All four Republican candidates promote Racism, and the repeal of the 13th. and 19th. Amendment. Would the Government of Montana objected to the SUCCESSFUL INSURECTION? How about Idaho and those Oregon Counties that voted for State Secession? Would they have celebrated Trump’s Coup?
With the Court Ruling that Georgia Democrats DID NOT STEAL the election. It’s the Democrats turn to show – REAL OUTRAGE – in tandem with the Justice System of the United States of America. By forfeit, the Democrats OWN all Christian Ideals in regards to God being THE TRUTH, and Jesus serving Lovers of The Truth!
White people tell lies in the name of their white heritage – and to protect their Second Amendment Rights. They don’t really care about Biblical Knowledge – or going to college! They believe all knowledge is – WOKE – and must be banned.
I own much of the history of South Carolina, California, Oregon, and Montana – that attacks the Rose City. Did they get permission from The Fox News Liars?
John Presco
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/19th-amendment
Montana’s lawsuit claims the ordinance is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – The State of Montana filed a federal lawsuit Thursday in the challenge of a Portland policy that blocks the transportation of fossil fuels through its borders.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said the ordinance is a violation of the U.S. Constitution that dictates trade policy and severs other states from fuel distribution streams.
“The Portland government is artificially and intentionally preventing new and expanded infrastructure in order (to) achieve its politically motivated ‘climate action plan,” Knudsen said. “Further, Portland’s hypocritical policies kneecap Montana industries and workers from getting our energy products to market while trying to protect its own citizens from the consequences of its short-sighted actions.”
The Other Montana Rose
Posted on March 2, 2022 by Royal Rosamond Press
My post and video on Sam Elliot was hasty. I read nothing about The Power of the Dog – till now! I have to consider whether this blog was an influence. The treatment of Rose’s alcoholism – is bull. It is uncanny that I have Victoria Rosemond Bond – who is inspired by Rena – fall in love with her female bodyguard. I did this to get under Putin’s skin because he is vehemently anti-gay as is Pat Roberston. This culture war I have had with Rena is on its way to The Oscars?
John Presco
The Power Of The Dog Ending Explained | Screen Rant
Rose’s alcoholism worsens after she starts seeing how much time her son spends with Phil.
In a secluded clearing, Phil masturbates with Bronco Henry’s scarf. Peter enters the clearing and finds a stash of magazines with Bronco Henry’s name on them depicting nude men. He observes Phil bathing in a pond with the handkerchief around his neck; Phil notices him and chases him off.
he Power of the Dog (film) – Wikipedia
Sam Elliott railed against Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” during his visit to Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast (via Insider). Campion’s drama is nominated for 12 Oscars, more than any film this year. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as a sadistic rancher who makes life hell for his new sister-in-law and her son in 1925 Montana. Elliott called the film a “piece of shit” and seemed bothered by how the film deconstructs classic Western archetypes such as cowboys. Elliott compared Campion’s cowboys to Chippendale dancers who “wear bow ties and not much else.”
“That’s what all these fucking cowboys in that movie looked like,” Elliott said. “They’re running around in chaps and no shirts. There’s all these allusions of homosexuality throughout the movie.”
Sam Elliott Slams ‘Power of the Dog,’ Criticizes Film’s Homosexuality – Variety
In 1925 Montana, wealthy ranch-owning brothers Phil and George Burbank meet widow and inn owner Rose Gordon during a cattle drive. The kind-hearted George is quickly taken with Rose, while the volatile Phil, much influenced by his late mentor Bronco Henry, mocks Rose’s son Peter for his lisp and effeminate manner.
George and Rose get married, and she moves into the Burbank ranch house and is able to use George’s money to send Peter to college to study medicine and surgery. Phil takes an immediate dislike to Rose, believing that she married George for his money. Phil’s rough ways and taunting manner unnerve her. One evening, George organizes a dinner party with his parents and the governor; George intends to introduce his guests to Rose so that they can meet Rose and hear her play their new piano, an instrument which Rose says she can barely play. During the party, Rose, rattled by Phil’s earlier belittling of her skills, is unable to play more than a few notes of the “Radetzky March” and is further humiliated when Phil mocks her about her practicing. She begins drinking alcohol, something she was previously opposed to doing.
By the time Peter comes to stay at the ranch for the summer break, Rose has become an alcoholic. Phil and his men taunt Peter, and he sequesters himself in his room. He brings home a rabbit he has caught, delighting his mother, but she later discovers that Peter has killed and dissected it. In a secluded clearing, Phil masturbates with Bronco Henry’s scarf. Peter enters the clearing and finds a stash of magazines with Bronco Henry’s name on them depicting nude men. He observes Phil bathing in a pond with the handkerchief around his neck; Phil notices him and chases him off.
Phil begins to show decency to Peter, offering to plait him a lasso from rawhide and teach him how to ride a horse. Peter willingly accompanies him. Peter heads out on his own one day and finds a dead cow, from which he cuts off pieces of its hide. While working on a fencing job, Phil injures his hand clearing the wood. Afterward, Peter tells Phil about finding the body of his alcoholic father, who had hanged himself, and cutting the corpse down by himself. He mentions that his father told him he was not kind enough, and Phil scoffs.
Rose’s alcoholism worsens after she starts seeing how much time her son spends with Phil. Upon learning about Phil’s policy of burning the hides that he does not need for himself, Rose defiantly gives the hides to local Native American traders who thank her with a pair of gloves. She then collapses from her rapid alcohol consumption, and George tends to her, throwing out a bottle of Bourbon that he had found in the sheets.
Phil is enraged over not having any of the hides needed to finish Peter’s lasso, and he attempts to lash out at Rose before being stopped by George. Peter calms Phil down by offering him the hide that he had cut from the dead cow, without mentioning that the animal was already deceased when he encountered it. Phil is touched by Peter’s gesture and promises him that they will have a much better relationship in the future. The pair spend the night in the barn finishing the rope, Phil’s open wound and the hide mixing together in the solution used to soften the hide.
As the two share a cigarette, Phil tells Peter how Bronco Henry saved his life by lying body-to-body with him in a bedroll during freezing weather. Phil does not answer when Peter asks if they were naked. When Phil does not show up for breakfast the following day, George finds him sickened in bed, his wound now severely infected. A delirious Phil looks for Peter to give him the finished lasso, but George takes Phil away to the doctor before Phil can hand the lasso over. George is later seen picking out a coffin for his brother while his body is prepared for burial.
At the funeral, the doctor tells George that Phil most likely died from anthrax; this puzzles George, as Phil was always careful to avoid diseased cattle. Peter, who skipped Phil’s funeral, opens a Book of Common Prayer to a passage on burial rites and then reads Psalm 22:20: “Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog”. Later, he puts his finished lasso under his bed with gloved hands. As Peter walks down the hall, he stops at a window and watches George and a now-sober Rose return home and embrace. He turns away and smiles.
Montana Rose
Posted on April 8, 2017 by Royal Rosamond Press
Today I celebrate thirty years of sobriety. I was hoping my 24 carat gold plated coin would have arrived today. Last week I got information in the mail from Deborah Cryder that said Ida Rose, and her daughter, Dollie Rose, were buried in the same grave. When I saw the stick Deborah put in the ground, I saw a splicing, and the blooming of a True Montana Rose. I will gather my roses here.
Below is a photograph of me placing Christine Rosamond Benton’s AA coin in the tomb of my grandfathers I had found. I found Frank Wesley Rosamond’s burial place in Oklahoma, and put a marker there. Phoebe Hearst financial backed Out West magazine that published Dollie Rosamond’s brothers stories and poems. Today in the mail, I got a book for Dollie, who missed growing up, and becoming a mother. She is now the muse of Poets, and will live forever. Dollie means ‘The Gift of God’ as does John. Montana means ‘Mountain’. Little Miss Rosamond was published in 1906. Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in 1933. Liz and Dollie are found in the same Rosy Family Tree.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2017
Your Name
by Royal Rosamond
The tide was low today, my love
A cadence of the sea was wrought
In melancholy strain, and low and fraught
With whisperings of your name above
The deep sea song!
A shell that lured along the shore
Whispered; “I love you evermore!”
I wrote your name upon the sands –
Would that I traced with gentle hands –
The minor chords were wont to spell
Each syllable!
The tide is high tonight, my dear.
The rock-bound shore loves the wave
But sends it dying to its grave.
The low base notes vie with the fear
The wind send on
The all-encircling gloom
Descended o’er old ocean’s tomb!
Your name is gone tonight, my love:
The angry surge rushed in above.
It cries aloud, with sea gull’s shrill
“I love you still!”
“Phoebe Hearst, wife of George Hearst and mother of William Randolph Hearst, had a great affection for the town of Anaconda. She offered to build a library for its citizens. They accepted the offer, knowing that a library would give the people a chance to better themselves.”
BORN OF TWO ROSES
A half hour ago I talked to Deborah Cryder at the Forestvale Cemetary. She is going to send me information on Ida Rose who died when she was 28 years of age of dropsy. Twenty days later, Ida’s daughter, Dollie Rosamond, dies. She is less then one year old. Royal Rosamond lost his mother and baby sister in one fail swoop. He must have been traumatized. Then, his father gets remarried to a Mildred, who may not have wanted Frank around, and he is “bound” out to his uncle, James Taylor, who married Ida’s sister, Laura Rosamond. Frank will call William Scott Spaulding his father. Did William adopt Frank? If so, when? I believe there is a typo, in regards to the Reese name. John Wesley Rose buried here. Is this where Frank got his middle name? This would make three generations of the Rose Family buried in Montana.
Edward Haney Rose is the grandfather of Ida Rose, and father of John Wesley Rose.
To be born by a mother born Rosemary Rosamond, who named me John, not knowing her great grandfather was named John Rose, is a genealogical wonder. I will be recording my findings with the Rose Family Association.
— Anaconda Standard, June 12, 1898
The Hearst Free Library is a beautiful example of a classic library built at the turn of the 20th century. No expense was spared. The doors were open to the public on June 1, 1898, and remain open and ready to serve the reading community of Anaconda–more than a century later.
Phoebe Hearst, wife of George Hearst and mother of William Randolph Hearst, had a great affection for the town of Anaconda. She offered to build a library for its citizens. They accepted the offer, knowing that a library would give the people a chance to better themselves.
Mrs. Hearst always had in mind something more than a public library. She intended her library to be a public space, one where the people of Anaconda could go to read, as well as enjoy the finer things life had to offer. She not only supplied the beautiful building with books, but also filled it with original and valuable pieces of art. It was a cultural center for a town that knew how to work hard.
Mrs. Hearst maintained the library until she handed the keys over to the City of Anaconda in 1904, relinquishing her day to day control of the library. She did however see to it that the library received an annual gift of books.
Anaconda-Deer Lodge County has maintained the library for more than a hundred years. It has done so through boom times and bust. The library relies on the citizens of Anaconda for its financial as well as moral support.
Due to the high level of service that the library currently offers and the cherished memories of thousands of Anacondans, the library continues to thrive.
Interest in preserving Alta California’s 21 missions as historical relics slowly started to gain traction in the 1890s and early 1900s thanks in large part to Los Angeles journalist and Indian rights activist Charles Fletcher Lummis, who used his successive “Land of Sunshine” and “Out West” magazines to advance his causes. Lummis took the helm of the Landmarks Club of Southern California, which purpose was to prevent the adobe-walled mission buildings from returning to the earth from whence they sprang.
Lummis, who founded the Southwest Museum of the American Indian in 1907 (now part of the Autry National Center) had a well-heeled ally in Phoebe Apperson Hearst (1842-1919), wife of U.S. Sen. George Hearst and mother of San Francisco newspaper magnate William Randoph Hearst. Keenly interested in archeology, Phoebe founded the Museum of Anthropology at U.C. Berkeley in 1901 and funded Lummis’ endeavors with the Landmarks Club.
Phoebe’s philanthropic tendencies passed down to future generations. Mission San Fernando became an active church again in 1923, but it took funding from the Hearst Foundation in the 1940s, during her son’s lifetime, to restore the buildings to their former glory.
History of Helena, Montana
Helena, Montana’s state capital and the state’s third territorial capital, became known as the “Queen City of the Rockies” with the boom brought on by the 1864 gold strike. In 1864, a group known as the “Four Georgians” (consisting of John Cowan, Daniel Jackson Miller, John Crab, and Reginald – or Robert – Stanley), stumbled upon gold in what is now Helena’s main street. The claim was staked and named “Last Chance Gulch.” The “Four Georgians” worked the gulch until 1867, at which time they went back East.
Once the news spread about the gold discovery, Helena became a boom town seemingly overnight. In only a few short years, several hundred businesses opened up shop in Helena, and more than 3,000 people called Helena home. Also, many previous mining strikes in other areas of Montana began to play out. As a result, many miners in these areas gravitated toward Helena.
As the gulch began to fill up with people, the miners decided they needed to come up with a name for the town. The name “Helena” was not immediately bestowed upon the town. The “Four Georgians” originally named it Crabtown after John Crab, one of the founders. However, many of the miners from Minnesota began to call the town Saint Helena, after a town in Minnesota. The name was eventually shortened to Helena, its current name.
Montana became a United States territory in 1864. In 1875, Helena became the capital of Montana Territory. When Montana became a state, the fight for the location of the state capital pitted “Copper King” Marcus Daly of Anaconda against rival William A. Clark, who supported Helena. Helena won, and ground was broken in October 1898 for the new capitol. Helena continues to serve as the seat of Montana’s state government and politics.
In 1883, the Northern Pacific Railroad arrived in Helena and further fueled the town’s growth. With establishment of the territorial capital in Helena, the town slowly began its transition from a typical mining town, which prevented the town’s collapse when gold ran out in Last Chance Gulch.
By 1888, an estimated 50 millionaires made Helena their home. Last Chance Gulch produced an estimated $3.6 billion (in today’s dollars) in gold over a 20-year period. Helena continued to prosper despite the depletion of gold. The town’s central location in Montana, coupled with its designation as the state capital, continued to bring in new people and roads. Helena also functioned as a distribution point (due to the transportation hub of roads and railroads that developed) for outlying mining towns and other nearby resource extraction industries. Agriculture in the valley also helped sustain Helena’s growth.
The downtown area of the capital city is situated in a steep gulch, with parts of the city perched on surrounding hillsides. This picturesque setting opens up into a wide valley to the north. On the upper eastside sits Montana’s state capitol. Helena’s glorious past is celebrated today with the spectacular 19th-century mansions, historic Last Chance Gulch businesses, and restored pioneer dwellings.
The Montana Rose Mountain
Posted on June 14, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
Royal’s Montana Stories
Posted on July 7, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press
My grandfather lived in Montana.
Jon
In Rosamond There Is No East or West | Rosamond Press
Rob Quist of Montana | Rosamond Press
The Rhyming Miner
A Voice of the Mountain
The Montana Rose
Posted on June 16, 2016 by Royal Rosamond Press
I am poised to BRAND Rena Easton ‘The Montana Rose’. This is what she wanted when she composed her Christmas letter to me. I made a mistake by upstaging her self-branding that most women are engaged in. I didn’t quite get this until I looked at Lerona Rosamond Morris’ book ‘When East Meets West’ that I got in the mail yesterday. As a woman historian she promises to BRAND Tulsa Oklahoma and the entire State with a ‘Rose of the World’ rose that she places on her husbands airplane. Lerona is on to this ROSAMOND BRAND before Christine Rosamond was born, but, my sister and her handlers missed the mark. There exist no real Artistic philosophy of this famous woman artist, that is a Creative Crime! This is why I want to focus on our Muse, Rena Christiansen, who chose me to rescue her ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in the World’.
When I saw this Diamond’s Are Forever commercial, I gasped. This actress/model comes very close to looking like Rena, but, her features are not AS perfect. Perhaps I mocked Rena, who at sixty-one lost her BEAUTY, like I lost her beauty, when she declined to be my wife. To BRAND one’s own beauty, to own such wonder, is what I was trying to capture. But, when is it ever mine, my right to do this? Where is………MY RING? Where is……MY CAR? Where is…….MY HOUSE? Where are……..OUR CHILDREN?
Which one, is THE ONE? Our winner has run a brutal race with other brutes, and somehow his sperm will penetrate her egg. Rena looked at a lot of good-looking men down at the Venice Boardwalk, she desperate to choose HER SAVIOR. None sufficed. I was the LAST MAN STANDING…..standing on the railing of the pier, being my romantic self, looking down at the crashing waves, asking;
“Where art thou?”
When I left the water’s edge, and walked past her, that’s when she sprung from hiding, and asked;
“Can I walk with you?”
The model in the diamond commercial may be the same as the one in the Mazda commercial that is shot on Mount Tamalpias where I took Rena. I showed her the world. We camped a quarter of mile from this shot. We drove around in my 1950 Dodge. She felt like a Bohemian Queen.
Car commercials have been filmed on Mount Tam for forty years. How many more “ALL NEW” autos will make their way along our ancient trail?
Many times, as we drove past the most beautiful landscapes in the world, I took my eyes off the road, for just a second, to behold her beauty in these moving landscapes. I wanted to capture her beauty – everywhere! Of course I did not want to let her go! Would you, who never had such beauty by her your side. Did she ever turn to look at me? Did she ever turn, to look at you?
I am poised to rebuild the State of Montana around her, my……Montana Rose!
Jon Presco
Copyright 2016
Montana Rose and Fort Benton
Posted on April 8, 2017 by Royal Rosamond Press
Fort Benton was named after my kindred, Thomas Hart Benton, the grandfather of the regional artist by the same name. Thomas was John Jacob Astor’s attorney who brokered the sale of the Oregon Territory to the British in anticipation of the War of 1812. Jessie Benton took part in buying this territory back. Fort Benton has been titled ‘The Birth Place of Montana’. Astor wrote a journal of his interaction with the Native Americans. He paints Edward Rose as a treacherous villain, which might mean he was a hero to the indigious people who made futile attempts to live in peace with these alien people. I would like to see the folks who produce ‘Black Sails’ do a series on this history. Rena Easton will be in it.
Astor was the wealthiest man in the world. A man named Rose, was his enemy. I am the only writer and newspaper man promoting the history of the Benton family, and Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor. Need I say I leave behind the sinsiter plotting of Stacey Pierrot, behind, in the weeds! Am I kin to Edward Rose? Rose vs. Astor, a perfect HBO series for a divided America.
http://www.mman.us/roseedward.htm
http://www.blackpast.org/aaw/rose-edward-c-1780-c-1833
Edward Rose, also known by the names Five Scalps, Nez Coupe and “Cut Nose,” was the son of a white trader father and a Cherokee and African American mother. Little else is known about his early life including where he was born. He may have spent some years working on the Mississippi River between southern Illinois and New Orleans, Louisiana.
As a youth, Rose lived with the Crow people in what is now southern Montana and northern Wyoming. He quickly acquired their customs as well as their language. As a result of that early encounter he seemed equally comfortable among Native peoples as among the Euro-American traders and trappers.
There is a Rose of Montana that is named after a song by Frank Zappa, who might have looked down his long nose at ‘Cattle Producers’. I am considering taking a train to Montana to look into the museums and libraries, one built by Phobe Hearst, who saved the Missions of California. Did she influence the design of Hearst Castle, where we hear the infamous last words of a self-made tycoon, who gives no credit to his mother? In making America Great Again, will women be excluded………….once more?
My grandfather was a newspaper man. He published his own magazine ‘Bright Stories’. At nine years of age, he watched his mother and sister be buried in the same grave. Royal Rosamond died, alone, while selling newspapers on a corner in Oklahoma City. My aunt June went here to bury her father in a unmarked grave. She then went home to tell the Rosamond Women the poor broken reprobate and failure was dead, and forgotten.
Frank Wesley Rosamond was name after his mother’s father, John Wesley Rose. In one of his books he says her was “bound” out to his uncle at nine years of age. This is to say he was…….sold. His father, William Rosamond, must have been overcome with grief. His beautiful twenty-eight year wife, Ida Louisiana Rosamond, would not be there to raise her son. William had a sawmill to run in Helena.
“Rosebud!”
Jon Presco
Copyright 2017
Montana Rose
Floribunda Roses
The Montana rose is a scarlet colored Floribunda rose with unfading red/orange color.
This Floribunda rose, also called ‘Royal Occasion’, bears cheerful, colorful, cup-shaped scarlet blooms in large clusters of 5-25 blooms. The large size flowers are semi-double, and lightly fragrant.
The Montana rose is repeat blooming all season
http://www.wikiwand.com/de/Montana_(Rose)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_Hearst
Fort Benton is a city in and the county seat of Chouteau County, Montana, United States.[4] Established in 1846, a full generation before the U.S. Civil War, Fort Benton is one of the oldest settlements in the American West; in contrast, many other places—including large cities today—were settled in the late 1860s, 1870s, or 1880s. The city’s waterfront area, the most important aspect of its 19th-century growth, was designated the Fort Benton Historic District, a National Historic Landmark, in 1961.
http://www.fortbenton.com/fbrestore/history.html
With the decline of the fur trade, the American Fur Company sold the fort to the US Army in 1865, which named it for Senator Thomas Hart Benton[10] of Missouri. A town had grown up around it that surpassed the military presence. Besides being one of the most important ports on the Missouri-Mississippi river system, Fort Benton was once the “World’s Innermost Port
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Benton,_Montana
https://palatineroses.com/rose/montana
The structure of “Montana” is intro-verses-chorus-solo-middle section-verses-outro. The lyrics, sung by Zappa in a humorous manner, talk about a person who decides to go to Montana to grow “a crop of dental floss,” mounting a pony named “Mighty Little.” He dreams to become a “dental floss tycoon,” by commercialising it. The verses are filled with pseudo-ranch pronunciation and are intended to be very lighthearted.
The most basic of all ideas was that of a search for the true significance of the man’s apparently meaningless dying words. Kane was raised without a family. He was snatched from his mother’s arms in early childhood. His parents were a bank. From the point of view of the psychologist, my character had never made what is known as “transference” from his mother. Hence his failure with his wives. In making this clear during the course of the picture, it was my attempt to lead the thoughts of my audience closer and closer to the solution of the enigma of his dying words. These were “Rosebud.” The device of the picture calls for a newspaperman (who didn’t know Kane) to interview people who knew him very well. None had ever heard of “Rosebud.” Actually, as it turns out, “Rosebud” is the trade name of a cheap little sled on which Kane was playing on the day he was taken away from his home and his mother. In his subconscious it represented the simplicity, the comfort, above all the lack of responsibility in his home, and also it stood for his mother’s love which Kane never lost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_(Frank_Zappa_song)
http://www.cordula.ws/poems/usefulgirl.html
https://montanapioneer.com/mischief-among-the-crow/embed/#?secret=vYZsvx72q8
The plot of Rose to rob and abandon his countrymen when in the heart of the wilderness, and to throw himself into the hands of savages, may appear strange and improbable to those unacquainted with the singular and anomalous characters that are to be found about the borders. This fellow, it appears, was one of those desperados of the frontiers, outlawed by their crimes, who combine the vices of civilized and savage life, and are ten times more barbarous than the Indians with whom they consort.
Rose had formerly belonged to one of the gangs of pirates who infested the islands of the Mississippi, plundering boats as they went up and down the river, and who sometimes shifted the scene of their robberies to the shore, waylaying travelers as they returned by land from New Orleans with the proceeds of their downward voyage, plundering them of their money and effects, and often perpetrating the most atrocious murders.
These hordes of villains being broken up and dispersed, Rose had betaken himself to the wilder-ness and associated himself with the Crows whose predatory habits were congenial with his own, had married a woman of the tribe, and, in short, had identified himself with those vagrant savages.
Such was the worthy guide and interpreter, Edward Rose. We give his story, however, not as it was known to Mr. Hunt and his companions at the time, but as it has been subsequently ascertained. Enough was known of the fellow and his dark and perfidious character to put Mr. Hunt upon his guard: still, as there was no knowing how far his plans might have succeeded, and as any rash act might blow the mere smoldering sparks of treason into a sudden blaze, it was thought advisable by those with whom Mr. Hunt consulted, to conceal all knowledge or suspicion of the meditated treachery, but to keep up a vigilant watch upon the movements of Rose, and a strict guard upon the horses at night.
Benton-Preston Family Go West
Posted on May 31, 2013by Royal Rosamond Press
Thursday, I took the train to Portland, the ‘Rose City’. Heading to the art museum, I saw a building with a mural on the side of it. There were covered wagons, and I assumed this had something to do with John Fremont ‘The Pathfinder’. Being kin to John, his wife, Jessie Benton, and the late muralist, Garth Benton, I wondered how much family history I could discover in Rose Town.
Lucky for me the research room was open, and taking a seat a small book was put before me by the Oregon History Librarian, titled ‘A Year of American Travel’ written by Jessie Benton who came West following her husband’s footsteps. When I read the following paragraph, I saw the light;
“At the Astor House where we were staying, we found a party favorite relatives, my cousin, General William Preston, and his family assembled to welcome back from Europe a member who had been away for years.”
Odd that this person is not named. Is there a reason? In studying the Fremont history I am struck by how sparse and scattered it is. There are gaping holes in their story that begs one to read between the lines. I have contended the history of John and Jessie has been disappeared, their true motive for their explorations, made vague and elusive. With the mention of the Astor House, I may have found the key to reading the Fremont Rosetta Stone.
John Jacob Astor was considered one of the richest men in the world. His fortune came from beaver pelts. When he sold the Oregon Territory to the British, he may have made the biggest bad business deal of his life – that he was determined to reverse. To this end, he may have employed his attorney, Thomas Hart Benton, the father of Jessie, and perhaps John’s right-hand man. Senator Benton was a promoter of ‘Manifest Destiny’.
What does this have to do with the price of rice in China?
This morning, I read a news article that the new Attorney General of the United States confronted the Chinese Army about their attack in our cyberspace. The Benton-Preston genealogy is Who’s Who in American History. In the paper he authored, Senator Benton suggests Americans should rule the West and Asia that lie across the Pacific. In response to the accusation China is invading our space, a female major defended this attack from the Chinese Manifest Destiny;
“His comments triggered a wry response from Maj. Gen. Yao Yunzhu, director of the Center for China-America Defense Relations, at the People’s Liberation Army’s Academy of Military Science, who challenged him to better explain America’s intentions in its building up of the military across the region.”
Rosamond Press 