Anniversary
John Smithwick: A Kind-of Renaissance Guy
As promised, I’m following up on the earlier post about the folks at the Smithwick luncheon. I’ll start with information about the host, John H. Smithwick: Farmer, attorney, U.S. congressman, accused check kiter, and survivor of the Knickerbocker theater disaster. When the 1907 article was published, Smithwick was Walter Kehoe’s […]
Emmett, Catholicism, Faith, Amends
It was a tough time to be Roman Catholic in Florida during the early 1900s. Heck, it was tough to be Catholic anywhere in the U.S. at that time. When Emmett moved back to Pensacola in 1906, to rebuild his career after his embarrassing tenure in Illinois, image was important. […]
Not So Unexceptional Sources
Last time I checked, I realized that I’ve collected over 500 individual newspaper articles about Emmett Wilson. That’s pretty good, considering that when I started this project, I didn’t expect to find more than a few dozen, given his obscurity in Florida politics. Granted, most of these newspaper articles aren’t […]
Emmett and Petersburg
I’m sorry for the radio silence. I’ve had so much information and writing ideas to sift through from the field trip to Richmond and Petersburg that it has been hard to figure out what to tell you about first! Let me start by saying that I approached this field trip […]
The Mystery of the Pocket Watch
There’s Wilson family lore about a silver pocket watch that’s I’d love to prove. I don’t know what it looked like, other than it was smooth, silver, and had Emmett’s grandfather’s initials engraved on it — AEM — for Augustus Emmett Maxwell. It probably had a chain, and maybe a […]
Emmett & The Protest March
With all the protests going on in and around Washington lately, I wondered if Emmett Wilson ever participated in a march or protest? At first, I couldn’t have imagined it; certainly not in Chipley or Marianna, Florida. What would there be to launch a protest in either of these small […]
Buell Cook
Meet Buell Cook: Lawyer, Insurance salesman, Realtor, Mayor, Statesman. Another man, like Emmett, who died too young, and whose death could have been avoided. Buell was elected to represent the 25th district in the Florida State Senate in 1909. He was reported to be an excellent lawyer who chose principles […]
An Unlikely Yet Profound Kinship
Although Congress had been back in session since December 4, 1916, Emmett was still in Pensacola, with no plans to return to D.C. Emmett still had four months remaining in his term as Congressman from the Third Congressional District, but it is damn near impossible to be present when one’s […]
Tell my story. 