Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® (55 page)

THE ESSAY’S CLAIM:
“Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.”

THE TRUTH:
While five signers
were
captured by the British during the course of the war, only one, Richard Stockton, was arrested because he’d signed the Declaration of Independence. He spent 34 days in a prison before being paroled in a prisoner
exchange after first giving his word of honor as a gentlemen that he would not “meddle” in war or politics until the end of the war. He died four years later of cancer, at age 50. The other four—George Walton, Thomas Heyward Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge—were prisoners of war, captured as they were leading armies. None were unusually mistreated because they’d signed the Declaration; all were released in prisoner exchanges, not executed, as would have been the case if the British had considered them traitors.

Only man ever to pinch hit for Babe Ruth: Yankees’ outfielder Sammy Vick, in 1920.

Prisons on both sides were hellish places, rife with vermin and disease, that ultimately killed more soldiers than bullets did. However, the implication that those five were specially “tortured” is simply incorrect. In fact, as officers and gentlemen, they routinely got much shorter stays and much better treatment than the lower ranks. And despite what’s implied in “The Price They Paid,” all five lived for years after hostilities ended in 1783. Middleton died in 1787 at age 44; Rutledge, in 1800 at age 50; Walton, in 1804 at age 63; and Heyward, in 1809 at age 62.

THE ESSAY’S CLAIM:
“Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.”

THE TRUTH:
Nine of the signers died during the course of the war from a variety of causes, but none of the 17 signers who joined the military died at the hands of the British. Exactly one signer
did
die of a shot fired in anger during the war: Button Gwinnett, who was killed in a duel, ironically, with a rival
American
officer.

THE ESSAY’S CLAIM:
“Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned....Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillary, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Hayward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.”

THE TRUTH:
Actually, more than 12 had that experience. One not listed was Lewis Morris, whose son wrote to him about his home being made into a barracks, every pane of glass maliciously smashed, every bottle in the wine cellar drunk, and his crops, horses, and cows taken by soldiers. Apparently many of his neighbors in New York’s Westchester County had similar experiences. But it wasn’t at the hands of the British—it was the Americans. The truth is, resupplying troops in the field was next to impossible back then, so both armies were expected to scrounge,
steal, and confiscate whatever they needed. Hundreds of others, signers and non-signers, suffered the same fate. If you were unlucky enough to have a farm that was near a road or battlefield, it just happened.

More good news from nature: Termites never sleep—they work 24 hours a day.

On the other hand, many of the signers who had homes and farms within British-held territory
weren’t
looted. When British troops controlled Boston, they left the homes of Sam Adams and John Hancock alone. When they occupied Philadelphia during the winter of 1777, they didn’t vandalize the homes of signers Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, Robert Morris, or James Wilson. Not that Wilson’s home came through completely unscathed: During food shortages in 1779, Americans—both militia members and ordinary citizens—looted his supplies.

To be fair, the war did wreak havoc on the lives of a few signers. The farm and home of Francis Lewis were looted in late 1776, and his wife was held by the British. (She had ignored an order to evacuate Long Island.) A few months later she was traded for the captured wives of British officials, but her confinement damaged her health and she died a few years later. Her husband largely retired from public life after her death.

THE ESSAY’S CLAIM:
“Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.”

THE TRUTH:
Only one signer’s son was killed in battle: James Witherspoon, son of John Witherspoon. The other claim is true: Aaron and Thomas Clark, the two sons of Abraham Clark, were taken prisoner but survived. (Thomas Clark was captured twice and escaped both times.)

THE ESSAY’S CLAIM:
“Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.”

THE TRUTH:
Braxton earned his fortune the old-fashioned way: He inherited some of it and married into more, first by wedding a wealthy heiress while still in his teens (she died two years later), and then by marrying another one two years after that. Unfortunately, having money isn’t the same thing as keeping it. He invested heavily in shipping—including the transport of slaves
from Africa (“the price of Negros keeps up amazingly,” he wrote to potential partners in 1763)—and lost a lot of money during the war, not because he’d been targeted for having signed the Declaration of Independence, but because all shippers suffered losses. Between British embargos and piracy, Braxton lost his investments and much of his income, as did many who were in shipping during the war, and had to sell some of his land. However, he didn’t lose it all, and recovered most of his fortune after the war. Braxton’s business ethics were less than sterling, and he spent his postwar years evading investors and creditors and battling lawsuits. Yet although he lost much of his fortune, he was
still
richer than most other colonists. He died in one of the several estates he still owned...not “in rags.”

66% of Iceland’s university degrees are awarded to women.

THE ESSAY’S CLAIM:
“Thomas McKeam was forced to move his family almost constantly.... His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.”

THE TRUTH:
This one’s not even spelled correctly: His name was
McKean
, not McKeam. He wrote to John Adams in 1777 that he’d been “hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to remove my family five times in three months.” However, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with having signed the Declaration—
none
of the signers’ names appeared in print until January 1777, and McKean’s didn’t appear even then, leading to the conclusion that he was one of the stragglers who added their names to the document very late. He was, however, a militia leader, and engaged in armed conflict with the British, so it’s no surprise that he was being hounded. Regardless, the author of “The Price They Paid” exaggerated the riches-to-rags story: According to a contemporary account, the estate McKean left when he died consisted of “stocks, bonds, and huge land tracts in Pennsylvania.”

THE ESSAY’S CLAIM:
“In the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr. noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.”

THE TRUTH:
Well, no, it didn’t quite happen like that. Another Internet version of this tale has Nelson telling the Marquis de
Lafayette, not Washington, to destroy his own home—that didn’t happen, either. There’s also a version that Nelson bet some French gunners that they couldn’t hit his house from where they were located, offering a reward to anybody who could. Also untrue. In fact, his home survived and is now part of the Colonial National History Park. (However, according to the Park Service, “the southeast face of the residence does show evidence of damage from cannon fire.”)

One million dollars’ worth of pennies would weigh 288 tons.

CLAIM
(from Paul Harvey’s original 1956 version): “John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year, he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later, he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.”

THE TRUTH:
This one wins the Pants-on-Fire prize. Here’s what is true: Hart
did
have 13 children, his farm
was
captured and looted in November 1776, and he
did
go into hiding (for two months). Everything else? Not. His wife couldn’t have been “dying,” because she’d died a month earlier. His children hadn’t vanished; they’d grown up and moved away—nearly all were adults. And Hart himself didn’t die “a few weeks later” from “exhaustion and a broken heart.” Instead, he served as Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly and was re-elected to the Continental Congress twice before being laid low by kidney stones in May 1779.

MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH

Liam Aiken was a child actor who had worked with director Chris Columbus on the 1998 drama
Stepmom
. In 2000 Columbus gave Aiken the role of Harry Potter in
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
. A day later, Warner Bros. forced him to retract the offer. Why? J.K. Rowling, the author of the
Harry Potter
book series, had put a clause in her contract prohibiting the use of any non-British actors. Aiken was American, so he was out.

The first American Indian reservation was established in 1758, in New Jersey.

THE CHOCOLATE POODLE

There are more than 50,000 public houses—or pubs—in Britain. They serve as neighborhood meeting places, community centers, diners, and watering holes. And part of the centuries-old tradition is to give pubs colorful names. Here are some real pub names, past and present
.

The Leg of Mutton and Cauliflower

The Duke Without a Head

Printers Devil

The Old Mother Redcap

Bull and Spectacles

Donkey on Fire

Dirty Dick’s

The Jolly Taxpayer

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem

Cow and Snuffers

The Thatcher’s Foot

Muscular Arms

The Sociable Plover

The Spinner and Bergamot

The Cat and Custard Pot

The Strawberry Duck

Who’d A Throwt It

Sally Up Steps

The Old Thirteenth Cheshire Astley Volunteer Rifleman Corps Inn

The Quiet Woman

The Old Queen’s Head

Round of Carrots

Mad Dogg at Odell

The Inn Next Door Burnt Down

The Bucket of Blood

The Poosy Nancies

The Blind Beggar

The Olde Cheshire Cheese

The Bitter End

Q

The Hole in the Wall

Ye Olde Fighting Cocks

The Crooked House

Slug and Lettuce

The Dying Cow

The Old New Inn

The Case Is Altered

The Shoulder of Mutton and Cucumber

The Same Yet

The Penny-Come-Quick

Ye Olde Bung Hole

The Ram Jam

The Chocolate Poodle

The Drunken Duck

The Hark to Mopsey

The House Without a Name

The Fool & Bladder

Las Vegas study: Scented slot machines generate 53% more revenue than unscented ones.

BAD NEWS BARBIES

When you’re one of the most popular toys ever, you’re bound to stir up some controversy now and then
.

B
ACKGROUND
Almost since Mattel Toys first introduced Barbie in 1959, the doll has been criticized for perpetuating an unrealistic and even dangerous standard of beauty for girls. For example, research shows that if Barbie were a real adult woman, she’d be 5'9" and weigh 110 pounds—thin enough to classify her as an anorexic. But Barbie hasn’t just sent out a subliminal “thin is in” message—she’s actively promoted it. The 1963 Barbie Baby-Sits set included a pamphlet for girls called
How to Lose Weight
. One of the tips in the pamphlet: “Don’t eat!” Two years later, the booklet was included in the Barbie Slumber Party set, along with a bathroom scale, permanently set at “110 pounds.” Here are a few more controversies associated with Barbie dolls.

SHARE A SMILE BECKY

With an eye toward divertsity, in 1997 Mattel introduced a friend of Barbie’s: Share a Smile Becky, a teenager with an unspecified disability that required her to use a wheelchair (a pink one, which came with the doll). Becky kept a low profile until 17-year-old Kjersti Johnson, a Washington girl with cerebral palsy who used a wheelchair herself, wrote a letter to Mattel to inform them that Barbie’s Dream House was not wheelchair accessible—while the Dream House did have an elevator, it was too narrow to accommodate Becky’s chair. The company promised a future redesign of the house, but instead just dropped Becky from the Barbie line.