HEROES: Uncle Sam

• Share

The lineage of Uncle Sam, benign personification of the nation, was again raised last week. Was this lean Yankee character in beaver hat and striped trousers who reflects the emotions of 123,000,000 people, the bastard offspring of some japester's lively imagination or was he the scion of flesh-and-blood?

Citizens of Troy, N. Y. last week organized under Editor Rutherford Hayner of the Troy Times to press a claim that the original Uncle Sam was a Trojan. They asked the Federal Government to recognize their claim with a suitable memorial. For proof they pointed to a simple grave on the hillside overlooking the city in which lie the bones of one Samuel Wilson (1768-1854). Tall, spare, dignified, kindly, he, said the people of Troy, was the original Uncle Sam. The gist of their claim, based on old family letters, was as follows:

Samuel Wilson came to Troy from New Hampshire. Brickmaker, distiller, farmer, merchant, meat packer, he waxed rich. Everybody called him Uncle Sam Wilson. When the War of 1812 began one Elbert Anderson got a contract to provision U. S. troops. Anderson arranged with Wilson to secure and pack pork and beef for the army. On the casks and barrels Wilson had written E. A.U. S., meaning from Contractor Anderson to the United States. Visitors saw the containers thus labelled on a wharf for shipment to Newburgh and Greenbush, asked the watchman what the initials stood for. He declared: "It all belongs to Mr. Anderson and Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam who? Why Uncle Sam Wilson. He owns all about here and is feeding the Army." The phrase spread to the Army camps whence went the meat shipments, was taken up by the troops, leaped into instant and widespread favor.

Certain is the fact that the name Uncle Sam for the Federal Government came into being during the War of 1812. By 1813 the expression had reached the Press where U. S. Customs officers were referred to as "Uncle Sam's Men." That year the Troy Post, apparently ignorant of Uncle Sam Wilson's initialed meat barrels, declared: "This cant name has got almost as current as 'John Bull.' The letters U. S. on Government wagons are supposed to have given rise to it." The Gazette of the U. S. (Philadelphia) in 1816 explained that a countryman, meeting a regiment of light dragoons, asked what the U. S. L. D. on their caps meant and was told "Uncle Sam's Lazy Dogs."

A generation elapsed before Uncle Sam appeared as a cartoon character. In 1844 London Punch published a personification of the U. S. (called Brother Jonathan) as a young mischievous fellow with his thumb to his nose. In the U. S. the first cartoon of Uncle Sam appeared in the New York Lantern, comic weekly, of March 13, 1852 (see cut). The artist was F. Bellew. The scene called "Raising the Wind" was supposed to depict the struggle between a U. S. shipowner against the Cunard Company, with John Bull actively helping his line and Uncle Sam a more amiable onlooker. Bellew's figure gained wide popularity and was taken over by Thomas Nast, cartoonist for Harper's Weekly in the 70s, who added whiskers, put stars on the vest. Except for minor embellishments, Uncle Sam thereafter became a standardized character of the Press.