Tag: Daniel Webster

Re-branding and the Importance of History Today!

OK, what would you say if I can connect re-branding the game Cluedo, the First National Bank of the United States, George Peabody & Co.,  Panic of 1837, cherries and milk, and the 1841 Bankruptcy Act to Clue, The Federal Reserve, JP Morgan Chase, 2008 Financial Collapse, three presidential assassinations, and The Capital Purchase Program? Why do I ask, if you do not know the answer to this question history only repeats itself. Now let me show you…

In Salem the ghastly murder of Captain Joseph White is still remembered. Every time you go buy a tour on Essex Street you can catch a guide telling the tale once more. For most of us we only know of the story from the popular Parker Brothers game Clue which incorporates a Mrs. White and basis the rooms on the board on the house Mr. White was murdered in. Yes, another house attached to tunnels. This was the re-branding of an English game called Cluedo.

A little background. Joseph White was insulted throughout his life by two business partners, Joseph Knapp Sr. and Richard Crowninshield Sr. One had lost his favorite ship called the Revenge to the Pirate Philips and had his namesake marry his niece he was trying to have a child with. The second gentleman had insulted him publicly after the Embargo Act was lifted when three ships were captured by the French general Marat in Naples. Richard’s I told you so did not go over to well.

So to get his Revenge, Joseph White had his nephew Stephen White murder him while he was on his death bed and blame the children of those two business partners who he thought had done him wrong. Stephen White who had lost his wife and mother in 1827, the same year Joseph Knapp Jr. had married his cousin away from his uncle. Stephen White would have 27 men hunt down the murderer and proposed a $2,700 reward for their apprehension. Also 3 months after the murder State Superior Court Justice Parker, the Parker Brothers uncle, would die mysteriously before presiding on the case. It was three years since the deaths of Stephen White’s mother and wife.

Stephen White will pay Daniel Webster $1,000 to try not only Joseph Knapp Jr. and Richard Crowninshield Jr. but also Joseph’s brother Frank. Richard would die by his own silk handkerchiefs from a low window with his knees almost touching the ground in his cell and the other two Webster would see hanged.  White’s daughter married Webster’s first wife’s half brother and his other daughter had married Webster’s son. Daniel Webster the drunken gambler would always be in the debt of Stephen White who who was on the board of the Salem Savings Bank and owned the Asiatic Bank. Webster would also be in the debt of Riggs in Washington who was an agent for George Peabody. Lincoln and many other politicians would owe Riggs a fortune.

Daniel Webster who along with Henry Clay was the head of the Whig Party and the opposition to President Jackson. The Whigs originally called the National Republicans were a re-branding of the Federalists who dug tunnels in Salem in opposition to Jefferson’s custom duties, and painted their chimneys white and black. White and black chimneys at one time were a sign of loyal Tories supporting England. The major goal of the Federalists were the creation of the First Bank of the United States a private bank that was heavily invested into by London bankers who cashed in on securities or bonds given to the soldiers in lieu of pay that defeated them during the Revolutionary War they had gained by purchasing them for pennies on the dollar.

The Whigs were in a battle over the Second Bank of the United States. Daniel Webster was on the board of the Boston Branch of The Second Bank of the United States did not appreciate Jackson’s refusal to renew the bank’s charter in 1836. Jackson claimed the bank took money away from the Common Man and had placed too much of our capital and debt into the hands of English bankers. Rothschild who was heavily invested in state securities in which George Peabody sold him approved of several loans in America and then reversed direction by stopping the flow of currency and then called in many of those debts prematurely. The combination of events created the Panic of 1837.

In response many of the states reneged on payments of their debts to London bankers. In hopes of having the states pay back these securities Daniel Webster had hoped war hero Benjamin Harrison once in office would bring forth the Third Bank of the United States. This was not to happen.

Whigs like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster had hoped Harrison would be their puppet. But this was not going to be so. Daniel Webster had wrote an inaugural address for Harrison in March of 1841, which he rejected for his own that lasted an hour and forty five minutes, which is the longest in history, during a snow storm. This irked Webster. It irked him so much that he used it as the cause of death of the president a month later.

Harrison also shunned Clay telling him that all future correspondences should be done in writing since he banned Clay from the White House. A few days later, however, Treasury Secretary Thomas Ewing reported to Harrison that federal funds were in such trouble that the government could not continue to operate until Congress’ regularly scheduled session in December; Harrison thus relented, and on March 17 proclaimed the special session in the interests of  “the condition of the revenue and finance of the country”. The session was scheduled to begin on May 31.

At the session, Clay offered six resolutions as a plan of work for Congress. These proposed putting an end to the independent treasury, the establishment of a new national bank, and a tax increase on imports. They also included a new plan to give the states the money received by the federal government from the sale of public lands. Clay represented an agrarian elite that was at odds not only with Harrison, but also Webster and his clan of seaboard New England merchants. The tax increase on imports was to pull on Webster’s beard. His political base in Massachusetts were the same people who built three miles of tunnels to avoid paying Jefferson’s duties on imports. Clay knew full well about this, especially after conversations and walks he shared with Webster and John Quincy Adams through Joseph Bonaparte’s tunnels in Bordentown, NJ.  Harrison would have nothing to do with any of them. Four days later Harrison would be dead.

On March 26th, Harrison would begin to feel ill. Webster would blame this on his long speech during the snow storm, but Harrison did not show signs of a being sick till 3 weeks later. Harrison started to complain about a stomach bug. He had been dealing with dyspepsia for years and thought it was another outbreak and nothing more. Although we have no record of how he managed his dyspepsia, the standard treatment in the 1840s was carbonated alkali, which would have neutralized the gastric acid that otherwise kills harmful bacteria. In the absence of the gastric acid barrier, gastroenteritis can be caused by as few as one ten-thousandth the number of bacteria usually needed. By April 4th Harrison was dead.

Dr. Thomas Miller had given  him a host of toxic medications that were then considered the standard of care — including opium, which retards the intestine’s ability to rid itself of microbial pathogens, facilitating their invasion into the bloodstream. Enemas, which Miller repeatedly gave to Harrison, are also potentially dangerous in such patients. They can perforate ulcers produced by S. typhi and S. paratyphi in the ileum, the lower end of the small intestine, through which the bacteria would be able to  escape from the intestine into the bloodstream, resulting in sepsis. In 2014 a medical analysis had determined that Harrison had died of Typhoid which brought about pneumonia and not from his long speech during a snow storm 3 weeks prior.

In Washington D.C. the “night soil” from chamber pots and other collections of sewage was within range of leaking into the cities water supply. These situations would of resulted in cholera and typhoid deaths in the region that Miller had access to. The first time in recorded American history disease was used to kill an enemy can be recorded in 1764 at the Siege of Fort Pitt when the British purposefully gave members of the Delaware tribe blankets and a handkerchief infected by smallpox. It would not be beyond Harrison’s contemporaries to use typhoid or cholera infected food or water along with his dyspepsia complicated with the enema, opium, and carbonated alkali. It is said that typhoid takes 3 to 4 weeks to run its course and then either you survived or your dead. Cholera would take 1 to five days. Harrison had died within a month of taking office and 8 days after reporting to Miller his sickness.

Is there a history of people being murdered by typhoid? In antiquity it was rumored Alexander the Great was poisoned by typhoid in his food. Dr. Hyde Benet Clark would use a mixture of cyanide, strychnine, and typhoid to wipe out his wife’s relatives to he her aunt’s fortune. Lydia Southard in 1915 would kill 4 husbands and some of their relatives with Typhoid. Arthur Warren Waite in 1916 spiked a can of tuna fish with typhoid to kill his mother-in-law and used barbital to help her along.

Did Harrison’s death do Webster and Clay any good in the restoration of a semi private bank of the United States? No. In a turn of events that was not going to be seen until Theodore Roosevelt would succeed after McKinley’s assassination, Tyler would go on to veto the creation of the Third Bank of the United States on August 16th which led to riots by Whig members on the White House. After this it was seen as prudent to create the first police force in the capital. The Second Bank of the United States which had been acting as a totally private organization run by bankers in London finally gave up its ghost soon afterward.  Webster’s position as director of the Boston branch came to an end as well.

After the second veto by Tyler on September 11th, Henry Clay in hopes of having Tyler resign had the majority of Tyler’s cabinet, not including Webster who he was quarreling with, remove themselves. Tyler then gained support with the Democrats who were promising him the next election. Andrew Jackson writes a letter applauding Tyler in his decision. In modern history September 11th can be seen as the crowning moment of George W. Bush’s presidency which culminated in the successful re-branding of his father’s and brother’s Saving and Loan Scandal and its bail out in 2008.

But what was gained was the distribution to the states of the proceeds of public-land sales for a short period before repealed which netted the states $600,000. This would of provided the states the money needed to pay back their securities they defaulted on that the Second Bank of the United States and London bankers like George Peabody and Nathan Rothschild held. Also Tyler enacted the Bankruptcy Act of 1841 that bailed out the banks and investors who suffered after Jackson’s veto of the Second Bank of the United States in 1836 which led to the panic the next year. 33,000 cases were heard during a short period of time, which flooded docket courts, before it was repealed. Edgar Allan Poe tried to use his minor connections to Tyler to to be declared bankrupt which failed. Judge Story, Webster’s wife’s uncle defended it in the Superior Court. It was the grandfather party of the Whigs, the Federalists, in 1800 that secured the first bail out or Bankruptcy bill which Jefferson repealed in 1803.

Also in the year of 1841 Stephen White’s brother-in-law and father-in-law to his son Daniel Fletcher White had died.  Stephen White, the financier behind Webster and the man who brought him into conspiracies of murder has died. How much did Stephen White have to do with the assassination of Harrison is to be further pursued in the new book Subrosa. Is it a coincidence that the man openly who presided over Webster had no true power and the man behind the scenes who pulled his strings for so many years would die in the same year?

Now in 1850 Webster would be called away from his lucrative law practice in Boston to be once more Secretary of State. This time for another Whig president, Millard Filmore. To offset his losses from leaving behind his law practice a cohort of international bankers, and probably some from Massachusetts, had set up a fund of $20,000 for Webster to draw from.

Another reason Webster took the position was that he ruined his career with his northern supporters after his “Seventh of March Speech” which lasted three and a half hours, quite short for a man who once spoke for five hours after an extra special dinner. In that speech in March he called for the preservation of the union at all costs, rallied against his abolitionist supporters, and said that the slaves in the south experienced better working conditions than free workers in the north. Webster also contended that there is no cause to complain about the continuation of slavery where it already existed and he believed there was no fear of extending slavery into the parched areas of  the southwest. In fact most people who ventured west had given up before the five year mark of obtaining a title grant out west because they could not meet the necessary yield in farming needed due to the lack of rain.  He also said that the south deserved protection of their property and he urged for stronger slave fugitive laws. We are called to mention once more that his adviser Stephen White had practiced within his uncle’s slave trade. Captain Joseph White had once said that he would sell anyone no matter what color they were. Horace Mann and Ralph Waldo Emerson levied abuse to him in New England papers and helped ruin any future political career in New England he had at one time. In spite of this he looked forward to winning the presidency after Taylor…

His opposition against Taylor had cost him his career. There were plenty of others who wished the president dead. Taylor had threatened to hang anyone who would go after secession on the slavery issue in the new territories. On July 4th during the dedication of the Washington Monument Taylor got overheated and then shocked his system by consuming copious quantities of iced milk and cold cherries which would bring about his death on the 7th. Gastroenteritis again, just like what Harrison suffered, caused by the highly acidic cherries combined with fresh milk (I know in my case milk coats my stomach when I have indigestion..) Supposedly the milk and cherries brought on a bilious fever, typhoid, and cholera morbus (a general term for bacterial infection of the lower colon.) resulting in debilitating diarrhea which is a nutritive expulsion and dehydration coupled with  a buildup of excretive acids in bowels and intestines.  Typhoid or cholera poisoning once again. Taylor lasted 16 months in office. Fifteen months longer than Harrison his Whig compatriot.

By the way, Webster served out the rest of his life as Secretary of State till 1852 and dies the same year as Henry Clay.

Some history books still mention the deaths of the only two elected presidents from the Whig party as one got too cold and died and the other got to hot and died from drinking milk and eating cherries. A third would  include Lincoln who was a Whig that joined the newly formed Republican Party.

By the way Polk would also die 3 months after leaving office from cholera in 1849, 13 months before Taylor.

During Polk’s presidency he restored the Independent Treasury System that Harrison disbanded for the Whigs before his death. This ran up against their constant desire to establish the Third Bank of the United States.  It also stood up for Jackson’s  hard money stance against the Whigs. It lasted until 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created.

The Fiscal Bank of the United States was passed by Congress in 1841. Tyler vetoed it believing it was an vague attempt of re-branding the Third Bank of the United States under a new name.  It is a miracle what re-branding can do. You take a pile of horse shit and re-brand it manure and you can make a fortune. In 1913 this is what many think the London bankers did when they help institute the private bank called the Federal Reserve.

At the beginning of this article I had said I could show you the importance of history by showing you how  the tunnel digging Federalist in Salem who supported strong ties to London and their bankers through Peabody, Morgan & Co. re-branded themselves Republicans, to be called Whigs, and Republicans once again had conspired in the creation of a series of National Banks of the United States through the murder of 3 presidents, engineered by the director of their Boston Branch and his financier,  within their own party to have the majority of the nation’s finance in the hands of English banks that have engineered panics, depressions, financial collapses, and bailouts.

Financial collapse? JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley have been fined recently for engineering the 2008 Financial Collapse. George Peabody, the friend of Nathan Rothschild, the man that bailed out the Brown Brothers who have been influential in the Republican presidencies of both Bushes, the person who rescued Stephen White’s failing museum is re-branded today as JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.

Bail Out? In 1841 the Bankruptcy Act rescued those merchants working for London bankers in America after Jackson refusal to renew the Second Bank of the United States charter in 1836 which led to the  plan in which Nathan Rothschild and Peabody bankrupted America during the Panic of 1837. Bankruptcy Act was re-branded the 2008 Bail Out that rescued JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Bank of New York (Alexander Hamilton’s bank who created the First Bank of the United States.), and a bank now called Bank of America (no relation).

So history is important, for it keeps repeating itself if we are not careful through re-branding. So remember my statement of manure; no matter what you call it, it still smells like a honey pot.

p.s. If you think this ending is grasping at straws, well it is intended to leave you wanting more. A more thorough explanation will be given within the new book “Subrosa” which is the sequel to “Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City” which is available on Amazon and soon Barnes & Noble.