{"id":4776,"date":"2013-07-11T11:48:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T16:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/?p=4776"},"modified":"2013-07-11T11:48:04","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T16:48:04","slug":"an-anniversary-and-an-assumption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/2013\/07\/11\/an-anniversary-and-an-assumption\/","title":{"rendered":"An Anniversary and an Assumption"},"content":{"rendered":"

This month marks the 145th<\/sup> anniversary of the time A. L. Mossman swam across the across the Mississippi River from the foot of Perry Street in Davenport to the ferry dock in Rock Island in seventeen minutes.<\/p>\n

Both the Davenport Gazette <\/i>and the Davenport Democrat<\/i> applauded his endurance, and Mr. Mossman\u2019s accomplishment was added to the timeline in the 1882 History of Scott County, Iowa,<\/i> where it was found by our staff a century and a half later.<\/p>\n

This seemed like it would make a good post for this blog, so we went to the newspapers to find out the details.<\/p>\n

What we found was another swimmer—and perhaps <\/i>early evidence of the rivalry between two local newspapers.<\/p>\n

According to the Davenport Gazette, <\/i>\u00a0the day before Mr. Mossman took his historic dip, Louis Hirschel swam the same length in twenty minutes. \u00a0The Gazette<\/i> applauded this as an excellent time.<\/p>\n

\"Hirschel

Davenport Gazette, 16 July 1868, p 4<\/p><\/div>\n

However, the Democrat<\/i> didn\u2019t mention it, which we thought was a curious omission . . . So we searched a little further in our newspapers and went digging in our city directories<\/p>\n

It turns out that Mr. Mossman was the foreman of the Democrat<\/i> job office. \u00a0And that the owner of the Gazette, <\/i>Edward Russell, had a brother on the faculty of the newly established Griswold College—where Louis Hirschel was a student.<\/p>\n

This could explain the Gazette<\/i> calling Mr. Hirschel a \u201cyoung acquaintance.\u2019 But it suddenly makes the last sentence of the article seem like more of a challenge than wise advice.<\/p>\n

Then again, it may be that we\u2019re seeing what we want to see.\u00a0 We already know that the Gazette<\/i> and the Democrat<\/i> would, in later years, each publish politely scathing editorals about each other\u2019s opinions—and one of the hazards of historical research is the tendency to interpret information to fit what we already know, or think we do.<\/p>\n

So while it might be fun to imagine pointed remarks in these brief articles, and even create a double-dog dare between two groups of young men, all we can confirm<\/strong> is that two men swam across the Mississippi River in July of 1868,one in twenty minutes and one in seventeen.<\/p>\n

We also know that the Gazette<\/i> was gracious about Mr. Mossman’s breaking of Mr. Hirschel\u2019s record:<\/p>\n

\"Gazette

Davenport Gazette, 17 July 1868, p. 4<\/p><\/div>\n

And that \u00a0the Democrat<\/i> still didn\u2019t mention Mr. Hirschel—at least not directly:<\/p>\n

\"Democrat

Davenport Democrat, 17 July 1868, p.1<\/p><\/div>\n

But having said that, we still can\u2019t help thinking that the Democrat’s <\/em>last sentence seems a bit . . . smug?<\/p>\n

(posted by Sarah)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month marks the 145th anniversary of the time A. L. Mossman swam across the across the Mississippi River from the foot of Perry Street in Davenport to the ferry dock in Rock Island in seventeen minutes. Both the Davenport … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1040,1042,717,1410,1039,1041],"class_list":["post-4776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-history","tag-a-l-mossman","tag-davenport-democrat","tag-davenport-gazette","tag-local-history","tag-louis-hirschel","tag-swimming"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXc-1f2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4776"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4786,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4776\/revisions\/4786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}