GIVING HUMANS THE BIRD, War on the Lake Davis Pike

I have a horrible feeling that somehow we’ve gotten this whole endangered species thing backward. Yes, we continue to carelessly destroy habitats, introduce alien species, and randomly dump industrial waste, and that’s all bad and we should stop it. But I’ve been eating dolphin safe tuna for almost forty years now and the darn dolphins are still not safe. I thought these guys were supposed to be so smart! Meanwhile, nobody was trying to protect the Northern Pike of Lake Davis, California: Quite the opposite.

See, some idiot released a couple of Esox Lucius Linaeus – Northern Pike - into the small and placid Lake Davis back in 1991 because they thought Pike would be fun to catch. Unfortunately the lake already had a stocked population of game fish, Onocorhynchus clarki – Rainbow Trout - which are not only native to the lake but a popular game fish amongst tourists. However the trout are also an easy meal for the voracious Northern Pike.
To the California Fish and Game Department the worry was that once these piscatorial carnivores had finished off the Trout they would swim downstream on the Feather River, into the Sacramento and then upstream to devour the Delta Salmon fry populations, which Fish and Game had just spent tens of millions of dollars re-introducing. So, beginning in 1997 the California Fish and Game Department has spent something in excess of $24 million trying to kill off these finned invaders from Minnesota  and that effort didn't prove to be fun for anybody, except possibly the Pike.

The Northern Pike of Lake Davis were poisoned. They were electrocuted. They have been shot, netted, hooked, cornered, dynamited, starved and suffocated. The state even drained the lake. For over a year the nearby human population couldn’t drink the water, it was so full of piperonyl butoxide. The pike barely noticed the stuff.

Sometimes it seemed that the "experts" were hunting down the pike individually, one at a time, to beat them to death with sticks and clubs. It was like trying to control flies with a fly swatter. It seems to have just ticked them off.These Franken-Pike refused to die. They weren't on any endangered species list, they’re on the ten most wanted list. They’ve had more people gunning for them than Osama bin Laden, and with about as much luck.When nothing else worked California Fish and Game tried stocking Lake Davis with oversized Trout fry, thinking they would be too big for the young Pike fry to eat and the Pike would then starve to death or be eaten by the giganto-trout. But in response the Pike began growing nine to fourteen times faster than normal. They became super-pike fry-enators: big nasty Pike that had no trouble swallowing the Trout of unusual size.
Six hundred Pike were caught in Fish and Game sample nets the year after the lake was poisoned. In 2004 the catch was 17,635. In all, something over 65,000 Pike have been pulled from Lake Davis since humans began trying to eradicating them, and God knows how many sacrificial Trout. But however many it was, it wasn't enough.

In May of 2005 the Pike Fry were caught trying to find a way around the specially built screens on the spillway. And in 2006, after a winter of heavy snow pack and spring rains, Lake Davis came within inches of overflowing the spillway entirely, releasing the Pike directly into the Sacramento River system. Still, not willing to admit he has been beaten by a mere fish, Steve Martarano of California Fish and Game gamely insisted, “We’ve gotten better at knowing where the Pike are.” Yeah, Steve: they’re in the water.

Well, in January, 2007, Fish and Game announced plans to try it one more time. That fall,  as part of yet another $12 million "new" program, about 48,000 acre feet of “rotenone”, a commonly used and “safe” pesticide, were dumped into the lake and, this time, upstream in the lake's tributaries. And this, The Department of Fish and Game assured everyone, would finally kill off "the-Pike-that- wouldn't-die" without killing the people or the local economy...again. They would not know for certain if it worked until the spring of 2008. 

The ice over Lake Davis that year was 12 to 24 inches thick, but under the ice 31,000 new Eagle Lake Trout had been re-stocked, ranging in size from 8 oz.to 3 lbs. And down there, in the dark water, unseen by human eyes, the battles were occuring which would  decide the fate of many a naturalist at Fish & Game. As spring approached they poured in another 1 million trout. And everybody in California had their fingers crossed. And come spring, the hated Pike were gone, And ever since, "...there have been no confirmed cases of northern pike in the lake."  Still the locals cannot avoid the gnawing anxiety that somewhere in the still, deep, dark waters of Lake Davis, the ancestors of the Pike are merely waiting to rise and begin to eat tourists and boats and any SUVs parked too close to the shore. And in that way, the story of Lake Davis reminds this reader of a Mary Shelly monster story.  

Meanwhile, at the same time,  biologists were raising endangered California condor chicks. They were even using hand puppets to feed the baby vultures, so they would have no positive human interaction before they were released. But despite these efforts about a half dozen of the first juvenile Condors freed in the wild chose to hang out at the Pine Mountain Club, a condo resort village down the road from Fraser Park, at the Western end of the Tehachapi mountain range between Central and Southern California. The problem was that the bird brains figured out on their own that their razor sharp beaks and talons designed to rip open animal carcasses worked even better on plastic trash bags and kitchen window screens.

One “naturalist” studying the Condor-condo interactions returned home after a hard day of remote Condor observing via powerful binoculars to discover three of the 30 pound birds and their 10’ wingspans, gallivanting about his bedroom, using it as a sort of playroom and free toilet. They had entered via a slit they made in his window screen. One was in his underwear drawer shredding his shorts while the other two were slowly dissecting his mattress with all the abandon of adolescences free from parental oversight.  It almost looked as if the birds had picked out this guy personally to deliver the message; "Stop watching us, you eco-papparazi!" Now the average citizen, like say maybe Russel Crowe, would have gone into that room with a broom and defended his privacy, and he would driven those feathered gangbangers out the way they had come in!

But this guy was a “naturalist”. So, to avoid human interaction with the feathered truants he retreated until the birds got bored and left on their own. The “naturalists” then convinced local politicians to require all trash to be held inside until the morning of collection, and then placed only in locking containers. And at the landfill a bulldozer would immediately cover the trash bags with dirt
The thinking was that without an easy food supply the condors would return to their natural behaviors.  Instead the Condor youth gangs’ response was to loom about on the roof of a local restaurant, depressing the hell out of potential customers. The condors were actually waiting for the trash trucks to arrive. They would then use their extraordinary skills at gliding to follow behind the trucks all way to the dump, where they quickly descended on the leftover meat and soup cans and macaroni and cheese containers as if they were a dinning on a dead wooly mammoth. The front loaders couldn’t cover the trash bags without the risk of burying a condor at the same time, so the meals could now be eaten at leisure in a sort of Condor olfactory buffet. Game, set, and match to the Condors.
The biologists and naturalists were horrified because it didn’t fit their image of noble Condors sailing in an empty sky above an untouched wilderness - which is where the Condors almost became extinct in the first place. Need I point out that not a single condor died at the Pine Mountain Club? They ate too many french fries but none of them died!
The happy ending to this story of rebellious Condors is that once they matured and mated the adult condors didn’t want their offspring growing up in an urban environment anymore than Republicans do. Today, the Pine Mountain Club is condor free, except for a few weeks every summer when the newly adolescent vultures fly in for a sort of condor rumsringa. They eat spicy food, taunt the humans and stage panty raids on the naturalists. And then they leave.
Now, I’m not suggesting we try protecting endangered species with dynamite or by raising their cholesterol levels, but it does seem that the animals we’re protecting are all in trouble while the ones we’re trying to exterminate are experiencing population booms. What can we learn from this? Well, that there are almost seven billion humans on this planet at present and baring a natural disaster or WMD we are not going anywhere. And if we do, so are the Condors and most of the Pike and Trout. Modern Condors, searching for dinner while soaring above the wilderness are going to see a lot more humans than dead deer. And Pike and Trout are going to meet a lot of little fish with hooks in them. So why not “humanize” them, teach them what every mentally challenged pigeon already knows; the fries are better at Burger King, don’t drink the yellow water, never trust a politician in an election year and don’t go swimming in Lake Davis unless you want your talons bitten off.

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A HOLE IN THE HEAD, Phineas P.Gage Opens Up.

I suppose there are a hundred ways to measure the experience of Phineas P. Gage.The most unlikely and least helpful might be the field of phrenology, which held that just as a lifetime of muscular exertion leaves evidence on the leg and arm bones, mental endeavors - personality, intelligence and emotions - leave tell-tale imprints on the top of the skull. Or so the theory went. Practitioners, like the American Orsen Squire Fowler, would run their fingers over the bumps on your head and divined your occupation, your character flaws, even why you were having trouble sleeping. But as Fowler acknowledged, "....phrenology is either fundamentally true or else untrue..." - a statement, which standing alone,  is undoubtedly true. But the ultimate disproof of phrenology would be provided by the words actual words, "Phineas Gage".

Phineas was originally an Egyptian title, meaning a dark or bronze skinned oracle. He first appears in the Old Testament  (Numbers 25, verses 7-8), as a priest's son who spies the Hebrew prince Zimri entering the Tabernacle with a Midianite woman. In a fit of offended religious passion, Phineas runs them both through with a spear. For this double murder, Moses rewards Phineas. Not what Jesus would have done, certainly.  but not until his 19th Century namesake did a Phineas pay the price for that ancient excess of zeal.

His family name was English. Almost half of all modern English words were adopted from the French spoken in Normandy in 1066, the year the Normans conquered England. This Old French was mostly based on the everyday language spoken by Roman soldiers. In their Vulgate Latin a "jalle" was a measure of liquid, equal to a gallon, and a "jalgium" was the stick or rod inserted into an amphora to measure how much wine was left. Over centuries the pronunciation became a "gaunger". And after the "Great Vowel Shift" in English at the end of the Middle Ages, the pronunciation was shortened to "gauge". Thus a gauge is a standard of measurement, or a tool used to measure. And by a happy coincidence, those two words describe the 19th century Phineas Gage perfectly - an oracle of measurement. If unwilling.

In 1823 Phineas P. Gage was born in the southern New Hampshire village of Lebanon. He grew into a strikingly handsome young man, and a natural leader. At 24 years of age he became a "Navvie" for the Burlington and Rutland Railroad. The term was borrowed from canal builders who plotted their work cross-country by compass. Inland navigators they were called. Phineas quickly rose to the level of foreman, and was entrusted with the dangerous job of blasting through the hard New England granite to ensure a level road bed for the rails.

In 1825 Englishman George Stephenson's locomotive "The Rocket" took less than two hours to haul 36 wagons of coal nine miles to the docks on the River Tees. His steam locomotive was not only a revolution in speed, but also reduced transportation costs by two thirds. George had set his new rails four feet eight and one-half inches apart because that was the "gauge", or measure of the old rails, used when the wagons were pulled by horses. Customers now literally followed in Stephenson's tracks. Of course, George had since improved on his design, adding six inches for increased stability. But rather than replace these 1,200 miles of substandard rails already in use, the royal commission of 1845 decreed that four feet eight and one-half inches would be the "Standard Gauge" for Britain, and eventually most of the rest of the world. That same year, 1845, George Stephenson, "Father of the railways" was married for the third time. And shortly thereafter he died.

Three years later, on Wednesday 13 September, 1848,  a Rutland and Burlington Railroad construction crew, headed by the 25 year-old foreman Phineas P.Gage, was preparing a road bed outside of the little mill town of Cavendish, Vermont.  Each member had a simple job, which is to say their collective task was a technically complicated jigsaw puzzle of mundane occupations, which when combined in a specific order, changed the world.

In this case, an engineer would determine where rock was to be removed. Other men would drill a hole into the rock. Phineas Gage would then pour a measure of black powder into the hole. Then he would pour a measure of sand on top of the powder, and firmly tamp it down.  Then Phineas would insert a fuse through the sand into the powder. Then he would repeatedly drop a 35 pound, three and a-half foot long iron tamping rod into the hole to compact the charge. Finally, Phineas would light the fuse.

After the resulting explosion, workers would remove the broken rock while the engineer determined where the next charge would be placed.

Toward the end of a had day's work, at just about 4:30 P.M., Phineas ordered his weary drilling team to take cover yet again.

Again he poured black powder into the drill hole, but in haste this time he forgot to add the sand. So when he shoved down the iron tamping rod, it sparked against the granite. And without the insulating sand, that set off the black powder.

There was a sharp loud crack. In something less than one second, the 35 pound rod was driven out of the hole, penetrating just below Gage's left cheek bone, destroying his left eye, plowing through his brain and blasting out the top of his skull. 

The tamping rod landed 80 feet away, smeared in blood and brain matter.. The startled crew rushed to Phineas' assistance and found him awake and alert. (Below, A), but stunned.

With assistance Phineas clambered aboard an ox cart, and suffered the jarring forty-five minute long, three quarters of a mile ride back to his boarding house (above, T)  in Cavendish. , where he waited on his front porch for an hour for the arrival of Dr. Edward  Harlow.

 "I first noticed the wound," wrote the good doctor, "before I alighted from my carriage, the pulsations of the brain being very distinct." 

The doctor recorded that his patient had a pulse of 60, was breathing regularly and his pupils were reactive. He reported no pain. "Mr. Gage...was relating the manner in which he was injured to the bystanders," wrote Dr. Williams, ".(and then) got up and vomited; the effort...pressed out about half a teacupful of the brain, which fell upon the floor."  After an initial exam, Dr. Williams escorted Gage to the local hospital.  Over the next 24 hours Gage slipped into a coma, and his conditioned worsened until Williams lifted open the skull again and reported a "mold" growing on the brain. Williams wiped this away, and replaced the skull fragments. After that Phineas quickly  improved, woke up and appeared to recover fully, except for the missing left eye. 

The tamping rod had performed the first recorded frontal lobotomy in modern history on Phineas Gage's brain, disconnecting and destroying that part of his mind which dealt with "....future consequences... chooses between good and bad actions... (and) override(s) and suppress unacceptable social responses..." (Wikapedia - "Frontal Lobe"). Patients subjected to a frontal lobotomy do "...not respond to imaginary situations, rules, or plans for the future...pursued immediate gratification without regard for consequences.... (and) tended to be distracted by immediate stimuli" In addition, the patient displays "an empty euphoric effect...(and) can get unusually aggressive and tends to use puns a lot." In other words, Phineas Gage was a new gauge.

http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch02_human_nervous_system/lobotomy_effects.html

Despite occasional setbacks, Phineas was able to travel the thirty miles to his mother's home, in Lebanon, New Hampshire in time for Christmas, 1848.  He returned to Cavendish in April of 1849, and Dr. Harlow noted "his physical health is good, and I am inclined to say he has recovered. Has no pain in (his) head, but says it has a queer feeling which he is not able to describe."  Phineas' cryptic response brings to mind the 12 year old boy who was subjected to a frontal lobotomy over a century later, in 1960. He later told an interviewer, "I've always felt different - wondered if somethings missing from my soul."

Phineas never worked as a "navvie" again. Briefly he tried selling his story via public speaking engagements, and displaying his rod. But handsome though he still was, that career never suited him. Despite rumors that he appeared in P.T. Barnum's museum in New York, there is no evidence he ever did. Instead, in 1851, he found a job at the Hanover Inn in Dartmouth, New Hampshire, as a stable hand and coach driver. Perhaps he found animals a better gauge of Gage than humans.

Then in 1854 he went to work for another stage line , this time in Valparaiso, Chile. He took with him his "constant companion", that iron tamping rod. Phineas held down his new job for seven years, far longer than you would expect from an unpredictable violent man. Those too are just rumors.

But one of the occasional side effects of a frontal lobotomy are seizures caused by scar tissue within the brain. And those now struck Phineas. In 1859 Phineas rejoined his mother, sister and her husband, who were now living in California. He got a job as a farm hand in Santa Clara County, at the southern end of San Francisco Bay. But the seizures got worse, and on 21 May, 1860, he died of what the doctors called complications of epilepsy, six months short of twelve years after he forgot to load the sand atop the black powder.

Phineas Gage died just as the American Civil War was exploding. Over the next four years the number of survivors with brain injuries multiplied.

Doctors now had patients and skulls aplenty to examine, and upon reflection they reached several conclusions. First, it was clear that the bumps on the top of the head were not denotative of anything going on inside the skull. Phrenology was bunk. But the disabilities of various head wound survivors was proof that different sections of the brain did perform different functions.

And third, the old adage that medicine is the search for profit after death, was confirmed when in 1866, Dr. Harlow convinced Phineas' sister and brother-in-law to disinter Phineas just long enough to chop off his head and ship it and the tamping rod back to Boston. There Doctor Harlow used it as an exhibit in his second (and more colorful) paper. It was this version of events which made Phineas famous as the the man who reset the gauge  for brain injuries.

Meanwhile the standard gauge of American railroads is still just four feet eight and one-half inches. I guess some things never change.

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AXIS OF EGO - The Conquest of California

I urge those who still adhere to the “Great Man” theory of history, to consider what historian T.H. Watkins has called the “low comedy…” of the American conquest of California. There wasn’t a “Great” man in the entire cast, despite having three chances at one. In fact, the second act was almost reduced to slapstick, thanks largely to Marine Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie.

What should have been the curtain on Act One came down grandly on 11 August, 1847, when the United States captured Los Angeles with little more than a band playing “Yankee Doodle”. Sacramento, Monterey and San Diego had already succumbed to the Americans, who had infiltrated the vast territory  and captured it from within. Prime examples were the 3,000 citizens of the Pueblo of Angeles who, after decades of intermittent and ineffective government from Mexico, were optimistic about joining the “Norteamericanos”.  But the gringo conquistadors were stretched so thin. that after three weeks they had to abandon governance of the largest town in California to the oversight of Lt. Gillespie and his forty volunteers, whereupon “Archie” proved to be a far better Lieutenant than he was an Alcalde - or Mayor.

Gillespie was arrogant and not very bright, and had never had an independent command before. Instead of trying to bond with the community leaders, this popinjay bullied and blustered and placed the town under martial law.  His curfew starved the stores and cantinas surrounding the plaza until their cash flow resembled the usually anemic L.A. River.   Homes were searched and personal belongings were confiscated.  Anyone who tried to reason with Gillespie was arrested. Finally, on the night of 23 September, 1847, when a group of drunken Angelinos got into a fight with some drunken soldiers, the Lieutenant panicked and retreated to a hill top fort overlooking the town.

Unfortunately the fort had no water supply. And this combination of American arrogance and stupidity swelled the ranks of the Californian rebels’ with self confidence. Their numbers rose to 400. On 8 October, 1847 Gillespie was forced to quit the waterless “Fort Monroe”. He retreated to San Pedro, where he recruited seamen and marines from a naval sloop.  But 150 picadors drove him off again. (The “greasers” were short on guns and powder, but not brains or courage.) Towns all across southern California now staged their own revolts, and suddenly the American conquest of California, an accomplished fact in mid-August, was in doubt all over again.

Two men rode to Gillespie’s rescue. One was a dull, journeyman soldier with a real talent for carrying a grudge, Brigadier General Stephen Kearny (pronounced 'Karney'),  known as the Father of American Cavalry. He was marching west with 300 dragons after having conquered New Mexico. The other man was Colonel John C. Fremont, who had an actor’s sense of direction and a soldier’s sense of subtly, and would prove to be one of the luckiest idiots in American history. Fremont was currently in Monterey, commanding the 500 barflies and adventurers of the “California Battalion”, right now the single largest land force West of the Colorado River. Informed of Gillespie’s retreat, Fremont immediately marched south with about 150 of his more sober warriors.

Meanwhile out in the parched, wind swept California high desert, the exhausted General Kearny had run into Kit Carson, who informed him that California was already conquered. Relieved, Kearny sent 200 of his dragoons back to Santa Fe, and resumed his march west with just 100 men. But then he ran into Gillespie, with the story of the uprising in Los Angeles.

Gillespie assured Kearny that the Californians had almost no guns, were disorganized and could be easily bullied by real soldiers. What followed was the battle of San Pasqual, which ended with a half dozen American dead and both Kearny and Gillespie wounded, (Kearny losing an arm) and the Americans trapped atop a waterless Mesa. I can't shake the conviction that Gillespie had something ti do with that. They were rescued only when Kit Carson made a daring escape under fire and returned with navy reinforcements from San Diego. Needless to say, after that everybody stopped taking any advice from Gillespie.

Meanwhile Fremont had been marching down the coast, reasserting American dominance like an avenging angel, sort of. There was no fighting. There was no shooting. There were no flaming haciendas.

And most important of all, after peacefully occupying San Luis Obispo on 14 December, 1847, Fremont was met not by an opposing army but by the lovely Dona Ruiz, married to the cousin of Andres Pico, the last Mexican commander of the Californians. She was the perfect weapon for the operation.  Lovely, smart and sophisticated, she seduced Fremont into considering the possibility of a peace treaty with the rebellious natives who had just violated an earlier treaty.

Three weeks later Kearney was approaching the San Gabriel River, marching northward towards Los Angeles. He was now leading a force of 550 sailors and his surviving dragoons. He found his route blocked by about 300 Californian picadors. Kearney ordered his cannon to unlimber, when he was countermanded by Commodore Stockton, who commanded the U.S. Navy in these parts. Technically, Kearney was in command of all land forces while Stockton was just as an observer. But all the gunners were sailors, and rather than argue the point Kearney left the disruptive Stockton to his silent cannon and waded his infantry across the knee deep river. After Kearney got his men to the other side and they fired off a few rounds, the Californians retreated.

Two days later, on 9 January, 1848 came the real fighting at the battle of La Mesa. All day the Californians rode around the Americans, looking for an opening, and finding none. They suffered 15 dead and 25 wounded, to 1 dead and 5 wounded Americans. The Californians abandoned Los Angeles and retreated to Pasadena.

On 10 January,  1848 the American forces entered Los Angeles for the second time.  Gillespie was allowed to raise the flag over the post he had squandered, after which he was quietly kept out of sight since because, as another Lieutenant recorded, “The streets were full of desperate and drunken fellows, who…saluted us with every item of reproach.”  And I think we can all imagine just what kind of salute that was.  Commodore Stockton immediately sent a rider north to find Fremont with the good news. The Pathfinder was easy to find, just over the Cahuenga Pass, in the San Fernando Valley.

Because it was there that Dona Ruiz had reappeared. Dona arranged a meeting between her uncle-in-law, Californian commander Andres Pico, and General Fremont, at a humble six room adobe with the ostentatious title of Campo de Cahuenga. As Fremont explained, “The next morning (13 January, 1848) …in a conference with Don Andreas, the important features of a treaty of capitulation were agreed upon…”

The treaty, signed at a kitchen table, was what might be called “generous”.  After turning over all their “artillery and public arms”, of which they had almost none, the Californian soldiers could either go home, or they could go south to fight the Americans again, in Mexico. Or they could just take their lances and go home. They would not be required to take an oath of allegiance to the United States until a peace treaty was officially signed with Mexico, at some time in the future. The Californians were so pleased with the treaty they threw a 3 day fiesta for Fremont and his men. Appropriately enough, the reconstructed Campo de Cahuenga sits on Lankershim Boulevard, in North Hollywood, at the foot of Universal Studios Amusement Park. And on the bottom of a drawer in that kitchen table, amongst a list of far more important signatures, is my own humble name. But I am getting ahead of myself…

General Kearney was not pleased with the treaty. As the ranking field commander he should have been the one to negotiate and sign it. His men had done all the fighting. And maybe the loss of an arm had made him a little grumpy.  Nor was he happy to hear that the troublesome Commodore Stockton bad taken it upon himself to appoint Fremont as the new governor of California; especially since he, Kearny, carried a Presidential appointment making himself the governor. There was a lot of ego in the air over the next few weeks, until Kearney finally forced Fremont to acknowledge that legally Kearney was the governor.

He wasn’t governor for long, though. Kearney was ordered to return to Washington to explain what had happened. And not having much trust in the United States Navy - for some reason - he made his return overland. But remember what I said about the General knowing how to carry a grudge?  One of Kearney’s last acts as governor was to order Fremont to return with him. And as soon as “The Pathfinder” reached Kansas, General Kearney had him arrested and court-martialed for insubordination. Fremont was convicted and discharged from the army.

Kearney was promoted and sent south to take part in the conquest of Mexico. Unfortunately, before he could reach the “Halls of Montezuma”, the general contracted Yellow Fever, He returned to his home in St. Louis where he died in October of 1848 at the age of 54. It had been a very busy year for the General.

And now I have to remind you about Fremont being a lucky idiot. Forced out of the army, Fremont moved with his wife to California where, later in 1848 he bought some land. And guess what; in 1849 about $10 million worth of gold was found on his property.  And that is not even the lucky part of this idiot's story. The gold made Fremont rich enough that in 1856 he could afford to be the first Republican candidate for President. He lost. And then in 1860 the second Republican candidate for president was Abraham Lincoln. He won. So Fremont did not have to deal with the civil war and  all the other problems Lincoln had to deal with. So you see how lucky he was.

Oh, and Gillespie? After driving Los Angeles into rebellion, history pretty much dumped him like a hot potato. He retired a Captain before the civil war. And nobody even asked him to help out. He became a businessman and died in San Francisco in August of 1873.

He was almost forgotten entirely, but during World War II, the U.S. navy built so many ships they decided to name one of them, a destroyer, after Lt. Archibald Gillespie. The DD-609 performed heroic service through out the war, earning 9 battle stars and was then mothballed until 1971. Two years later she came out of mothballs had a brief second career as a target hulk. And I urge all future candidates for "Great Man" in history to keep in mind the ultimate fate of the U.S.S. Gillespie - sunk in 1973, by her own navy.

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