Tonight on New Hampshire Crossroads, we'll learn the rest of the story about Uncle Sam in Mason.

Our Uncle Sam is our Uncle Sam, and always will be.

Then, we'll tour the town of Hancock in autumn, and we visit Anne Walker to hear the story of her great grandaunt, Doctor Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman ever to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Hi, I'm Fritz Wetherbee, and this is New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible by grants from Weeks Dairy Foods Incorporated, makers and distributors of fresh dairy products and premium ice creams for your family.

First NH Banks, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

Continental Cablevision, providing quality cable service and community programing throughout New Hampshire.

And the Union Leader Corporation, publisher of New Hampshire's statewide newspapers.

We are right for New Hampshire.

Today we're at the Portsmouth Atheneum, that venerable old repository of books and things historical here in downtown Portsmouth.

The Atheneum is open on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

You'll have to call them for the times that they're open.

Our first story is about something historical as well.

It's about Uncle Sam, that symbol of our country.

The old man with the striped trousers and the tall hat.

But producer Chip Neal tells us there is more of a story here than just that, and he has found somebody who can tell us that story.

Music Uncle Sam, the unchallenged symbol of the United States.

He has come to represent the will of the American people.

His cartoon image and caricature have blanketed the mass media so thoroughly that his name recognition rivals that of Santa Claus and maybe even Ronald McDonald.

Uncle Sam has become such a staple of American culture that most of us don't even question his origins.

I just assumed he was probably the only legacy of some long forgotten and now unimportant political campaign.

Although that might make for interesting reading in a history book, it's wrong.

I wasn't even close.

Then I met Elizabeth Orton Jones down in Mason, New Hampshire.

It was very jovial and, you know, quite cartoony.

He did cartoonish things.

He played tricks.

He loved that and made jokes.

All of them did, the whole family was very funny and jovial but I don't think Uncle Sam knew about those striped trousers.

That's right.

There was a real Uncle Sam.

The legend comes from a real human being.

And Elizabeth Orton Jones, better known as Twig by most everyone in the Mason area, has spent years researching the real Uncle Sam, and she is dedicated to spreading the truth about the man and the legend.

Every year, Twig teaches a section on Uncle Sam here at the Mason Elementary School, where they recently held a poster contest to celebrate Uncle Sam's birthday, September 13th, 1766.

And here in Mrs.

Cadwell’s fourth grade class, Patrick Downey won the contest with this poster.

Here is his version of the Uncle Sam story.

Now, what was Uncle Sam's real name?

Samuel Wilson.

He lived in Mason and he has a house right down the street.

How did he get the name Uncle Sam?

Well, the the army really liked him.

And they said, what does U.S.

stand for?

And they said, and the guy just said, Uncle Sam.

Now, don't worry.

We'll flesh that story out in a minute.

But for now, we've learned that Uncle Sam was not only a real person, he also lived here in Mason, New Hampshire.

I would like to make it clear that Uncle Sam was not born here.

He came here when he was 14 years old.

And lived in this house.

And lived in this house, along with all his brothers and sisters and mother and father.

And until he grew up to, what was he, 20, 23, when he went to Troy.

So at the age of 23, Samuel Wilson and his brother Ebenezer, hearing the virtues of the Troy, New York area from returning Revolutionary War soldiers, set off to make their fortunes in the new town of Troy.

Now, it wasn't easy for him to go.

He had to leave his sweetheart, Betsey Mann behind in this house in Mason, but he vowed to her that he would return as soon as he was successful.

And Samuel Wilson was successful.

He started a brick making business, then added a farm and beef cattle and a slaughtering house and ships to deliver goods up and down the Hudson, and through it all he remained a happy, caring person, much liked and respected up and down the river.

In fact, he was known affectionately as Uncle Sam by almost everyone, which of course leads to the rest of the story.

And when the War of 1812 came along, they appointed Uncle Sam as the Inspector of Meat and the provider of pork and beef in barrels for the Army.

And, one very important thing in getting his name was that all of the people loved him.

And all of the soldiers at Greenbush knew about the excellence of Uncle Sam's meat, and they would always, in the encampment, they would always make a big thing.

Well, we're going to have Uncle Sam's meat for dinner today.

That means it's good meat.

And then one day, some people were coming into Troy on the wharf, and they saw barrels there.

And the term U.S.

wasn't known.

They weren't used to it for the United States, it was too new.

They saw all these barrels piled up on the wharf with U.S.

on it.

So they asked, what does the U.S.

mean?

And the watchman said, why, Uncle Sam, of course, he's feeding the whole army.

So from that little anecdote, it spread to the soldiers.

It spread all around everywhere.

And shortly the man was being associated with U.S., the initials of the country.

And that's how it happened.

And it amused him very much.

That's a, that's an interesting part, part of this is that this phenomenon took place while he was alive.

Oh, yes, he knew it very well.

And in Troy he was.

in a few more years, he was always asked to be part of the official reception committee and it amused him.

His relatives talked about it later how, you know, really amused he was to ride along in the first carriage with the president or the vice president or whoever was visiting Troy.

And now to pick up a few of the loose ends.

He did come back to Mason to marry Betsey Mann, ten years after he left.

They went back to Troy, and she was known as Aunt Betsey from then on.

Samuel Wilson was born in what is now Arlington, Massachusetts, and then moved to Mason, New Hampshire.

He died at the age of 88, in Troy.

And here are a few of the things he did not do.

He was not a drummer boy, and and he was not a service boy.

And he was not any of those things he’s claimed to be.

All of the stories that relate to that belong to another Samuel Wilson, who was out of Conway.

And as a matter of fact, there were about one dozen.

Samuel Wilsons with the Army during that time that wasn't our Samuel Wilson.

Our Uncle Sam is our Uncle Sam and always will be.

Music You know, Twig has had a successful career of her own as an author and illustrator of children's books.

As a matter of fact, her nickname, Twig, came from the title of her first successful book, and she has made the town of Mason famous the world over by using local scenes to illustrate little Red Riding Hood for Golden Books.

From Mason, we travel about 22 miles north and west over to the town of Hancock.

Hancock is my home town and I thought I might like to show it to you this beautiful time of year.

Music This is reputed to be the most photographed church in New England.

The Hancock Meeting House.

Music The steeple is a Christopher Wren design, and this body of water is called Norway Pond.

Music The major hill in Hancock is Norway Hill.

And this, this is the view from Norway Hill.

Music The town of Hancock is a very small town.

It has only one garage, a real estate office, the town library, which was just doubled this last year.

It's a beautiful library.

Video store down there, where I buy my videos every week, and here's where I have coffee every morning.

The Hancock Market, run by Mike Cass, good buddy of mine.

There's an antique shop there.

And here, look at this.

This is the Hancock Inn.

This 200 year old inn is owned and operated by Glenn and Pat Wells.

Music And one of the most interesting things to see in this beautiful old inn is called the Mural Room.

This was one of the areas that was painted by Rufus Porter, who was in Hancock and presumably stayed here in about 1824, 1825.

He was a great person.

He was founder the the Scientific American Society.

Parted company with it.

He made a trip to the South Seas once by clipper ship.

He did murals of varying shades.

There are some in siennas and umbers rather than this one in blue and green.

He came up with inventions for a lot of things.

He had a flying ship and a submarine and all sorts of things, so he was quite a person.

This room has been referred to as the Governor's Room, also, cause when the governor of the, in colonial days, when the governor came through, this was the room that he stayed in.

Music Now, before I show you where I live, here in Hancock, I wanted to show you this.

This is out on Old Dublin Road here in Hancock.

And it is a natural phenomena, one of my favorites.

Second only to maybe Monkey Rock, which is over in New Boston, or maybe Frog Rock, which is over in Mont Vernon.

This, this is Elephant Rock.

Looks just like an elephant, doesn't it?

See, that's the trunk.

Looks like Babar.

I love Elephant Rock.

And finally, this is where I live, here on the shores of Lake Nubanusit.

Right.

This lake is about three miles long.

It's three miles all the way down to the end of this lake.

And it may be the last unspoiled lake in southern New Hampshire.

As a matter of fact, all of this frontage that you see here is owned by the Cabot Preserve, and it will never be developed.

And this water is so clear that you can see down 40 feet to the bottom in some places.

And it's so clean that most of the cottages on this lake drink it.

And the fishing?

Oh the fishing is terrible here.

It's just awful.

They haven't caught a fish in this lake in probably 15 years, so I wouldn't bother to come here fishing ever.

No.

Well, it certainly is a chilly day.

I think maybe I'll go back to the Hancock Inn, have a cup of coffee.

Music The town of Hancock is named for John Hancock, the signer of the Declaration of Independence.

And the land actually belonged to him.

But John Hancock never lived long enough to see his town.

Nature, in Robert Frost’s poetry, has many moods and it is often unpredictable.

This is the theme of his poem entitled The Need of Being Versed in Country Things.

In this poem, the narrator comes across a burned down New England farmhouse.

All that remain are a chimney and the barn standing as a testimony to the fickleness and the whimsy of nature, and perhaps foretelling the death of farming itself in New England.

Music The house had gone to bring again to the midnight sky a sunset glow.

Now the chimney was all of the house that stood, like a pistil after the petals go.

The barn opposed across the way, that would have joined the house in flame had it been the will of the wind was left to bear forsaken the place’s name.

No more it opened with all one end for teams that came by the stony road to drum on the floor with scurrying hooves and brushed the mow with the summer load.

The birds that came to it through the air at broken windows flew out and in, their murmur more like the sigh we sigh from too much dwelling on what has been.

Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf, and the aged elm, though touched with fire; and the dry pump flung up an awkward arm; and the fence post carried a strand of wire.

For them there was really nothing sad.

But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept, one had to be versed in country things not to believe the phoebes wept.

Music We'd like to thank all of those who helped us find the locations for that lovely poem.

Only one woman has ever won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Her name was Doctor Mary Edwards Walker, and she was a surgeon during the Civil War.

Doctor Walker is also the only woman ever to have had the Congressional Medal of Honor taken away.

Producer Jim Gilmore traveled to Concord to speak with Doctor Walker's great grand niece, Anne Walker, the woman who fought so valiantly to have the medal restored.

Music I think she was clearly the best recognized woman in America in those years, and certainly one of the best known.

And one of my goals is to have her better known in these years.

Mary Edwards Walker was born November 26th, 1832, in this house near Oswego, New York.

Her delivery was attended by a physician who, when she arrived, the scream was loud enough for the neighbors to hear, so the doctor commented that this one will be heard.

She spent much of her time as a youngster growing up somewhat alone and reading and I think viewed as an oddity, as something quite apart, not quite in league with the rest of them, which left her being a loner, but it also left her advancing academically very quickly and very well.

Mary entered the medical school at Syracuse, New York, and in 1855 she graduated with her medical degree.

She was the only woman to graduate in her class from the medical school.

She observed that frequently young women, she thought, went to school to become close to well-to-do medical students whom they would later marry.

They looked at it as a social life, not a scholarly existence.

Which she did, of course.

On April 12th, 1861, the Civil War broke out, and there was an immediate need for qualified doctors.

The smoke had hardly settled in Fort Sumter, although war hadn't officially been declared when she decided to pack her bags and make ready, which she did, and was in the area by the time of the 8th Massachusetts Regiment's problems in Baltimore.

And she complained early on that she, as a physician, was left to use the old broken down, horse-drawn carts, whereas the politicians got around in the more comfortable, better, newer ones, and right from the beginning they knew they were going to hear from her.

People were surprised they didn't have to treat her like a lady.

She pitched in like everyone else, did what everyone else had to do.

That was not easy in those years.

She was criticized by Secretary of War Stanton because she would treat the Confederate wounded or injured or ill as quickly as she would the others, and she quietly said, if he wanted to exchange places with her he was welcome to do so, but she would do it her way.

She did.

Doctor Walker's work in the battlefield so impressed President Lincoln that he recommended her for the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Lincoln's intentions were carried out by Andrew Johnson, who approved the award on November 11th, 1865.

The first woman physician aboard a horse-drawn ambulance, certainly in a war scene, never carrying a weapon, of course.

And interestingly enough, she was never injured.

War scenes then, the Civil War is clearly the most expensive war in our history in terms of human lives and the very fact she was in conflict with an enemy, the reason for the citation.

Doctor Walker proudly wore her Medal of Honor.

But it wasn't only for this that she gained notoriety.

Her outspoken views on such issues as women's rights, marriage, tobacco, and temperance, along with her manner of dress, made her a well known public figure.

After the war, Queen Victoria invited her to visit and was disappointed when she showed up in a dress.

The Queen had heard all about her pantaloons and pantsuits, and wanted to see this woman wearing a pantsuit.

And in Victorian times, it must have caused a bit of a furor.

I, I do believe she was, she herself said, 1902 or wherever when she saw her first automobile, I was born a century too early.

I quite agree.

In 1917, when Doctor Walker was 84 years old, her Congressional Medal of Honor was revoked by a review board headed by General Douglas MacArthur.

The reason given was insufficient evidence for award, an original record, of words in that context.

But there was plenty of evidence to restore 60 years beyond the revocation, so I'm sorry the general was dead by that time.

I'd loved to have shown him.

Anne Walker made the restoration of her great grand aunt's medal a personal mission.

And in 1976, after considerable time and expense, the Congressional Medal of Honor was restored to Doctor Mary Edwards Walker.

I would like to be more like her, like to live to 87 years of age, and do as well as she did all of those years.

But I think, more importantly, I'd like more about her to be known by more of our people.

Today, we have got to take the work one step further and increase the value of the role of women in our society.

Anne Walker continues to fight her battle over the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Currently, she is working to get Doctor Walker's original medal put on display in the Hall of Heroes at the Pentagon, and she is lobbying to have a special area at the Pentagon set aside for Women of Honor.

Well, that's our show for this week.

Join us next week when we meet a couple of crazy guys from Dover who are the original creators of the comic book and the hit cartoons series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Til then, for New Hampshire Crossroads, I'm Fritz Wetherbee.

Tonight's Robert Frost poem was made possible by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities Council, connecting people with ideas, with additional support from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.

Theme Music Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible by grants from Weeks Dairy Foods Incorporated, makers and distributors of fresh dairy products and premium ice creams for your family.

First NH Banks, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

Continental Cablevision, providing quality cable service and community programing throughout New Hampshire.

And the Union Leader Corporation, publisher of New Hampshire's statewide newspapers.

We’re right for New Hampshire.

Theme Music