“In the evening I was taken to venerate the body of the deceased. This was the first deceased woman I had ever seen . She was remarkably beautiful; lay on her deathbed like a statue carved from white marble; beside her lay her newborn child, whom, it seems, she did not even carry to term, and he lived only for a few hours. The room was in twilight, everything was quiet and sad; Only the voice of the deacon could be heard, quiet and sad, chanting the Gospel.”
- Maria Fredericks, a mourner who viewed Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna of Russia as she lay in state at the Peter and Paul Fortress.
The painting is called “A Farewell to Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna,” and the artist is Carl von Steuben.
Then & now at Fort Steuben Mall. After ripping out the fountain, planters, and skylight features, replacing the tile floor with drab, grey carpet, and welcoming a Walmart Supercenter onto the property, the mall is nothing but a sad shadow of its former self. Few walk the empty halls in 2023.
Just saw someone on Quora saying that there weren't any queer figures in the American Revolution, and oh mah GAWD I yapped on for so long that my phone gained 67% more battery in that time.
Me and mah lil ol' yassified Steuben pfp yapped about lams and all the other ga-*GUYS for so, so so long😭
went down a research rabbit hole of potentially queer figures in early america last night (largely von steuben and co. but yk) and found out that hercules mulligan's son, john mulligan, and john adams son, charles adams, were maybe lovers ???? and part of the reason john adams threatened to disown charles was because of their relationship ???? which i just thought was a crazy piece of lore i had never heard before and if anyone has any information about that i'd love to hear it because all i could really find was "they lived together before jadams forced them to split up and then baron von steuben invited them to live with him, which only jmulligan accepted"