Comments on: Science and Politics: The Tale of George Washington’s Swamp Gas

By: Lisa Flick

Lisa Flick — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:47:24 +0000

Oh, and just one note: by the time Paine visited Washington at Rockinham, they had already received word that the Treaty of Paris was signed and that the Revolutionary War was over.

By: Lisa Flick

Lisa Flick — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:45:38 +0000

The experiment reenactment is being carried out by a Rutgers professor of microbiology, not associated with Rockingham, but with our knowledge. He is conducting this with some students and colleagues. It is scheduled for c. 4:30 pm with a reception to follow at the D&R Canal Park office, 145 Mapleton Rd., Princeton, NJ.

Lisa

By: Meg Muckenhoupt

Meg Muckenhoupt — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 15:57:26 +0000

Any idea who’s doing the reenactment? The folks who run the Rockingham historic house (including my mother, on whom I depend for my New Jersey history) would very much like to know.

Meg

By: David

David — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:00:23 +0000

Paine has always been one of my favorites because of his ideas — now you’ve given me another reason to honor him! Wish I could be there to see the show.

By: Allen Hazen

Allen Hazen — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:11:26 +0000

Thomas Jefferson is the early president USUALLY mentioned for scientific interests: nice to know he wasn’t the only one! (There’s a possible genre here: people from history who were more scientifically minded than we knew. I think Abraham Lincoln was issued a patent for a device to float river boats over shallows… What other Presidents have scientific skeletons in their closets?)

Paine seems to have been a man of multifarious interests. American history usually focuses on his career as Revolutionary War pampheteer, but he’s better known elsewhere as a deist who attacked orthodox Christianity. (There’s a scene in Shaw’s “Major Barbara” in which Barbara, disillusioned by what she sees as the hypocrisy of the Salvation Army, goes off stage asking a radical workingman to tell her about Tom Paine’s ideas: that, I suspect, is a more salient part of Paine’s achievement for a Vritish audience than “These are the times that try men’s souls…”) And I believe that he was also an inventor, designing an iron bridge at a time when bridges were still all stone or wood.

By: mandydax

mandydax — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:28:40 +0000

That’s fantastic. If only more people realized how rational and clear-thinking our Founding Fathers were… Although I couldn’t help but think how some might rationalize it: “See? The Founding Fathers were just like Joe Six-Pack: They liked to go out in boats, poke things with sticks, and setting fire to their gas.” Sorry, couldn’t resist. XD