Red Poppies & Thousands of Years of Remembrance - Veterans Day

In the 21st Century  Poppy Field Remembrance, Adam Borman in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

From the classic myths of Greece & Rome, to poets Ovid & Martial during Classical Antiquity, to the fields of 19th Century Europe, to World War I at Flanders Fields, to the 21st Century - honoring & remembering those who have died.

 Walter Field (British painter) 1837 - 1901

The red poppy has become a symbol of war remembrance throughout much of the world. People in many countries wear the poppy to remember those who died in war or those who still serve in their nation's armed forces. In many countries, the poppy is worn around Veterans Day (or Armistice Day) on November 11th.

Hippolyte Camille Delpy (French painter) 1842 - 1910

In both Greek & Roman myths & classical antiquity, poppies were associated with sleep, death, & remembrance. The symbolic significance of poppies, particularly in the context of honoring the dead, can be traced to various mythological & literary traditions.

Anthonore Christensen (Danish painter) 1849 - 1926

In Greek mythology, the poppy was often linked to Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, & her daughter Persephone, who was abducted by Hades & became the queen of the Underworld. According to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, poppies grew in the meadows where Demeter mourned the loss of her daughter, symbolizing both the cycle of life & death.

In Greek lore, poppies were also associated with Hypnos, the god of sleep. In various myths, Hypnos is depicted wearing a crown of poppies, signifying the sleep-inducing properties of the plant.

Anthonore Christensen (Danish painter) 1849 - 1926

In Roman mythology, the festival of Floralia, dedicated to the goddess Flora, involved the wearing of wreaths made of flowers, including poppies. This celebration marked the renewal of life & the coming of spring.

The association of poppies with death & remembrance persisted in Roman culture. Poppies were often used in funerary customs & rituals to honor the deceased.

Dora Hitz (German painter) 1856 - 1924

During Classical Antiquity the Roman poet Martial wrote about poppies being scattered on tombs, emphasizing their connection to death & remembrance. Marcus Valerius Martialis (born between 38 & 41 AD – died between 102 & 104 AD) was a Roman poet born in Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his 12 books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 & 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva & Trajan. 

Ovid, another Roman poet, mentioned poppies as symbols of both sleep & death in his works. Publius Ovidius Naso 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil & Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature.  Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis, the capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last 9 or 10 years of his life. 

Alexander Mark Rossi (British painter) 1840 - 1916

The symbolism of poppies honoring the dead was later revived & popularized in the early 20th century during World War I. The famous war poem "In Flanders Fields" by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae (1872-1918) refers to poppies growing amidst the graves of soldiers in Flanders, Belgium. The poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance for those who served or died in war. Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae was a Canadian poet, physician, & soldier during World War I, & a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres, in Belgium. He died before the war ended. He is best known for writing the famous war memorial poem "In Flanders Fields."

Anthonore Christensen (Danish painter) 1849 - 1926

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields. 

"In Flanders Fields" was first published in December 1915. Within months, this poem came to symbolize the sacrifices of all who were fighting in the First World War. 

 Robert Vonnoh (American painter) 1858 - 1933

Today poppies are often associated with memorial ceremonies honoring military personnel who have lost their lives in conflicts & to those still serving their country.

Olga Wisinger-Florian (Austrian painter) 1844 - 1926 (2

See Christa Zaat for many more poppy paintings.

See Adam Borman in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

1621 Foods at Plymouth Thanksgiving

“And God be praised we had a good increase… Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”

Edward Winslow, Mourt’s Relation: D.B. Heath, ed. Applewood Books. Cambridge, 1986.

“They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which is place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports."

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation: S.E. Morison, ed. Knopf. N.Y., 1952.

1619 Thanksgiving at Berkeley Plantation in Virginia

"First Thanksgiving" by Sidney King.  The weary sailors rowed to shore and surveyed the landscape of their new settlement. As instructed by the Berkeley Company, the men, led by their leader, Captain John Woodlief, knelt on the dried grass to offer a prayer of thanks for their safe journey across the ocean. They prayed: “We ordain that the day of our ship’s arrival, at the place assigned for plantation, in the land of Virginia, shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.”

The First British American Colonial

Thanksgiving Took Place in Virginia, not Massachusetts

Washingtonian Magazine by Matt Blitz Published November 18, 2015

The weary sailors rowed to shore and surveyed the landscape of their new settlement. As instructed by the Berkeley Company, the men, led by their leader, Captain John Woodlief, knelt on the dried grass to offer a prayer of thanks for their safe journey across the ocean. They prayed: “We ordain that the day of our ship’s arrival, at the place assigned for plantation, in the land of Virginia, shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God.”

"...A year and 17 days before those Pilgrims ever stepped foot upon New England soil, a group of English settlers led by Captain John Woodlief landed at today’s Berkeley Plantation, 24 miles southwest of Richmond. After they arrived on the shores of the James River, the settlers got on their knees & gave thanks for their safe passage. There was no traditional meal, no lovefest with Native Americans, no turkey. America’s first Thanksgiving was about prayer, not food.

"On September 16th, 1619, the Margaret departed Bristol, England, bound for the New World. Aboard the 35-foot-long ship were 35 settlers, a crew, five “captain’s assistant”, a pilot, & Capt. Woodlief, a...survivor of the 1609/1610 Jamestown’s “Starving Time.” The mission of those aboard Margaret was to settle 8,000 acres of land along the James River that had been granted to them by the London-based Berkeley Company. They were allowed to build farms, storehouses, homes, & a community on company land. In exchange, they were contracted as employees, working the land & handing over crops & profits to the company.

"After a rough two-&-a-half months on the Atlantic, the ship entered the Chesapeake Bay on November 28, 1619. It took another week to navigate the stormy bay, but they arrived at their destination, Berkeley Hundred, later called Berkeley Plantation, on December 4. They disembarked & prayed. Many historians think there was nothing but old ship rations to eat, so the settlers may have concocted a meal of oysters & ham out of necessity rather than celebration. At the behest of written orders given by the Berkeley Company to Captain Woodlief, it was declared that their arrival must “be yearly & perpetually kept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.” And that’s exactly what they did–for 2 years. On March 22, 1622, the Powhatan, who’d realized the settlers intended to expand their territory & continue their attempts to convert & “civilize” them, attacked Berkeley & other settlements, killing 347. Woodlief survived, but soon after, Berkeley Hundred was abandoned. For 3 centuries, Virginia’s 1st Thanksgiving was lost to history.

"Graham Woodlief is a direct descendant of Captain Woodlief. While he’s known his family’s history since being a teenager; he’s devoted a considerable amount of energy to research, since he retired in 2009. Today, Woodlief is president of the Virginia Thanksgiving Festival, which has been held annually since 1958. Woodlief ...thinks the major reason that Plymouth, & not Berkeley, is...thought to be the site of the 1st Thanksgiving is that “they had better PR than we did.” He also said the emphasis on prayer, instead of Plymouth’s festive harvest meal, also made Virginia’s Thanksgiving a bit less appealing, though more accurate. “In fact, most Thanksgivings in the early days were religious services, not meals,” Woodlief says.

"Nearly 309 years after the 1622 battle with the Powhatans, Berkeley Plantation’s missing history was rediscovered. In 1931, retired William & Mary President (and son of President John Tyler) Dr. Lyon G. Tyler was working on a book about early Virginia history. While doing research, he stumbled upon the Nibley Papers, documents and records taken by John Smyth of Nibley, Gloucestershire, about the 1619 settlement of Berkeley. Originally published by the New York State Library in 1899, the papers’ historical significance had gone undetected. According to many Virginia historians, the papers are concrete proof that the New World’s “day of Thanksgiving” originated in their region. Upon his discovery, Tyler told Malcolm Jamieson, who had inherited Berkeley plantation in the 1920s. The plantation was already considered one of the more historic homes in the state, once a residence to a signer of the Declaration of Independence, as well as the birthplace of a US President. Now, it had another feather in its historic hat. Jamieson, with the help of descendants of Captain Woodlief, instituted the 1st Virginia Thanksgiving Festival in 1958. Its been celebrated ever since...

"In Kennedy’s 1963 Thanksgiving Proclamation (made 17 days before his assassination), the president acknowledged Virginia’s claim, saying “Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside a time of thanksgiving.” In 2007, President George W. Bush also noted the history while visiting Berkeley Plantation, commenting that, “The good folks here say that the founders of Berkeley held their celebration before the Pilgrims had even left port. As you can imagine, this version of events is not very popular up north.”

"The Berkeley Company, in England, had been given a grant of 8,000 acres, by King James I in Virginia, along the James River. England was going through a severe recession, especially in the woolen industry, & Englishmen were flocking to America to escape religious persecution & for a better life. The English town of Berkeley, a center for the woolen industry, was especially hard-hit by the recession.  The 4 adventurers who made up the Berkeley Company were William Throckmorton, John Smythe, George Thorpe, & Richard Berkeley, who owned Berkeley castle. They needed a leader for an expedition to Virginia & chose Capt. John Woodlief. He had been to the New World several times & had survived the starving time at Jamestown.  With a passenger list of 35 able-bodied craftsmen & a ship’s crew of 19, Woodlief headed to the New World. They sailed on the Margaret, a small ship that was only 35 feet long & weighed 47 tons, loaded with cargo. It was a perilous journey across the Atlantic, for 2 & a half months. They were plagued by storms, the men were homesick, conditions were claustrophobic, there was vermin infestation. They prayed constantly.

"The Margaret landed at Berkeley Hundred on Dec. 4, 1619. The men rowed ashore & surveyed the wintery landscape that surrounded them. As they were instructed by the Berkeley Company, the men knelt & gave thanks for their safe voyage across the ocean.  They were given a proclamation, by the Berkeley Company, when they departed England, with 10 specific instructions.  The first instruction was that they pray & give thanks for their safe voyage when they landed. And they were to do so perpetually & annually. It is thought the Englishmen gave thanks the next 2 years, as they were instructed, until the settlement was destroyed in 1622. It was the 1st Thanksgiving by Englishmen in the New World, 1 year & 17 days before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. It was considered “official,” as they were ordered by England to give thanks — & it was planned, not spontaneous, as many Thanksgivings in the New World were. It was also not a one-time celebration, but repeated annually, as the Englishmen were instructed."ere sailing home when they encountered a relief fleet & a new governor, who ordered them back to Jamestown."

1621 Thanksgiving in New England

A Colonial Revival Painting of The First Thanksgiving by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe (American painter, 1850-1936)

Edward Winslow, (1595-1655) Mourt's Relation:"our harvest being gotten in, our governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labours ; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoyt, with some ninetie men, whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five Deere, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine and others. And although it be not always so plentifull, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie."

The letter of William Hilton, (1591-1656) passenger on the Fortune written in November of 1621

From Alexander Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers. Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1841.

Loving Cousin,
At our arrival in New Plymouth , in New England, we found all our friends and planters in good health, though they were left sick and weak, with very small means; the Indians round about us peaceable and friendly; the country very pleasant and temperate, yielding naturally, of itself, great store of fruits, as vines of divers sorts in great abundance. There is likewise walnuts, chestnuts, small nuts and plums, with much variety of flowers, roots and herbs, no less pleasant than wholesome and profitable. No place hath more gooseberries and strawberries, nor better. Timber of all sorts you have in England doth cover the land, that affords beasts of divers sorts, and great flocks of turkey, quails, pigeons and partridges; many great lakes abounding with fish, fowl, beavers, and otters. The sea affords us great plenty of all excellent sorts of sea-fish, as the rivers and isles doth variety of wild fowl of most useful sorts. Mines we find, to our thinking; but neither the goodness nor quality we know. Better grain cannot be than the Indian corn, if we will plant it upon as good ground as a man need desire. We are all freeholders; the rent-day doth not trouble us; and all those good blessings we have, of which and what we list in their seasons for taking. Our company are, for most part, very religious, honest people; the word of God sincerely taught us every Sabbath; so that I know not any thing a contented mind can here want. I desire your friendly care to send my wife and children to me, where I wish all the friends I have in England; and so I rest.
Your loving kinsman, William Hilton

1607 Thanksgiving in Popham Colony in Maine

Maine’s Lost Colony : 

Archeologists uncover an early American settlement that history forgot

Smithsonian Magazine February 2004

By Myron Beckenstein

A highway-marker at Popham Colony, located in modern-day Phippsburg, Maine, marks a 1607 Thanksgiving in Popham Colony. Fourteen years before the Pilgrims & the Wampanoag tribe feasted together, the short-lived settlement of Popham Colony held 2 celebrations considered by some to be thanksgiving observances. "The first occurred in September when the settlers encountered a native tribe (the Abenaki). Nine canoes arrived at the Popham settlement with about 40 people. The settlers gave them food & Skidwarres & one other Abenaki stayed the night," reports a researcher with the Maine Historical Society. "Later in October, 5 tribesmen arrived: Skidwarres, Nahandada & his wife, one other & a tribal leader named Amenquin. They feasted for 2 days with Popham & the others. The second day was Sunday, so they also joined the settlers in morning & evening prayers." Captain George Popham, leader of the colony, died within a year of the 2 ceremonies. 

Not far from Portland along Maine’s winding coast, someone has placed a neatly lettered sign on an otherwise undistinguished boulder. It reads: Popham Rock 1607. A play on Plymouth Rock 1620, some 200 miles south? Not entirely. A colony called Popham actually did precede the renowned Massachusetts settlement. “Popham was the cornerstone in the foundation of English America,” says Jeffrey P. Brain, 64, an archaeologist with the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, who is excavating the site of the forgotten colony. “The lessons learned were important to the later success of the Pilgrims.” Popham’s value lies in its failure. Its remains...have been called one of the most significant archaeological sites in the country. Unlike Jamestown, Popham’s successful sister colony in Virginia, whose footprint changed as it developed, Popham represents a unique, undisturbed time capsule of a very early North American settlement. 

 "Each September since 1997, Brain has enlisted a few colleagues & some 30 volunteers & amateur archaeologists to work for 3 weeks at the mouth of the Kennebec River, about 25 miles northeast of Portland. This year’s team included an epidemiologist, an engineer, a nurse, a sociology professor & a historian from England. Popham was named after its principal financial backer, Sir John Popham, & his nephew George Popham, the colony’s president. It was founded about 20 years after Sir Walter Raleigh’s North Carolina colony disappeared in the 1580s, when, as the economic race with France & Spain heated up, England made another attempt to plant its flag in the New World. In 1606, James I granted a charter to a joint stock company to establish two colonies, one, Jamestown, on the southern Atlantic Coast, & the other, Popham, on the northern. On May 31, 1607, about 100 men & boys set sail for the northerly destination. Discharged soldiers made up most of the colonists’ ranks, but shipwrights, coopers, carpenters & a smattering of “gentlemen of quality” rounded them out. About three months later, the group landed on a wooded peninsula where the Kennebec River meets the Atlantic Ocean, & began building Fort St. George. In December, with winter coming & food scarce, half of the colonists returned to England. The next fall, after erecting several buildings, the remaining 45 sailed home.

 "Popham’s rediscovery came about by two events a century apart. In 1888, a researcher for an American diplomat happened upon a map of Fort St. George in government archives in Madrid. Drawn & signed by Popham colonist John Hunt, it was likely snatched, or copied, by a Spanish spy soon after it arrived in England in 1608. The only known detailed plan of an early English colony, the map contains sketches of trenched ramparts, a storehouse, a chapel & various buildings—in all, more than 15 structures. Though published in 1890, the map provoked little interest for 100 years, until Brain came upon a mention of the lost colony while vacationing in Maine. At first “I thought it was some sort of local mythology,” he says. “But it was historically known, & I decided it was time to look for it archaeologically.” Research led him to Hunt’s map, which took him to Sabino Head, a windy promontory on the Kennebec. Topographical features seemed to match Fort St. George’s modified star-shaped contours. Conducting a test excavation on the area in 1994, Brain & his team found a posthole after several weeks of digging. Baffled by not finding more postholes, he “fiddled with the map,” rotated it 20 degrees & came up with a dead-on match with the landscape. “It was a eureka moment,” he recalls. Soon the crew was “turning up one after another” of the three-foot-wide pine mold-filled holes, eventually 19 in all, outlining the 69-by-20-foot storehouse that Hunt had depicted on his blueprint almost 400 years before. "

Archaeologists are still not sure how many of the map’s structures were actually built, but so far, in addition to the storehouse, they’ve located parts of the trench wall & the “Admirals howse,” & they have leads on the buttery, a storehouse for wine & liquor. During the second week of this year’s dig, Kathy Bugbee, a retiree from Southport, Maine, unearthed an inch-long piece of decorated stoneware. A digger for seven years, she recognized the brown glazed fragment as part of a Bellarmine jug, a German-made container used throughout Europe to store liquor in the 16th & 17th centuries. In his on-site cache of artifacts, Brain found a wedge of Bellarmine that he had assembled from other fragments two years earlier. Bugbee’s find slid easily into a gap in the piece to reveal a medallion motif. The jug’s embossed seal reads: “1599.” In addition to Bellarmine, the site has yielded other ceramics, clay tobacco pipes, glass trading beads, bullets & tools, including a caulking iron, used in shipbuilding. The Popham settlers did succeed in constructing the Virginia, a small but durable vessel that would take them back to England & later make other transatlantic voyages. At the admiral’s house, the archaeological team turned up shards of delftware, more Bellarmine, fancy buttons, bits of etched wine glasses & jet beads—all reflecting the occupants’ upper-class rank... 

 "The main reason for abandoning the colony, Brain theorizes, was a loss of leadership. Only one member of the group, George Popham, is known to have died at Fort St. George. (Jamestown lost more than half of its 120 settlers the first year.) But he was the colony’s president, & on February 5, 1608, Raleigh Gilbert took command. Just 25, Gilbert was, according to one investor, “desirous of supremasy,” “a loose life,” with “litle zeale in Religion.” Six months later, a resupply ship brought Gilbert news that he had inherited a title & an estate back in England. When Gilbert decided to return to England to collect, the others headed back with him. “They were headless, so to speak,” Brain says. “English society was very stratified; people needed leaders.” Bad relations with the Indians, the fear of another severe winter & the area’s lack of easily exploitable resources, such as gold or other precious metals, also affected the decision to abandon Popham. 

 "Most of the returned settlers disappeared into history; a few crossed the Atlantic again to try their hand at Jamestown. The Pilgrims who arrived 12 years later, landing at Plymouth, had obviously learned some lessons from Popham. “They settled farther south in a milder climate that was more familiar to them & more conducive to agriculture,” says Brain. “They tried harder to work with the Indians. They also brought women & children. “Luck had a lot to do with these early ventures,” Brain adds, explaining that Jamestown, too, almost failed. Hit hard by disease & starvation, the 50 or so remaining settlers abandoned the colony in the spring of 1610 & were sailing home when they encountered a relief fleet & a new governor, who ordered them back to Jamestown."