By Rick Geffken |
Lent’s premise during her fascinating talk at the Poricy Park Nature Center was that a certain Maj. Gen. William Alexander, the self-styled Lord Stirling, who distinguished himself during the Battle of Monmouth in 1778, was an amateur astronomer. His recorded observations are almost our only source about weather during the late 18th century American Revolutionary War battles.
Yes, patriotic spirit, French and German support and superior tactics were all part of our founding forebearers’ victory in Revolutionary War, just as we were all taught in grade school. But according to Lent, the weather, and even the sky conditions, played a role, too. “The weather during the Revolution was quite distinctive. We haven’t had anything quite like it since,” she noted.
Lent is past vice president of the New Jersey Astronomical Association and a former teacher in the Basking Ridge schools where she became interested in William Alexander. Quite the character, Alexander was born in New York in 1726 and he fell in love with stargazing and soldiering. In 1763 he built a mansion in Basking Ridge, largely with inherited money and profits from slave trading. On a trip to England in 1756 when he was 30, William Alexander claimed distant heir to the Scottish title Earl of Stirling, though many doubted the actual connection. Though denied an official title by the British government, Alexander called himself Lord Stirling from then on.
Lent also alluded to the extreme cold suffered by Washington’s troops during the winter of 1779-1780 when they “sheltered” at Jockey Hollow in Morristown, quite near Lord Stirling’s land holdings. Stirling used a telescope to observe sunspots during the Transit of Venus, the infrequent passage of the small planet in front of the sun. While he may not have known it then, sunspots are associated with colder weather on earth. His observations helped future meteorologists understand the harsh conditions during the 1770s and 1780s.
This article was first published in the August 2 – 9, 2018 print edition of The Two River Times.