Researching John Armstrong

John Armstrong is remembered as the friend of James Thomson, David Mallet, and other literary celebrities of the time, and as the author of a poem on The Art of Preserving Health, which appeared in 1744, and in which a somewhat unpromising subject for poetic treatment is gracefully and ingeniously handled. His other works, consisting of some poems and prose essays, and a drama, The Forced Marriage, are forgotten, with the exception of "The Oeconomy of Love" and the four stanzas at the end of the first part of Thomson's Castle of Indolence, describing the diseases incident to sloth, which he contributed. Under the pseudonym "Launcelot Temple, Esq", he published Sketches, or, Essays on Various Subjects in 1758.

The "Oeconomy Of Love" has been described as an eighteenth-century guide to sex and is particularly interesting in that the lines:

"To shed thy blossoms thro' the desert air,And sow thy perish'd offspring in the winds" are thought to be a possible inspiration for the more famous lines by Thomas Gray contained in his "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard" as follows:

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

However John Armstrong's use of floral metaphor in the "Oeconomy of Love" refers to the unnecessary shedding of semen whilst the author cautions young men against sexual practices that he condemns in his role as poet and physician.

Strangely what must have been once the small town of Castleton, with a castle, church, manse, regular licensed markets and many homes has now totally disappeared. In the churchyard, however an obelisk stands to the memory of John Armstrong. It reads:

"If yet thy shade delights to hover near The holy ground where oft thy sire hath taught, And where our fathers fondly flocked to hear Accept the offering which their sons have brought. Proud of the muse, which gave to classic fame Our vale and stream, to song before unknown; We raise this stone to bear thy deathless name, And tell the world that Armstrong was our own.

To learning, worth, and genius such as thine, How vain the tribute monuments can pay! Thy name immortal with thy works shall shine, And live when frailer marble shall decay."

Of considerable note, also written on the same stone, in this deserted churchyard of a town or village of which nothing else remains,lies the further inscription: "In Memory of George Armstrong,M.D.,1720-1789, Brother of John the Poet. Doctor George Armstrong is the Father of modern Paediatrics, and the Founder of the World's First Hospital for Sick Children. He died in London where he had given his life for the children of the poor"

After the war he became a land registrar for North Carolina and was active in converting war service patent rights into land grants. He originated the survey and plat layout that became the town of Clarksville, Tennessee.

He was the brother of Martin Armstrong, also Revolutionary War officer.

Armstrong was born in McMinnville, Tennessee, son of Dr. John B. Armstrong and Maria Susannah Ready on January 1, 1850. Among notable relatives were his maternal grandfather Charles Ready, a U.S. Representative from Tennessee and his cousin Confederate States Army Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan. After living in Arkansas and Missouri for a short time, Armstrong moved to Austin, Texas in 1871. After a short experience as a lawman, in 1875 he joined the Special Force under Captain Leander H. McNelly, a newly created quasi-military branch of the Texas Rangers that was to operate in southern Texas. His role as McNelly's second in command and right hand earned him the promotion to sergeant and the nickname "McNelly's Bulldog".

With the death of McNelly and the absorption of the Special Force within the Texas Rangers' Frontier Battalion in 1876, Armstrong was promoted to Lieutenant. He was involved in several notable cases, like the capture of Hardin and the pursuit and killing of noted bank robber Sam Bass.

Armstrong resigned his position at the Rangers in 1881, and was shortly after appointed U.S. Marshal. He established in Willacy County, Texas, where he founded a considerably large ranch. He died at his home in Armstrong, Texas, on May 1, 1913.

The ranch was later reorganized into Kenedy County, Texas

Armstrong rejoined the United States Army in 1784 and served during the Northwest Indian War. In 1790, General Josiah Harmar sent him on an exploration mission in the Northwest Territory. Later that year he led a detachment of regular soldiers that accompanied Kentucky militia under Colonel John Hardin in an expedition to attack a Native American village on the Eel River. The Americans were ambushed in the battle; the militia fled and Armstrong barely escaped with his life. He resigned from the Army in March 1793.

After the war, he served as treasurer of the Northwest Territory, a judge in Hamilton County, Ohio, and as magistrate in Columbia, Ohio. He spent his final years in Clark County, Indiana, where he died.

He played Northumbrian pipes as a young man, and in later life the fiddle. The Armstrong family claims an unbroken tradition of Northumbrian piping going back at least four generations. The Clough family visited the Armstrong family home at Raylees for several years, just after the First World War, and John often played duets there with Tom Clough. He also later played regularly with Billy Pigg, who wrote several tunes named for him and his family, "The Carrick Hornpipe", "Raylees", "Mary Armstrong", "Jane of Biddlestone", "Anne's Wedding" and "John of Carrick". John, with his sister Annie Snaith, and Billy Pigg, played regularly at events in the area, becoming known as 'The Border Minstrels'. They were joined in 1938 by Archie Dagg. They played for listening, rather than dancing.

John owned a notable collection of pipe and fiddle tunes, including early manuscripts of tunes by James Hill, and autograph manuscripts by Robert Whinham. These provided 88 of the 112 tunes for the Charlton Memorial Tune Book. This book was a major extension to the published repertoire of Northumbrian pipe music, being much larger than the first edition of the Northumbrian Pipers' Society Tune Book. Unfortunately, late in his life, he lent many of his Whinham manuscripts to a friend, and they were lost.

A series of accidents to his hands, resulting in a stiffening of his fingers, forced John to concentrate on the fiddle in later years. He started playing duets with Joe Hutton in 1972, adapting arrangement for two pipes to pipes and fiddle. In 1973 they won the pairs competition at Newcastleton Traditional Festival. He is featured on the Topic album Bonny North Tyne. However a project for a subsequent duet album never materialised, owing to his illness and death. Some recordings of them are available on FARNE, as well as a few of Armstrong on solo fiddle.

FARNE wrongly attributes some compositions to him, but there are no confirmed attributions of any compositions of his; in particular there are none in the Charlton Memorial Book, based on his own collection, where any compositions by him might be expected. However, the jig "Coquet Lights" is widely believed to be by him.

Born in St. Augustine, Florida on 4 May 1922, he entered the University of Chicago at age 20 where he received both bachelor's and master's degrees. However, the date of his graduation was delayed by his enlistment in the U.S. Army in Belgium during World War II, from 1944 to 1945. Such experience appears to have certain impacts upon the direction of his academic research on nationalism in Europe afterwards.

He entered Columbia University for further study in 1950 and received a Ph.D. three years later.

His earlier works focus on nationalism and ideologies in Europe, especially Ukraine and Russia during the 1950s and 1960s. The most influential work of his is the path-breaking Nations before Nationalism (1982) which firstly systematically expressed the longue durée of ethnic identity and has inspired theorists of ethnosymbolism including Anthony D. Smith.

John Franklin Armstrong was born in Lincoln County, Tennessee, on November 14, 1819, the son of William Armstrong and Mary W. I. Monroe. He married Margaret S. McCollum in Lincoln County, Tennessee, on 29 December 1850. To this union were born two children Sarah Louise (Sallie) Armstrong (1851-1934) and David Armstrong (1853-1871). In November 1855, at the age of 36, Armstrong moved with his family to Texas, settling in Coryell County near Gatesville, Texas. Here Armstrong established himself as a schoolteacher. In Texas, John and Margaret had two more children: John Franklin Armstrong Jr (1859-1937) and Rhoda Margaret Armstrong (1860-1935).

During the Civil War (1861-1865), Armstrong served as county tax assessor of Coryell County. In 1866, Armstrong won election as Texas state representative for Coryell County and served in the Eleventh Texas Legislature from 1866-1870. In August 1870, following the decision of the state legislature to establish free public schools, Armstrong was appointed school trustee for Precinct One, Second Sub-district representing Rainey’s Creek. His final public appointment was to the position of county surveyor in 1871.

Armstrong was an active Mason and charter member of Gatesville Masonic Lodge No. 197, established in January 1857. Armstrong died in Coryell County on April 28, 1887.