage, they are likely to feel a responsibility to protect themselves emotionally and financially. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the greater economic and domestic self-sufficiency gained with age adversely affects second and third marriage even more than it does first marriages.
However, I believe that the prime factor affecting the breakup of second and third marriages is that there is less glue holding the marriage together: children, family. Parent-child relationships can be a source of conflict in some marriages, but overall children act as a stabilizing factor, and when children are absent the marriage is prone to be rocked by minor storms.
Because the majority of children born to married couples are born during a first marriage, many couples in a second marriage do not have common children to bind them together. Conversely, not having shared responsibility for kids means it's easier to leave when you are going through a rough patch. Perhaps 'for the sake of the kids' is not reason enough the stay together, though it can sometimes save a relationship.
In addition, because the couple does not have children in common, the element of family is not as central in second and third marriages. Consequently, the desire to 'preserve the family' is not as strong. For the couple, there is less at stake in allowing the marriage to collapse.
Ironically, the presence of children in second and third marriages, if they are from previous marriages, can cause problems and lead to tension. Having to adjust to your spouse's children and his/her relationship with them is often difficult for couples. Rivalries and arguments arise. In these cases, the children can be a destabilizing factor.
Generally speaking, relationships become increasingly tangled and complicated with subsequent marriages, as more and more individuals join the ever-expanding family. On a day-to-day level, maintaining those relationships is not easy.
Clearly, there are many people who learn the lessons of their first divorce and move on to happy, long second marriages. But all the evidence suggests that it gets harder and harder to keep the show on the road as you move on to the next marriage. It is this trend that is reflected in recent divorce statistics.