Page 10 - The Islander - October '24

Page 10, The Islander

In Your CommunItY

Live Like Jake Announces

Sell-Out Of Seventh Annual Be The Light Gala

Fundraiser On October 4 At Pelican Club, Jupiter

Live Like Jake, the more perfect, and we are so grateful to the Live Like Jake Lee Petereit; The Gilbert Family; The Barone Family; The
local foundation created community for the opportunity. Based on the response, I Broadhead Family; and The McCarty Family.
in the memory of Jake know we are not alone in our enthusiasm, which bodes well For information about future events, scholarships, or the
Ro ar ke M o r r i son for support of our mission to end childhood drowning,” says foundation, please visit www.livelikejake.org or call (561)
announces that tickets to Morrison. “We have fun surprises in store, and I can’t wait 441-7611.
its upcoming “Buoys & to welcome everyone on October 4 at the Pelican Club.” About The Live Like Jake Foundation
Bourbon”-themed gala All monies raised from the fun-filled event go to support Committed to honoring the life and joy of Jake Roarke
are sold out. Live Like Jake’s mission of raising awareness for drowning Morrison, the foundation’s mission is to raise awareness for
The Seventh Annual prevention through self-rescue swim scholarships, outreach drowning prevention. Following the 2013 tragic drowning
Be the Light gala programs and financial assistance to families who have lost of their 2-year-old son, Keri Morrison and her husband
fundraiser took place a child or have a child with critical care needs. Roarke created the Live Like Jake Foundation to raise
October 4 at the elegant, waterfront Pelican Club, Jupiter. Sponsors for the night include: The Atkins Family, Life awareness for childhood drowning prevention. Partnering
Along with special libations celebrating this year’s theme, Saver Pool Fence, Infant Swimming Resource (ISR), The with other drowning prevention agencies and instructors,
the evening includes a live and silent auction, open bar, hors Weinberger Family, Counter Forced Labor Technologies, supporting other families who have experienced the same
d’oeuvres, a sumptuous dinner and dessert, dancing, awards Hobgood Estate Services, Ritter & Ramsey General and loss; providing an indoor, heated pool dedicated to infant
ceremony, and a live musical performance by country music Cosmetic Dentistry, Window Doctor, Trelles Injury Law, swimming resource (ISR) instruction, and connecting with
artist, Ricky Young. 16 Handles, The Forgatch Group – Compass, Atlantis Car their community, the foundation has been able to provide
“We are absolutely overwhelmed by the outpouring of Wash, Allyson Sullivan & Lang Realty, Nanny, Pandora, thousands of self-rescue swim scholarships and critical care
support and excitement for this year’s gala,” says Live Like Illustrated Properties and Love, Tito’s. funds around the nation.
Jake Founder, Keri Morrison. “Having our Be the Light Gala Table Sponsors: A&S Electric; Premier Pediatrics; Dr. Visit livelikejake.org and facebook.com/livelikejake and
underneath the actual beams of the lighthouse could not be Michael Connor, MD; Guardian Angel Inspections, Inc.; @livelikejake3939 on Instagram.

Book revIew

American Sanctuary: Mutiny, Martyrdom,

And National Identity In The Age Of Revolution

By Nils A. Shapiro

I cannot recall ever come across it by accident
enjoying a scholarly work on a table stacked with
of early American history so books while shopping
interestingly and vividly told, in a market. Its author,
so extraordinarily researched A. Roger Ekirch, is a
and impressively detailed, professor of history at
exciting as any novel, and Virginia Tech, has written
as timely in subject as next four earlier books,
month’s presidential election! received a Guggenheim
The date was September Fellowship and is widely
21, 1797. The event was a recognized as one of our
vicious mutiny by the crew of finest historians.
a British naval vessel, HMS Hermione, in the Caribbean off the The details that enrich
coast of Puerto Rico. Little remembered today, its aftershock this narrative, garnered
was to lead directly to the election of Thomas Jefferson over from the author ’s Eventually, after the mutiny Robbins made his way to the
the incumbent John Adams as president of the United States extraordinary research, U.S. and was tracked down by the British government, which
… and the resulting lasting image of America as a sanctuary of add enormously to the overall experience, as do the many demanded that President John Adams turn over the “mutineer
freedom for those fleeing from persecution in other lands—an contemporary portraits and illustrations from that period. and murderer” to Britain for punishment. It was awkward timing,
issue that dominates today’s political campaigns just as it did Revolutionary and early American history being one of my for Adams was then in the process of ratifying an economic trade
the one in 1800. preferred reading tastes I was surprised never to have heard of treaty with Britain that had just been negotiated.
I must admit that, although it was published in 2017, I the very significant event that is the pivotal subject of this book: Adams had to weigh the success of the treaty against the
had never heard of American Sanctuary and was fortunate to the mutiny aboard HMS Hermione. Nor, shockingly, was it ever American public’s anger about the British policy and actions
mentioned in any class, even through college. of impressment on the high seas and the idea of turning over to
At the time the mutiny took place—after the United States Britain a claimed American citizen who “had the right to regain
had already won the Revolutionary War several years earlier his freedom after having been the victim of such impressment”
and declared itself an independent nation—one of the most and return home.
objectionable policies of the British crown and its navy was the Adams’s decision to turn Robbins over to Britain—where he
practice of “impressment”: the stopping and boarding of other was executed by hanging without a trial—Adams’s Federalist
nations’ vessels, capturing members of their crews and forcing Party’s defense of his decision, and the consequences of
them to sail and work as seamen on British ships, most likely Jefferson’s Republican Party’s national electoral campaign
focused on driving the public’s anger, form the major part of
never to see their families again.
Your ad Such was the case of many on the Hermione’s crew as this compelling story.
Eventually—and critical in light of today’s political climate
it sailed near the island of Puerto Rico on that September
could be here! day in 1797. Adding to what was already a tinder box of a and immigration crisis—the American people eventually
decided that, whether or not Jonathan Robbins (or Thomas
situation was the fact that this ship’s captain, Admiral Hugh
Nash, if that was his real name) was in fact an American
Pigot, was a disciplinarian so stern that whipping and other
Call punishments for minor crew offenses became unbearable citizen, anyone fleeing from oppression should be able to find
and sparked the bloody insurrection that ended in the death
sanctuary in the United States and not have to fear being turned
of the captain and other officers. away. It is to this day at the heart of our nation’s self-image,
561-746-3244 One of the main leaders of the mutiny was a man whose symbolized by the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor and
the inscription on her base addressed to “the huddled masses
name throughout this book varies between Thomas Nash
(if he was actually Irish) and Jonathan Robbins, depending
upon whether his claim to have been an American from yearning to be free.”
This is the story of how and when that all started. I loved
Connecticut was true or not. every word of it.