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John Sutter and the Gold Rush
January 24, 1848: Gold Is Discovered At Sutter’s Mill In California You are there: on this day a carpenter named James Marshall discovers gold nuggets in a run-off stream at Johan Sutter’s sawmill northeast of Sacramento. A debt-ridden Johan Sutter flees Germany in 1834 to start a new life in America. He learns the fur […]
Liberty Party Political Abolitionists
The Background The beginnings of The Liberty Party liberal abolitionists go back to 1831, when William Lloyd Garrison publishes his Liberator newspaper in Boston and assumes leadership over the abolitionist movement in America. He rejects the U.S. Constitution and the federal government as instruments perpetrating slavery, and argues that only “moral suasion,” the power of […]
The Ostend Manifesto Embarrasses President Pierce
The Ostend Manifesto, also known as the Ostend Circular, origins go back to 1853 when President Pierce begins his term. By that time Northern resistance to expanding slavery into the west is on the rise. This leads Southerners to explore options outside of the U.S., with Cuba as a prime candidate. Interest in acquiring Cuba […]
Who was the first President photographed?
In 1849 pioneer cameraman Mathew Brady captures the first photograph of a sitting president, James Knox Polk, in his studio in lower Manhattan. But his image is preceded by that of two former presidents shot later in their lives. One is John Quincy Adams, President from 1825-29, then defeated for re-election by Andrew Jackson. Instead […]
Webster Hayne Debate on the Value of the Union
From January 19-30, 1830, two U.S. Senators engage in a series of debates that culminate in what historians often consider the most moving oratory ever delivered in the halls of Congress, the Webster Hayne Debate on the Value of the Union. On one side is Robert Hayne of South Carolina, 39 years old, owner of […]
Blind Tom Wiggins Piano Prodigy
The nation’s early professional pianists serve primarily as background support for various burlesque routines. Only a few attract enough followers to become headliners. One of them is “Blind Tom” who grows up in Georgia as a slave belonging to James Bethune. While sightless from birth and considered “retarded,” Tom discovers the household piano and begins […]
The Lott Family Household In Brooklyn, New York
One destiny for slaves freed in the North lay in ongoing servitude to their former owners – and such was the case with “Old Fanny” and “Uncle Abraham” of the Lott family household in Brooklyn. The Lott family migrates from Holland to New York around 1630. At the time, slave ownership is widespread among the Dutch, […]
The moving story of Jesse Grant and his Son Ulysses In Galena, Illinois
First some context on Galena. The western state of Illinois joins the Union in 1818 and has a population of some 476,000 in the 1840 Census. Ones of its booming cities at that time is Galena, and from Jesse Grant’s shop on main street would one of America’s most famous leaders be called to war. This […]
June 2, 1864: President Lincoln Meets The Reverend Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson Of Georgia At The White House And Endorses A Good-Will Mission.
You are there: In accord with the protocol of the day a visitor wishing to see the U.S. President in person can appear at the White House and be ushered in when his name is called. On June 2, 1864, one such guest is the Reverend Dr. Joseph Ruggles Wilson of Augusta, Georgia. Wilson is […]
Prince Hall and The First African Freemason Lodge In Boston 1776.
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. Who was Prince Hall? Facts about the early life of Prince Hall are sketchy, but he is thought to have been born in Barbados in […]