from "Among the Deep Sea Fishers" | January 1919

“The World-Wide Influence of Grenfell"  by Jerome Davis

Some one has said that if a man can make some one thing better than any one else, even if only a mouse-trap, he may go to the most remote sot on the earth’s surface and the world will make a beaten path to his door. This could well be applied to the influence which a man exerts on others. Even though a man goes to the remote districts of northern Labrador, working among isolated and scattered groups of fisherfolk, if he has the Christ spirit of service and a genius for helping men, his influence will spread throughout the world. This is preeminently true of Dr. Grenfell and his unique service for others way up north in the Labrador.

I have just come back from service in Russia, which would be one of the last regions that one would expect to find influenced by Dr. Grenfell. Yet here we find American men who have caught the vision of service to others in work with Dr. Grenfell, who are now translating this same spirit into deeds of love and kindness for the Russian people.

The work among the German and Austrian prisoners of war showed that there were secretaries who had been with Dr. Grenfell who were trying to do in a small way for the prisoners what Dr. Grenfell was doing for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. In prison camps of 10,000, these men were building Y.M.C.A. huts, which would become the center of all that was best in the camp. Here the prisoners could organize classes for themselves under the leadership of professors and presidents of universities who were prisoners of war. Sometimes the text books would have to be written in the prison amp by hand as it was impossible to purchase any. Nearly always the music notes were so written. Here, making their own instruments from material provided by the American secretary, they developed splendid orchestras. The weekly concerts which resulted, took all the prisoners away from the hardships of prison life and made them happy, at least during the concerts.

Religious services were established according to Dr. Grenfell’s theory that it makes less difference what the creed is, than it does how much the real spirit of love and sincerity permeates those who hear. Consequently, there were held Jewish services, Catholic services, and various forms of Protestant services all in the same building.

There was medical relief work carried on by prison doctors, with oftentimes improvised and inadequate sanitary equipment. The prisoners all donated their books and libraries were formed. Athletics began to flourish. Regular foot ball contests provided amusement and relaxation for all.

Not only did one see Dr. Grenfell’s influence in the work for the prisoners of war, but one found his influence permeating the work among the long-suffering and heroic Russian solders. Here was an army of 12,000,000 men, stretched along a battle front of 1500 miles, with soldiers receiving the pay of twenty-five cents a month instead of the American solders’ thirty-three dollars.

Yet these soldiers had no Y.M.C.A. to minister to their needs and it was not until the Foreign Secretary came, with the contagion of the Grenfell spirit, that the Association began to start work among the Russian soldiers.

Then a wonderful thing happened. The Russian soldier found that there was an organization which was really trying to provide a club for him with all the things that he never realized were possible for a soldier to have. So there were found along the Russian fronts and in the rear cities moving pictures showing in the open air for the Russian soldiers with an attendance of over 3,000 men nightly. There were writing rooms where paper and envelopes were provided free of charge. There was a tea room with a gramophone where the soldier could sit and sip tea. The Russian soldier was initiated into the mysteries of American foot ball, basket ball, volley ball, and base ball, which often he had never seen before. Among the thousands of letters written by Russian soldiers in these clubs, there were many who wrote like the following: “The only happiness and comfort I find in my life here is when I can come to this wonderful Y.M.C.A. Club. I never before realized that there were people who were trying to help like this.”

The above picture was taken after the fighting at Odessa in the civil war between the Ukraine and Bolshevik soldiers and shows both parties lined up on either side a big trench which they used for a common grave to bury their dead.

On the Ukraine banners were the words: “To the victims of the social revolution.”

The Bolshevik banners read: “To the victims of the Bourgeoise (rich people) provocation.”

Former Grenfell men helped to carry in the dead and wounded during the fighting. These are the kind of soldiers we are trying to help.

Then there was work for the Russian peasants with a large steamer given by the Soviet government, the Soviet government paying for all the fuel and the salaries of the captain and crew. The Y.M.C.A. provided educational moving pictures on one side of the steamer’s hold, while agricultural machinery was on the other side. There were eleven different departments with exhibits, on the main floor of the steamer. These departments ranged from chicken raising to horticulture and bee keeping. A representative of the Y.W.C.A. was on board, who tried to teach the peasant women how to care for their babies. A representative of the American Red Cross was on board to assist in medical relief. During two months, these exhibits showed to 40,000 peasants along the Volga. Do you wonder that the village people formed processions of thanks, given in honor of the Americans and their agricultural help? In one village the peasants said: “This is the first boat that has ever come to our shores to give and not to take.”

Dr. Halsey, a former Grenfell man, was up in the North, amid the darkness and the ice and snow, working for the English, French, American, and Russian men. He was rendering a typical Association service to men who had no other place to go except the Association, and incidentally he was showing the same spirit of friendship which he had seen demonstrated by Dr. Grenfell in the North.

This little illustration of how the spirit of Jesus Christ, as it has been translated into action by Dr. Grenfell, has permeated even the throbbing life of the far off Russian revolution, is typical as showing how Dr. Grenfell’s spirit is coming in every country throughout the world. As we came back from Russia, through England and France, we noticed that in those countries are still more former Grenfell men who are spreading the same unselfish service of love throughout the world.

*****

The wealth of man is the number of things he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by.

Tales of My Father's

by Rev. Jesse Halsey

Better even than the reading was the story evening hour. 'Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere' was no more attractive (except for versification) than were a dozen oft repeated tales of my Father's.

The favorite one was of how our great grandfather (his name was Jesse) on hearing of the Battle of Lexington, took his one horse farm wagon, pulled out the king bolt and left the rear wheels and body behind when he hitched his horse to the tow front wheels on which he had rigged a seat. On this, he and and his brother sat perched while they drove to Sag Harbor. They joined others and in a whale boat rowed to New London and reached Boston in time for the Battle of Bunker Hill. Great grandfather served with Washington with the rank of Captain until Monmouth where he was wounded near Molly Pitcher's well. He was in the Valley Forge winter.

His orchard and the ruins of his house could be seen when I was a boy. Two miles from home we passed them as we drove to our most remote woodland at Camp's pond. At that pond in his time, this same great grandfather had shot deer with his army muzzle loader. Father's father had had the gun remade from a flint-lock and the barrel shortened by a foot. I have the old gun still; it is over six feet long even now.

This old veteran kept up the good fight long after the war. He used a crutch but tended his farm. One day he got into an argument with a Tory neighbor who said that never could they make a woolen cloth as good in the States as in the old Country. The argument grew hot, the crippled captain knocked the Tory down with his crutch and sat on him till noon when his son came home from the field and took him off!

This great grandfather had a brother--Henry Elias. 'Twas he who shared the bumpy ride on the springless two wheel improvisation. He--Henry Elias--had been a whaling captain and was given privateering papers during the war. When Benedict Arnold, having turned traitor, came with a British force to burn New London, Captian 'Lias was given charge of the artillery to defend the town. The fort in the harbor was abandoned but they fortified the east bank of the Thames-Groton heights. Charles Carleton Coffin in his story of the Revolution tells how Captain Halsey stood by an eighteen-pounder jammed to the muzzle with canister and old chain links. As the British came up the hill he waited until (like General Warren) he could see the whites of their eyes, then he fired his gun. Twenty fell.

Can you imagine the thrill that would give a twelve year old? I suppose this explains why I have never succeeded in becoming a pacifist. Captain 'Lias was killed at Groton Heights and his name is on the monument. When the British general came into the fort to receive the surrender, he called, 'Who commands here?' Colonel Ledyard, the senior American, answered, 'I did not but do now,' and handed his sword to the Britisher, hilt foremost. The British officer grasped the handle and rammed the blade into the vitals of the American. The wounded Americans were loaded and tied onto gun carriages and sent rolling down the hill to the river. It was known to many generations as the Massacre of Fort Griswold and in token thereof a well worn shred of a pamphlet from which my father read to me, I have among my possessions. I can believe tales. Only after twenty years when I found myself in a Scottish University, did I begin to abate my hatred of the British.

[Ed note via Dr. Samuel Warr: During WWII, Rev. Jesse Halsey headed the Bundles for Britain, long before the USA entered the war.]

Daughters of the American Revolution

-by Rev. Jesse Halsey, transcribed by Dr. Samuel G. Warr

After the news of the Battle of Lexington had reached Long Island, Jesse Halsey (1739-1818) and his brother, Elias Henry, with three others rowed across Long Island Sound in a row boat and joined the Continental Army.

They signed the Articles of Association in May 1775, both Elias Henry and Jesse won the rank of captain in the Revolution. Both Jesse and Elias Henry were in Colonel David Mulford's regiment. Elias Henry became a captain of a privateer in the harbor of New London. He was killed in the Battle of Groton Heights on September 6, 1781.

Another brother, David Fithian, was also a captain in the Revolution and died in 1790.

Captain Jesse fought in the Battle of Monmouth and heard the famous reprimand given by George Washington to General Charles Lee when the later had ordered retreat of the regiment he was leading. The claim has often been made, in the effort to make Washington something more than a human, that he did not use profanity at this time. Captain Jesse said that his indignation was righteous and well timed. Captain Jesse lived to be 79 years old and walked with a crutch the remainder of his life.

He had eight children, seven of whom were born previous to 1776 and the youngest child, Abigail (Ludlow), was born after the Revolution. Six girls and one boy, Charles Fithian, lived to grow up, marry, and have families. Captain Jesse and his wife, Charity White, are buried in the Watermill Cemetery. It was discovered that no stones remained to mark their graves. Seventy-five descendants, paying one dollar each, contributed to the fund, which marks their final resting place. They secured a government stone for Captain Jesse and had one made like it for Charity, and placed a fund with the cemetery association which gives them perpetual care. The fund also provided a D.A.R. marker for Captain Jesse.

A note on the progression of Jesses

Sarah Fithian and Henry Halsey had a son Jesse in 1739, who married Charity White and signed the Articles of Association in Southampton in 1775. That first Jesse Halsey was a captain in the Revolutionary War and suffered injuries at the Battle of Monmouth. Captain Jesse and Charity had seven children: Charity, Jesse, Charles Fithian, Keturah, Sarah, Hannah, and Abigail. Their son Jesse died in infancy. Jesse died in 1818. His son, Charles Fithian, and Phebe Rogers had Henry (my Great-Great-Great Grandfather, known also as Captain Harry), along with Elizabeth, Captain Jesse, Captain Edward (both of whom were whalers), Mary, and Hannah.

Captain Jesse married Mary Budd and went to sea, they had no children. Captain Jesse's older brother, Henry, builder of 49 North Main (in 1832 or 1842?) and 88 Grove Street, however, named his third son Jesse in 1845, tho that Jesse would die in 1861, a month short of his 16th birthday.

Henry's eldest son, the first Charles Henry, married Melvina Terry in 1863. (Complicating things further, Charles Henry's brother Wilmun married Melvina's sister Augusta--aka the famous Aunt Gus--and they had, in 1874, the first in a series of Aunt Ednas). Charles and Melvina had Harry in 1864, Lizbeth in 1869, Abigail Fithian in 1873, and Jesse (later Rev. Dr. Jesse and my Great Grandfather) in 1882. Melvina, known as Binn, died in 1887, when Jesse was 5. A year later, Jesse witnessed the accidental drowning of his father's brother, his beloved Uncle Wilmun, while the two were clamming together. Following those tragedies, Aunt Gus and her fourteen-year-old daughter Edna became de facto members of Great Grandfather Jesse's household; in a biographical sketch Jesse writes that he was raised by his eldest sister--18 at the time of her mother's death--and his Aunt Gussie.