Overland mail

TL;DR -- Bunker Hill West was on our sights early as we looked at the progress of New England's influence into the west coast. We noted that a coach company had facilities there and that the journey for some arriving had started in St. Louis and was going up to San Francisco. That route was covered in both directions. There is a group that has been documenting the company and its involvement. One of the investors was of a Gardner family. We went to look for information about him which we will report. This post is an introduction to Overland Mail as an initiative of the U.S. government starting early. 

--- 

As earlier posts mentioned, we used the isolation of the COVID times to pay more attention to the interior of the country. We got started with the naval activities, such as coastal attempts at colonies, fishing in the waters over here every year with the expectation of going back with some dried fish, and more. Too, the naval history of New England is rich prior to the Revolution which is facing its 250th lookback and after with the proliferation of companies related to shipping. 

In those earlier times, western movement didn't go much beyond New York. Though, early on, locations like Ipswich MA sponsored migration as best they could. Except, there were the wanderers even prior to the Revolution. Northern movement down to the area of Arkansas was going on about the same time that northern New England was getting its start. Even the west saw Europeans coming into the area even before Lewis & Clark's venture. 

Once the U.S. was born, it took a generation for activity in the west to reach a level of interest with St. Louis MO as a focus area. Much of the western traffic moved through that area, partly due its proximity to where the Ohio river joined up with the Mississippi. But, there was naval access to the west coast, as well before the Gold Rush of California. Some of this was due to Hawaii being a stopover point for sailing the Pacific. We intend to look further into that theme.

But, with land movement, we can map out areas and time frames. Jedediah Strong Smith was a focus due to his going out west through St. Louis (1820s when MO became a State) and then his extensive journeying in the west, including a stint in the LA area when it was still under Spanish rule. 

It was about then that we bcause aware of the St. Louis to San Francisco (LA_SF) coach route. Our focus was mostly about LA due to it being a stopover on the trail going to  San Francisco. The image shows DTLA in 1900 which a view toward what became known as Bunker Hill West which was named by a displaced New Englander. 

1900 scene, of Bunker Hill West
where Overland Trail coaches
came in, for relief of passengers
and sources (horses)

Recently, we noticed that there have been more publications on a website on the subject with information related to the LA_SF jaunt. More information has also been provided about the TX to SF part of the trip. Now, the eastern portion has better coverage is getting attention: Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma (with respect to the Overland Mail). For instance, AR is mountainous. One thing passenger were requied to do was get out and walk with the coach as it was slowly moved through the hilly areas. 

States in the area. Kansas had a lot of east west traffic. One research provided lots of information and commentary on that state's support for Overland Mail  (as it is seen in KS). That is now the name of this activity which denotes the main purpose plus the involvement with the U.S. government. St. Louis had heavy activity as the country was divided and sold throughout the west. 

Other states involved were TX, NM and AZ in the south. We will be looking at other views on Overland Mail as the Pony Express came to be for that specific purpose and ran across the northern states.  

People? The group devoted to the history and preservation of the Overland Mail route (that is associated with Butterfield - who never put his name on the venture) (The Historic Butterfield Overland Trail in Arizona) has done remarkable research. We are fortunate in that area. One of their latest ventures is to identify the employees who saw to it that the coach made it from MO to northern CA. The infrastructure was astoundingly complicated. 

In terms of comparison, we have a post that shows how the 21 days (3 weeks) of one way of this journey compared to other situation. For instance, the same amount of time was taken for a portion of the trip by wagon train from Independence MO (across KS and NM) to Sante Fe NM. Fort Lanerd KS is on the trail and 3 weeks away from the start. 

We made contact with the Butterfield group. There was a query. One of the investors was named James V P Gardner. Who was he? On a quick look, we identified one resource from the late 1800s that suggested that he was from a New England family. James V P Gardner (son of Daniel (6) - James Van der Poel Gardner -- as descendant of George of Rhode Island) would be a cousin of the Gardiner for whom the city in Maine was named. Too, he would have been related to the Gardiner who owned the ship that wrecked off the coast of Oregon in 1850. 

We will post what we know about James V P Gardner as a preliminary report from which we will build something adequate to serve as a truthful basis for information about him. 

The information from TGS, Inc. efforts is being provided now with the caveat that we need to look further into sound/solid provenance of the sources that are used. Bringing in another factor? Technology of late has seen itself contributing more to disinformation than to information. The theme is on our watchlist and is (will be) an actual focus for the TGS, Inc. at all levels. 

John likes to use this example: From the top, we have folks of huge cachet for whom History has lots ot say; getting modern, we have the top-level offices of the G-Suite (military) and the C-Suite (the industrial/commercial part of the activity); then the huge middle management realm; down to the workers and users of whatever the economy is about in terms of keeping the modern life viable. At each level, there is no one truth that can be said to be accurate from top to bottom. Or from bottom to top. 

The computer has both helped and hindered attempts at briding the gaps. Of late, things have been more problematic than necessary for various reasons. John jokes about buckets'o'bits and their misleading clouds, though many are working to make things more stable and sustainable. We all can help. 

So, with respect to our research and reports, we will keep the "shining light on the hill" (Winthrop) in mind. Too, our site will be "bespoke" for many reasons with the goal of providing a "portal to truth" which notion comes from the mid-2010s as we incorporated in order to organize future efforts.  

About sources? We have them. For Gardner Beacon issues over the fifteen volumes, we started with a Bibliography and Source page. However, we started to provide links from the issues to posts from this blog. However, we are looking into a better organization of our several blogs for proper curation of sources. 

Note: The information about J V P Gardner and his life looks good, even though we need to check the provenance of the pedigree. There are many extant documents that will support this work. This Note will be updated when the post about J VP Gardner is published. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/23/2025

12/23/2025 --

Welsh poems

TL;DR -- After a long list of caveats which are not complete, we push a link to Dave T Gardner's post on Welsh poems that are pertinent to his work on Gardiner history. Our interest deals with the topic of "All things Gardner" and the emergence of a vogue of advance software that needs attention.  

--

Caveats, first (this is without links; but everything mentioned here has been covered, at least for starters; I'll get back and put in links. In the below, I'll use LLM to refer to the systems to be described further with respect to the pros and cons.): 

• Prolog: This work of David T Gardner is being enabled via computation which is effective when done right. Can we say that yet? Well, we don't have to wait as the work has decades behind it. What's new is that this thing that everyone else calls AI (and I call it AIn't, for various reasons) allows years of effort that accumulated progressive means to culminate in potential that we dreamed of. DTG has given himself a couple of years to establish provenance in a manner that bears scrutiny. We'll help him do that. In the meantime, read this as you would an overview that borders upon truth yet it is not a mere reach of the imagination. The following is John's take on the matter. 
• 1 --- there ain't no critter in the computer in terms of something that Ma Nature dreamt up or that is there latently and has been waiting to emerge. As in, Musk joked of summoning the demons which bears on metaphysics (more below). But, we can describe this phenomenon to a large extent now that there are many examples (from ChatGPT to Gemini to others) to observe, test, measure, and whatever. Good old science is the key here, and it will be beyond physics. 
• 2 --- we are witnessing computational prowess of an unprecented nature with regard to size and extent. Yet, we knew all of this stuff before, either individually or collectively. In most cases, the tone and meaning of things changed as one would expect. But, language alterings that happend dynamically do not offer that new species of life will emerge. 
• 3 --- hence, we have to get used to mathematics. Now, we can use the computer to do this. Need to. And, one example is Wolfram's Mathematica system which has brought in GenAI/LLM as a service (not all, but a good representative set). As we go through the steps to validate DTG's work, we will learn new things and require that models change. That's okay. 
• 4 --- model-based reasoning is old hat, now, almost as old as computing itself. What, you might ask? Well, one of the prime modes for modeling is from the '50s and coincides with the AI emergence out of efforts of mathematicians at a Dartmouth meeting and after. Lisp is what I am referring to and is my preferred language, albeit we ought to have kept the Lisp machine to help balance the quant mode of the Nvidias and other of the world caught in that illusion. 
• 5 --- quantum to be brought up with respect to #4? Okay, that's fair game. People are quantum processors and have been from the getgo. Wait, teleology? Yes, I must mention that psychology and philosophy are to be brought into the discussion. Expect more on this. It's already there (I've been at this for decades). So table this til later. 
• 6 --- as I need to mention KBE which I worked in after starting in KBS. There is not anything new now. We looked at this stuff decades ago. What has changed is what people refer to as the effects of handling "scale". I say that a lot of it is crap and do so with affection for all things computing since the facilities will help us be better humans. Local? Some here that mentioned now. Well, I have said that all along. 
• 7 --- truth engineering has been in the wings for decades and now can be discussed in a context that grounds the work and evaluation techniques. Before, it was a piece of my brain as conditioned with decades of Lisp starting before the Lisp machine but have years in that environment. And, truth is a local deal. Truth is not about power. What is truth? It's funny, Gemini has had discussions with me on this matter and never barfed. Mostly, I have traces. 
• 8 --- but, there is no anthropomorphizing intended here; mainly, I'll address these GenAI/LLMs and whatever else crops up with labels. So, Claude has already been used all over the place in reference to that system. DTG used Grok (earlier this year; got burned; stopped; discussed; and we restarted with provenance as the focus). 
• 9 --- lots more will be added, but here's the gist of the post. 
• 10 --- ...  

Today, DTG put out some poems that he found and that were written in Welsh. The LLM was helpful in getting the digitized versions translated after it provided support for the OCR step. That's a brief comment. The point is that there is a large amount of stuff to look at. This seemed appealing for many reasons, not the least of which is that it's poetry. By people. 

 Welsh Poems That Describe the Battle of Bosworth

There will be more commentary, both on the content of the study and on the technological issues. Hopefully, we can bring computationalism into line with what is required for progress as a whole. Some of that might be the subject of psychology and philosophy. We'll start with Kant's Prolgeomena which he wrote after getting incongruent criticism after he published his Critique of Pure Reason. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/18/2025

12/18/2025 -- With respect to the poems, consider them as not verified for the time being. With respect to AIn't in any use, all bets are off without more work related to equilibrium, stability, maturity of presentation, and such other things that we associate with people. Sorry, folks, for bringing the message -- remember, this is a crucial time with respect to technology, especially computing. 

Gardner's Beacon, Vol XV, No 1

This issue of Gardner's Beacon continues our interest in regular presentation of ongoing work as well as reviews of common interests. ...

Topics:

Activity, 2025

250th, 400th of the U.S. 

Technology

...

GB XV, 1 (PDF w/links)

New: Mobile-friendly issue of

GB XV, 1  

See Vol. XV, No. 1 of Gardner's Beacon for links to Sources.

Note: Our software is bespoke and will remain so until some serious discussion takes place (computers, philosophy, science, and more -- what we really need for truth engineering). HTML/CSS/Javascrpit is the basis with two blogging editors plus the following: Sea Monkey's Composer (html); Microsoft's Notepad (html, css, and javascript); Chrome developer's tools (mainly, at this point, for execution for debugging -- I have access to the development environment). So far, I have avoided co-pilots and Gemini's insistence that it's smarter than I am. People, this easy-peasy software development is creating a slippery slope to hell or, at least, perdition. I have logs and comments along this trek of TGS, Inc. (from 2010 with changes in 2012, 2014 and after with many updates pending time and effort). Mark my words as I slough along. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/14/2025

12/14/2025 --  1st release. 

Bespoke software

TL;DR --We have slowly been working on our portal in a bespoke manner. Ten years ago, there was lots of attention on the web in understanding HTML/CSS/JavaScript with examples provided by those who had the time and interest. At the same time, development in machine learning lead to thoughts of autocode (as in the machine doing the coding). Now, we witness countless offers for robotic development of software. Something is wrong.We will look at this, over time, since it's not of prime concern. Yet. Besides we will see shakeouts of methods which is normal for progress. Too, we have lots of pending work to do. One that is high on the list is getting regular attention to the date of the death (29 Dec 1674) of Thomas Gardner (Salem planter). 

---

Want an example? Our Gardner's Gate or portal. We have used the phrase a few times but intend to use it more. Our first reference was this post in January of 2020: Gardner's Gate. In that post, we mentioned a few of the types of research that we were doing. At that time, we may have had some notion of the coming technology interest but did not mention the subject. 

Guess what? A month later, we were informed that a city that we had visited had cases of confirmed COVID. Life changed, then, for a while, as everyone adapted to the new regime brought by the pandemic. For us, we got into research that was more involved (the US interior). One particular problem took us almost two years to resolve; but, we stuck to it and accomplished the necessary feats. 

A little before, we had started the portal (https://TGSoc.org). That was in 2017. In doing so, we took advantage of some earlier work. But, we took a "bespoke" path and will continue. 

Why mention this? Well, algorithms, computing, and such has been John's work in advanced computational systems. The TGS main blog started in the Microsoft world due to the influence of ASP.NET. There were jumblings in that world in 2012 to which we adapted by leaving the Microsoft realm and going over to a Linux server. By the time of the portal, we had a strategy (somewhat). We needed resources and continual involvement, but there were other factors controlling time. 

For one thing, research came first. We have been doing issues of Gardner's Beacon and printed several releases of The Gardner Annals. There were meetings and research for other groups. But, as John worked the bespoke issues, he kept notes and published some of them (we intend to organize links to this material -- see Devlog). 

Too, some organzational work became more involved taking time and energy. But, we kept the TGS, Inc. fires going. Until COVID came along and changed things. Eventually, those constraints went away; people started to get their lives back. 

But, the underpinnings of technology were changing. We'll detail our views and experiences. But, GenAI/LLM appeared three years ago. Our first experience was with ChatGPT after which we settled with Bard/Gemini. It wasn't much later that we had looked at the problems with finding algebraic solutions (Technology and its influence).

Sometime later, interest in what's known as "vibing" to some came to be; too, using LLM  as a tag, people began to develop methods that allowed the facilities to assist in development (co-pilot in some cases; in others, there is more autonomy). We will discuss this from the framework of maturity and dependable/stable computing. 

So, bespoke will be spoken in our world. 

---

Again, research? Thomas Gardner died 29 Dec 1674 (post written 3 Jan 2019). One of our research topics was, where is he and his remains? That topic will be mentioned yearly henceforth. We will put a page on this at our portal in the coming months. 

Notice in the ChatGPT session (link above), we brought in information about Thomas that had been thought right for a couple centuries now. Not long afterwards, we learned that during our absence from WikiTree, they had been analyzing newly-digitized documents from Sherborne, Dorset, UK. Adjusting to that new information is on our plate - Gardner Research. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/13/2025

12/10/2025 -- Some edits of typos and adding new information such as a graphic. 

12/13/2025 -- We started with Microsoft's Office on-line and its developer's tools. The intent was to carry on with the ASP.NET approach (I liked C#), even though my early web work was in Unix, for the most part. Office 365 came along; that was our first instance of seeing companies falter as they learned that their processes no long worked. What did we do? Surveyed the alternatives. Picked a Linux server. And, fell back to HTML where buttons were captured by image and the behaviour was coded using CSS. That worked. The next step was to covert to Javascript. That continues. The issue was content versus configuration and continues (AIn't notwithstanding - map/territory issues will be discussed) Our focus was content and still is except the AIn't emergence changes things. So, bespoke? We're putting out a new issue of Gardner's Beacon (Vol. XV, No. 1) and will be starting to redo our analysis. We'll report regularly as we go along. As we will stop and discuss choices in the vein of engineering tradeoff analysis. 

Research, using the internet and AI

TL;DR -- Time goes by. Things happen. Technology can be a boon or a bane. It's wonderful when it works. With the redo of the focus of AI, we are starting a few new approaches. One deals with sharing data but, at the same time, keeping some control on usage. The sustainable future of computing that has slipped out of our fingers can be recovered. 

--

The past couple of weeks have been busy. The year has been busy with new events. Of old news, these dealt with the 250th which we started to mention a decade ago. Now, it's on the doorstep. Of current news, the AIn't, as we call it, happened three years ago last month (Nov). That whole trek is worthy of attention under our the TGS, Inc. focus on technology. 

Then, there is the future which includes many categories. Some of these are familiar. One of late was research started this year with one of the GenAI/LLM offerings. It was neither ChatGPT nor Gemini which we have used and commented on. We'll get to the specifics. After the spring start, there was some redo in the summer that had to do with common errors associated with the techniques involved. 

So, there was a restart. This post is about that (see below). Also, the White House announced their Genesis Mission which is involved with AI (note, I do not use AIn't, in this case) which is a more full look at the software capability. We will go into that more. But, we were happy to see that DOE is driving the thing. One of the first to announce their participation was the INL which is in Idaho. We were there for a few years a while ago. 

One writeup of the project noted that 400K scientists and engineers will be involved in making AI what it was and can continue to be, before the sidetrack of machine learning which may have been a necessary event but was poorly managed for several reasons which we'll get to. 

For now, looking forward. A recent post by David T. Gardner explains the new approach which we will look into further. In this post -- The Anomaly of the Miles Defuncto (Knight, Deceased) -- see the "Citation & Legal Status Dataset" which is about the use of Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/records/17670478) to control access to and use of documents that are made available for information only while a project does its work. Expect this type of thing to become more prevalent. 

For now, we will push handling details of David's project to a later time as we get a better notion of the expected changes what will accrue from the recent decisions. However, we will be reading David's material on a regular basis. The plan is for us to support his work; a bit of groundwork is necessary prior to that work in the sense of preparedness. 

The internet started to encourage cooperative work by people at disparate sites and of different organizations. That was a collegial focus. With busyness and profit, people get paranoid about someone stealing their ideas. That is quite rational. 

AIn't? It proved the concept by copying and using data from all over without permission and trampling over copywrite rights. That sort of thing will be worked out for a more mature use of AI and computationally-framed data in the future. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/08/2025

12/05, 06, 07/2025 -- Zenodo reading requires a login. Changed the calling sequence. See records via this: https://zenodo.org/records/17670478. DTG changed the section on Sir Christopher. We will focus on this for a while. He's like Nathaniel Eaton, first head of Harvard. Misunderstood. GGP of Ann and many others.  

Sir Christopher Gardiner

TL;DR -- Winthrop and New England disliked Sir Christophere Gardner. We were intrigued by the bad-boy aspects. Can a modern approach help us make a better determination of the facts of the case which was handled 400 years ago in favor of the powers that were? This case is not unique. But, the tie-in to the technology fiascos of late cannot be ignored. 

-- 

When we first started, our attention was on Salem, MA and the crew that came into the area of Cape Ann in the timeframe of 1623/24. Later, we learned of another Thomas Gardner, who was of Roxbury in MA. Turns out that Ann is descended from both. 

But,we heard from lots of Gardner families such that we defined a category: All things Gardner. We still had an early New England focus but had to modify that to cover other times and places. Turns out that Dr. Frank had a list of Gardner families in his 1907 book which was updated in the 1933 book. 

Sir Christopher Gardner was an early name of interest. We had place his name of the "todo" list and can finally get active in the necessary research. Earlier, we ran into details about his life as told by others such as that told by John Winthrop (on Christopher Gardner). As one can see by the image, those in power in New England did not like the guy. 

Now, along the time of our research, we were contacted by David T. Gardner (DTG) who had researched his family for decades. They came into the Philadelphia area in the latter part of the 1600s. 

DTG started a blog with the title of King Slayer's Court. He wrote articles for the Gardner Beacon and The Gardner Annals. Recently, DTG has been using various GenAI/LLM systems for research. His findings are interesting. This post provides some information on one. 

In general, the use of these systems have been both of the bone and the bane type. Which is stronger? Depends. At one time, things looked dire from the systems generating "hallucinated" results. How would one know is a proper question? 

---

David had been pulling records from old English files, getting them transcribed, and building a database with which to look for correlations as one would expect. Earlier (prior GenAI/LLM), that was doable but slow. The AI part offered the potential for improvement. But, when a good majority of the results are bogus, analysis stands no chance. 

After a good start in the spring of this year, the realization of the problems with provenance of the data caused some headache. David took a break. We on the other hand kept sloughing through the issues as they will be important to eventual resolution of the messes. As mentioned, there are pros and cons. The world seems to be split. 

One factor in success would involve proper control for controlling the wild potential that is as destructive as not. How to handle this matter has had a lot of attention. Enough reports of some good quality have come out this year. 

So, months later, David is attempting again while using multiple systems. The results are interesting with respect to the original study of Gardner relationships with the Tudor dynasty. However, another topic came forth today that offers us something that we can get our teeth into. Namely, Sir Christopher Gardiner who was on the "list of infamy" of Winthrop. 

David posted this recently: The Enigmatic Knight of the Wilderness: Sir Christopher Gardiner Revisited Through Modern Eyes. 

Our approach will to use the different stories to build a more complete picture of Christopher Gardner. While doing that, we expect to learn about the systems, the peccadilloes of each plus gain some insight into the "control" aspects that seem to be missing. 

This is a cursory look and is about a beginning. Stay tuned as we march further down the road. 

Remarks: Modified: 11/23/2025

11/23/2025 --

Emphasis, technology

TL;DR -- BBC talked about AI to one of its providers. Irrationality was raised. Yes, we used "AIn't" to describe the vacuous conditions (many senses) from about 2019 with respect to these types of approaches to knowledge handling and intelligence pretending. 2025 saw these things pushed out to the world. Ramifications will become rampant in 2026. With our technology focus, we will look at truth and what that means to us and our computational playthings. 

-- 

BBC talked to Google who spilled some beans. Here is an interesting summary. 

Google and irrationality

Of course, the use of irrationality got my attention and the use of "some" which might be considered an understatement. Also, it was Google who forced Gemini on us this year; analysis of the ramifications of that choice of theirs pends. 
-----------

Now, to the BBB video: https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/w3ct6s7l. 

You all, remember that Newton got pulled into some hyped positions in is day whose ramifications were unpleasant? 

---

Youngsters gone awry is one way to look at this. Two generations or so. But, it did not have to be done this way. We can trace decisions over three decades in order to set a tone for analysis. But, we need to go back 200 years in mathematics, from a technical sense dealing with what it means.  

The Thomas Gardner Society will focus on providing summaries over time with regard to what is what, at our "truth" portal, defined about 2017. We were waiting for data to arise of sufficient sense, beyond that related to the mania of a decade with the past three years being especially burdensome to rational thinking.

----

We were late in paying attention to the Nov of 2022 release from OpenAI as we had spent a decade plus looking at the going-ons from a distance and continually as the series of choices became more troublesone. 

Finally, we did a post in Feb of 2023: ChatGPT. What got us to look were reports of failing at algebra by the systems. Later, the use of "hallucination" became in vogue. But, the whole issue was the misuse of mathematics which could have been foreseen; reports of this type of problem started to rise to the surface after about a year. We will look at that in depth. 

To be fair, Wolfram (of Mathematica fame) took ChatGPT under his wing, tamed it, and made it contributory to his system and products. There are other examples. There are few. 

Meanwhile, in 2025, these systems were cast out everywhere. A technique called "vibing" with regard to code came into vogue using these systems. It needs a serious look with respect to issues. There is not much about the past three years that is exemplary. On the other hand, neural nets were given attention by the Nobel Prize committee in terms of its contributions to mathematical physics. That topic is on the table, too. 

We have our work cut out for us, as the world tries to recover from the ramifications. More on that later. 

Remarks: Modified: 12/15/2025

12/15/2025 -- Recovered image which disappeared after a small length of time.