{"id":5082,"date":"2014-03-07T08:09:11","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T13:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/?p=5082"},"modified":"2014-03-05T08:09:50","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T13:09:50","slug":"john-smith-the-most-famous-guy-you-ever-met","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/2014\/03\/07\/john-smith-the-most-famous-guy-you-ever-met\/","title":{"rendered":"John Smith – the most famous guy you ever met"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

My original intentions for this post didn’t quite pan out.\u00a0 I was watching some Pocahontas on TV and got to thinking about the most common name among English speaking countries and how beyond John Smith the explorer<\/a>, there were several other John Smith’s who were amazing historical figures.\u00a0 But the other John Smiths I was thinking about at the time weren’t actually John Smiths once I reminded myself about their history.\u00a0 They were Joseph Smith<\/a> (founder of Mormonism) and John Jones<\/a> (ally and brother in law to Oliver Cromwell).\u00a0 Outside of John Smyth the baptist minister<\/a>, and Wikipedia’s list of notable John Smiths<\/a>, I don’t really have the post I thought I did.<\/p>\n

Why then am I posting anyway, you might ask.\u00a0 ‘Cause it was a good idea!\u00a0 It just wasn’t real.\u00a0 It’s like finding a wealth of information on the Christopher Cotton who was a cousin to your ancestor but from whom you are not lineally descendent.\u00a0 Or like that guy in your genealogy database who lived for 120 years and none of the other genealogists who have the same guy in their trees seemed to have caught this.\u00a0 Can you tell I’ve been doing a lot of family searching lately?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My original intentions for this post didn’t quite pan out.\u00a0 I was watching some Pocahontas on TV and got to thinking about the most common name among English speaking countries and how beyond John Smith the explorer, there were several other John Smith’s who were amazing historical figures.\u00a0 But the other John Smiths I was… Continue reading John Smith – the most famous guy you ever met<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7922,"url":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/2018\/04\/06\/inspired-by-watching-john-wick\/","url_meta":{"origin":5082,"position":0},"title":"Inspired by watching John Wick","author":"leems","date":"April 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/johnwick-467x600.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1122,"url":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/2012\/05\/25\/john-allisons-scary-go-round\/","url_meta":{"origin":5082,"position":1},"title":"John Allison’s Scary Go Round","author":"leems","date":"May 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I talked about Scary Go Round by John Allison before.\u00a0 I love the stories.\u00a0 I love the style.\u00a0 Mr. Allison is a fantastic comic artist and story teller.\u00a0 At some point during my frequent visits to his site he managed to tug the strings of poor artist empathy in me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comics"","block_context":{"text":"Comics","link":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/category\/comics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8804,"url":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/2019\/12\/20\/finding-christmas-in-john-margolies-roadside-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":5082,"position":2},"title":"Finding Christmas in John Margolies Roadside America","author":"leems","date":"December 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Santa's Workshop, reindeer detail, Whiteface Mountain, North Pole, New York Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http:\/\/hdl.loc.gov\/loc.pnp\/mrg.00263 I collect little things all year, clipping from websites in my Evernote, saving or favoriting posts in my rss feedreader. These are things I don't want to forget,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Santasworkshop.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Santasworkshop.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Santasworkshop.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Santasworkshop.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4725,"url":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/2013\/11\/13\/john-mcwhorter-and-the-grumpy-grammarian\/","url_meta":{"origin":5082,"position":3},"title":"John McWhorter and the Grumpy Grammarian","author":"leems","date":"November 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I feel free.\u00a0 John McWhorter has just released my mind from an ingrained belief that I couldn't end a sentence with a preposition in his essay: Grumpy Grammarian: The Dangling Preposition Myth | New Republic..\u00a0 You who were schooled around the time I was, when cursive was still graded for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8868,"url":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/2025\/04\/15\/john-myers-myers\/","url_meta":{"origin":5082,"position":4},"title":"John Myers Myers","author":"leems","date":"April 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"By chance I ran across John Myers Myers' Doc Holliday (1955) when I was knocking about some used bookstore with my Dad, or perhaps in one of those fabulous pokey places in Florida tourist traps. It was engaging and turned my passing curiosity about Doc Holliday into a full blown\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/doc-holliday.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7703,"url":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/2017\/08\/02\/john-philip-sousa-and-the-fifth-string\/","url_meta":{"origin":5082,"position":5},"title":"John Philip Sousa and the Fifth String","author":"leems","date":"August 2, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In my quest for author voices I found that John Philip Sousa, great conductor and composer, had also penned an impassioned and oddly prophetic argument about phonograph music as a copyright infringement and a harbinger of the death of amateur music. Looking further, hoping to find more comments on copyright,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/blog\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/JohnPhilipSousa-Chickering.LOC_-416x600.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5082"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5085,"href":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5082\/revisions\/5085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theleemsmachine.com\/bean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}