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John Browns Raid at Harpers Ferry
This blog will take you through the early life of John Brown and his raid at Harpers Ferry, through original photographs in our collection. John Brown is best known for his radical abolitionist views and the violence he would take to see those views become a reality. Humbling Begining for the Life of John Brown […]
The Real Day the Declaration was Signed
You are there: Despite some residual controversy, most historians believe that while agreement on the content of the Declaration occurs on July 4, the official day the declaration was signed is delayed until August 2, 1776. This conclusion is based on two facts. The first is that New York State doesn’t signal its approval until […]
Louis T. Wigfall
Louis Wigfall’s future is shaped by his origins. On his mother Eliza’s side he is descended from the Trezevant family, long among the South Carolina elites. Her husband, Levi Durand Wigfall, is a prominent merchant in Charleston with a plantation in Edgefield, where Louis is born in 1816. He is surrounded by wealth and the […]
The Life of Lincoln Through Original Photographs
Experience the Life of Lincoln through original 19th-century photographs and words from Robert E. Drane. All of the photographs featured are from our collection, click on any of the photos for more information and to view the photo with our photo-viewer. The gallery of the Life of Lincoln Through Original Photographs can be viewed in […]
William Walker, American Filibusterer
The quest by Southerners to expand slavery outside of America’s existing borders is ongoing. It succeeds in 1836 with the founding of the Texas Republic on some 350,000 square miles of Mexican land. Then fails nine years later in Cuba when an invasion attempt backed by Mississippi Senator John Quitman, carried out by the Venezuelan […]
Ward Lamon, Lincoln’s Bodyguard
At 6’4” tall, 260 pounds and armed with brass knuckles, a blackjack and a Bowie knife, the man known as Hill Lamon (pronounced “Lemon””) is every inch a credible bodyguard for Abraham Lincoln. His devotion to the job finds him side by side with the President during the day and, at night, patrolling the grounds […]
The Senate “Committee of Thirteen” Try To Save the Union
One month after the election of Abraham Lincoln, political leaders across Washington search frantically for a compromise to his promised ban on slavery in the west which threatens to drive the South out of the Union. In the Senate, where Democrats still control 38 of the 66 seats, Kentucky’s Lazarus Powell calls for a “Committee […]
The origins of rice in America, the Gullah people and William Aiken Jr.
Before William Aiken Jr. enters the picture it’s necessary to tell how the Gullah people introduced rice to America. When captive west coast Africans land in Charleston around 1650 they arrive with a host of different local traditions and speaking a variety of different tongues. Then, in order to survive their enslavement, they gradually form […]
Prince Hall Black Masonic Lodges
Prince Hall’s founding of a Freemason Lodge for Africans in the city of Boston is an early milestone in the uphill battle of Blacks to achieve social respect and acceptance. Facts about the early life of Prince Hall are sketchy, but he is thought to have been born in Barbados in 1748 and to have […]
Reverend James Henley Thornwell Slavery A Positive Good
With slavery established in all 13 colonies by 1700, debates about its morality begin to surface, especially among the clergy. At the time, the fundamentalist ministers who dominate America’s early churches preach that the literal words of the Bible are both correct and unerring. They cite the Old Testament book of Genesis and the “curse […]