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David Cranmer Underdown

31 May, 40 tweets, 8 min read

Kennett Square, Pennsylvania - Wikipedia

Kennett Square is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is known as the Mushroom Capital of the World[4] because mushroom farming in the region produces over 500 million pounds of mushrooms en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennett_S…

a year, totaling half of the United States mushroom crop. The area to become known as Kennett Square was originally inhabited by the Lenape Native Americans. Once colonized, the town was named Kennet Square, with the name "Kennet", England, and "Square" coming from the

original land grant from William Penn of one square mile. General Sir William Howe marched through Kennett to the Battle of Brandywine during the American Revolution.

Taylor laid the cornerstone for the house's tower on June 9, 1859, with a hidden time capsule. That zinc box, he wrote, contains coins, a newspaper, a copy of his book Views Afoot, as well as "an original poem by me, to be read five hundred years hence by somebody who has never

heard of me."[7]
Upon moving into the home in 1860, Taylor's family performed a farcical play co-written with Richard Henry Stoddard.[3] In addition to Stoddard, Cedarcroft hosted several other literary figures, including George Henry Boker, Edmund Clarence Stedman,

James Russell Lowell, James T. Fields, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Outside the house, Taylor planted a number of fruits and vegetables, including Latakia tobacco and melons.[8] Plants included a giant sequoia from California, ivy, Dutchman's pipe, Virginia creeper, wisteria, and

trumpet flower. After visiting the house, Sidney Lanier wrote a poem called "Under the Cedarcroft Chestnut" about a tree there that was alleged to be 800 years old. Taylor died in Germany on December 19, 1878.[4] The home remained in the Taylor family until 1882, when his widow

Marie and daughter Lilian sold the house and the 116 acres that remained from the original estate to Isaac Warner Jr. for $14,050.[14]
In September 1905, the home, along with a new 3-story building behind it, was opened as a private preparatory school for boys. The first class

included seven boys under the leadership of Principal Jesse Evans Philips, though later years saw between 32 and 40 enrolled for each class.[In December 1943, R. R. M. Carpenter Jr., the new owner of the Philadelphia Phillies, hired Pennock as his general manager,[38] after

receiving a recommendation from Mack. Carpenter gave Pennock a lifetime contract. Pennock filled Carpenter's duties when the team's owner was drafted into service during World War II in 1944. As general manager, Pennock changed the team's name to the "Blue Jays"—a temporary

measure abandoned after the 1949 season—and invested $1 million ($14,701,323 in current dollar terms) into players who would become known as the "Whiz Kids", who won the National League pennant in 1950, including Curt Simmons and Willie Jones.[1] He also created a "Grandstand

Managers Club", the first in baseball history, allowing fans to give feedback to the team,[39] and advocated for the repeal of the Bonus Rule. The Phillies, as the last team in the National League to integrate, exhibited racist behavior on several occasions. When Jackie Robinson

broke the baseball color line in 1947, Chapman instructed his players to spike Robinson and pitch at his head.[44] These activities and attitudes continued through the Whiz Kids era and beyond. Carpenter tended to pass by African-American players; his Whiz Kids had won the

pennant while fielding an all-white team, and he, as other owners, tended to pass over any non-white players who did not have superstar-level talent.[43] The Phillies did not integrate until 1957, a decade after Robinson's entry,[44] and did not have their first true

African-American star until the arrival of John Kennedy. When Kennedy made his major league debut (April 22, 1957 at Roosevelt Stadium), he became the first black player in Philadelphia Phillies history. R. R. M. Carpenter Jr. was typically referred to as Bob Carpenter

throughout baseball; both his father and his son were known as "Ruly." He was born on August 31, 1915, in Wilmington, Delaware, to the elder Carpenter and Margaretta Lammot Du Pont.
Bob Carpenter attended Duke University, where he starred in football. He married Mary Kaye Phelps

on November 18, 1938. She was born on September 11, 1917, in Kentucky to Zack Phelps and Ethel Moreton Phelps. Aside from baseball and boxing Carpenter was wealthy from investments and family relations with the DuPont family.
In 1978, he was inducted into the Delaware Sports

Museum and Hall of Fame.

Operation Blue Jay was the code name for the construction of Thule Air Base in Greenland. It started as a secret project, but was made public in September 1952.

The roots of Kiewit stretch back to 1884 when Peter Kiewit, the son of Dutch immigrants who had settled in Iowa, struck out on his own and opened a masonry business in Omaha, Nebraska. By 1912 two of Kiewit's six children, George and Ralph, had joined the business, and the

company became Peter Kiewit & Sons. Having added general contracting to its business, Peter Kiewit & Sons completed small construction projects for Omaha residences and businesses. After the death of the elder Kiewit in 1914, George and Ralph took control of the company,

changing its name to Peter Kiewit's Sons. By 1920, the youngest of the Kiewit children, also named Peter, left Dartmouth College in his freshman year and joined the company as a foreman. After several years the young Kiewit--who would eventually run one of the largest

construction companies in the nation--began estimating, bidding, and supervising entire projects. He landed the first million dollar contract for the company, the construction of Omaha's Livestock Exchange Building. In 1930 Peter Kiewit suffered the obstruction of a blood vessel

resulting from the chronic inflammation of his veins--a condition called phlebitis. His doctors informed him that he would be a semi-invalid for the rest of his life. Meanwhile family members began to pull out of the company, a move begun by George Kiewit in the mid-1920s. It

appeared that the Kiewit legacy--nearly 50 years old--was at an end as Peter Kiewit remained confined to a hospital bed for nine months. The next year, however, only a few months after leaving the hospital, Peter Kiewit formed a new company, named in honor of his father, Peter

Kiewit Sons'. Kiewit's first project in this arena--a Texas road-building contract--was not a tremendous success. He was unable to complete the work on schedule and had spent half of his working capital by the time the job was completed. The project was a valuable learning

experience, however. By the time President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal public works program began soliciting bids for Public Works Administration projects, Kiewit had honed his bidding and scheduling abilities. During this era of increased, federally-supported construction,

Kiewit's projects included a canal and reservoir for the Loup River Public Power and Irrigation District in Nebraska and a similar project near the North Platte river. The budget for these two contracts exceeded $3 million. This pool of talent proved valuable during the

construction boom ignited by World War II, which provided the economic stimulus to dramatically increased Kiewit's size. Its first large defense project was the construction of the cantonments at Fort Lewis, Washington, for $8 million. This initial foray into defense contracts,

the first of many to be awarded to Kiewit, was followed by the construction of Camp Carson in Colorado for $43 million, and military installations in Alaska for $35 million. In all, Kiewit completed nearly $500 million worth of World War II projects, placing the company

among the nation's biggest builders.

The end of the war did not signal the end of Kiewit's involvement in military contracts, though. In 1950 the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers approached Kiewit for assistance in a joint venture to construct bomber and housing installations in

Greenland. Known as "Operation Blue Jay," the project required the importation of 5,000 workers to build the facilities that later became Thule Air Force Base. In 1952 Kiewit was awarded a $1.2 billion Atomic Energy Commission contract to build a uranium plant in Portsmouth,

Ohio. The project, which at that time represented the largest construction contract the government had ever given a single builder, demonstrated the strides Kiewit had made since its first experience with heavy construction in Texas 20 years earlier. By the end of the decade,

Kiewit had gained a reputation as the contractor able to build large facilities, no matter where they might be located. In 1958 the U.S. Army awarded Kiewit a $5 million contract to build Alaska's first nuclear facility. A year later Kiewit crews began the construction of two

radar stations on the Greenland ice cap for a $13 million U.S. Defense Department contract. By the 1960s, the company had developed into an almost self-subsistent organization. Kiewit owned over 40 corporations involved in nearly every facet of enterprise related to construction

and day-to-day operations. Global Surety & Insurance Co. handled the medical and health policies for Kiewit employees, while another company provided them with life insurance. Other subsidiaries leased earth-moving equipment and quarried rock and gravel, while still others mined

coal to supply public utility facilities. By subcontracting and supplying much of its own construction operations, Kiewit was able to schedule different phases of a project and limit cost overruns. Consequently, the bidding for contracts could be done much more precisely and,

as a result, profits were increased.

However, Borgerson isn't the only tech mogul with ties to Jeffrey Epstein and his circle. Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Marvin Minsky, MIT's "father of artificial intelligence," have all been connected to Epstein.

The company has long been considered a front-runner in the space of big data in shipping and has attracted investments from tech bigwigs such as Eric Schmidt, former CEO and executive chairman of Google, and hedge fund investor Paul Tudor Jones. In 2017, the company entered into