| YANKEE GRIT IN THE ANTHONY FAMILY The Captain was descended from one of America’s oldest families and one that had close connections with the sea. His fifth great grandfather, John Anthony (Anthonie) (1607-1675), the son of a London physician, is believed to have sailed from England aboard the bark Hercules. Arriving in 1635, he settled in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. While the entire family history is fascinating, a brief look at just a few of George’s cousins who achieved prominence at the same time he was challenging the Empire’s might, suggests why his actions were not so unique. Perhaps the best known cousin was Susan Brownell Anthony (1820-1906) who championed the American women's rights movement starting in 1852. Saying, "I know nothing but woman and her disfranchised," she vigorously addressed the issues of a woman’s right to own property, to vote, and to earn a living. She firmlysupported the abolition of slavery. In 1876, while cousin George was staring down Victoria’s cannons, Susan was staring down her detractors throughout this country gathering petitions for the women’s right to vote. While she died before her efforts came to fruition, she clearly laid the foundation for the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Henry Bowen Anthony (1815-1884) grew up in Rhode Island. He attended Brown University and became an editor, and later an owner, of the Providence Journal. He turned to public life serving as a two term governor of Rhode Island and then was elected a United States Senator in 1858. He was reelected four times and when the Catalpa rescue occurred, he was President pro tempore of the United States Senate. One of the most colorful cousins was newspaper publisher Daniel R. Anthony who had served in the Civil War as a Lieutenant Colonel of the First Kansas Cavalry. In 1862, while in acting command of his brigade, then stationed in Tennessee, some runaway black slaves found their way to his encampment. The Colonel forbade returning them to their owners. This in spite of contrary and standing orders, based on the Fugitive Slave Act, from none other than Major General Henry Wage Halleck Anthony’s order read in part “…The imprudence and impertinence of the open and armed rebels, traitors, secessionists, and southern rights men, of this section of the State of Tennessee inarrogantly demanding the right to search our camp for fugitive slaves, has become a nuisance and will no longer be tolerated...” Anthony refused to countermand his own order and was arrested for insubordination. Soon after, with Congress asking questions, he was released and the charges dropped. He returned to Kansas, became mayor of Leavenworth, ran afoul of the military again, was arrested, released, was later shot by a political opponent – and survived all of it. George Tobey Anthony (1824-1896) was born in New York and became a tinsmith. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Union Army, rose to the rank of Major and saw action in several campaigns. After the War, he moved to Kansas becoming an editor and journalist for several papers. He played a strong role in state agricultural policy, holding appointed posts until elected to one term as Governor (1877-1879). He was described as “aggressively honest and rather militant in his attitude toward those whom he deemed in the wrong.” William Arnold Anthony (1835-1908) was teaching at Cornell in 1876, pioneering the curriculum for electrical engineering and inventing electrical devices for which he would gain international acclaim. Anthony and one of his students developed the first American electrical outdoor-lighting system. His work predated the establishment of the electrical industry in the United States. Judge Elliot Anthony was serving as Corporation Counsel of Chicago in the reform administration of Mayor Monroe Heath that sought to halt a corrupt political machine. This was after he had played a major role in the development of the City’s East Side where he established the Chicago Calumet Canal & Dock Company in 1848. He was very active in civic affairs, one example being as a founding director of the Chicago Public Library in 1873. Charles Dickens wrote, “It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.” No doubt this could be proven in the Anthony family as well as any other. But that brings no shame and does not diminish the “Yankee Grit” that a remarkable number of the men and women of this family have displayed over time. That Anthony gave up his career for six nearly forgotten men was an extraordinary act, except when viewed in the context of his remarkable family. George Smith Anthony may have stood out for making his contribution in a far off place rather than in America, but it was just one more contribution to the American fabric by the Anthony family, and this country is all the better for it. Philip Fennell and Marie King, recently published the memoirs of an ancestor who proposed the Catalpa rescue, Voyage of the Hougoumont and Life at Fremantle, the Story of an Irish Rebel, by Thomas McCarthy Fennell. Their next book, John Devoy’s Catalpa Rescue will be published this year. © Copyright 2004, 2005 Philip Fennell & Marie King |
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| Photo Credits this page: S. B. Anthony, norfolk.k12.ma.us - H. B. Anthony, Biogaphical Directory of the US Congress, bioguide.congress.gov/ - D. R. Anthony, Kansas Newspaper Hall of Fame, kspress.com/ |
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