Rutgers Football and Cuba

[Source]

Blair Gibbs won his Rutgers football letters from 1875-77 and later attended the University of Pennsylvania for a medical degree. He became friends with Teddy Roosevelt and decades later volunteered to be a surgeon in the U.S. Navy when the Spanish-American War broke out in the spring of 1898. He was assigned to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Gibbs was Acting Assistant Surgeon when a midnight attack occurred on his camp on June 12, 1898. According to the November 17, 1898 Targum, John Blair Gibbs became, “…the first commissioned officer of the United States to lose his life on Cuban soil” in the Spanish-American War. Rutgers classmates, including some of his football teammates, raised funds and erected a plaque in his honor and placed it in Kirkpatrick Chapel where it still hangs today.

Next time you have the time, enter Kirkpatrick Chapel (opened in 1873), pause in the center aisle and turn around to look at the wall you just entered under. You will see the plaque. His friends concluded services that day by singing "On The Banks of the Old Raritan" to honor his memory.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=sh&GRid=12945268&

 

[ScarletCrimson]

I imagine we could anyone and all places to RU. Go RU!

 

[ecojew]

Blair Gibbs won his Rutgers football letters from 1875-77 and later attended the University of Pennsylvania for a medical degree. He became friends with Teddy Roosevelt and decades later volunteered to be a surgeon in the U.S. Navy when the Spanish-American War broke out in the spring of 1898. He was assigned to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Gibbs was Acting Assistant Surgeon when a midnight attack occurred on his camp on June 12, 1898. According to the November 17, 1898 Targum, John Blair Gibbs became, “…the first commissioned officer of the United States to lose his life on Cuban soil” in the Spanish-American War. Rutgers classmates, including some of his football teammates, raised funds and erected a plaque in his honor and placed it in Kirkpatrick Chapel where it still hangs today.

Next time you have the time, enter Kirkpatrick Chapel (opened in 1873), pause in the center aisle and turn around to look at the wall you just entered under. You will see the plaque. His friends concluded services that day by singing "On The Banks of the Old Raritan" to honor his memory.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=sh&GRid=12945268&

Interesting tidbit, Source. I was just in Cuba in January - with students, all perfectly legal, LOL - and we visited the far east of the country this time, including Santiago de Cuba, which is where the famous San Juan Hill is located. We also went to Guantanamo, the town, not the base, of course, but did see the base from an overlook south of the town. The US didn't have a base there till after the war, which was a relatively short affair, but it gained fame as part of the independence agreement in 1902, when the US gave Cuba its nominal independence but did so with the proviso that the US base would remain and that we could intervene in the internal affairs of Cuba to protect our interests. The latter arrangement was just a part of the broader Roosevelt Corollary, an amplification of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.

 

[Source]

Fascinating stuff ecojew. What takes you to Cuba? Educational purposes, business, diplomatic? How did you swing a trip to Cuba?

 

[Abro1975]

My friend just got back from shooting an episode of Ray Donovan. The crew had fun he said.