Fatal Cruise of the USS Princeton

(Navy History) On a late February day in 1844, a long line of black carriages drew up to the wharf at the Washington Navy Yard and dropped off the city's social elite, nearly 400 ladies and gentlemen in elegant attire and ready to celebrate. Captain Robert F. Stockton of Princeton, New Jersey, had assembled the very cream of the capital, including President John Tyler, for a demonstration cruise on board the pride of the United States Navy, the steam frigate USS Princeton . The festive voyage, however, did not go as planned. Continued

The Legendary Winans Steam Gun

(americancivilwarforum.com) ... Not that long ago I was driving south on US 1 though Elkridge MD., when I saw an odd looking contraption on the side of the road. It appeared to be an old piece of farming or railroad equipment. I assumed the later was correct because it looked like a weird little train engine. I also thought this was likely due to close proximity of the B&O Railroad tracks. Curiosity got the better of me & I stopped to inspect this odd little engine. To my surprise, I found that this was actually a battered old replica of the Civil War era wonder weapon known (incorrectly) as, the Winan’s Steam Gun! Continued

The Winans Cigar Ships

(The Vernian Era) The cigar ships were designed and built by the Winans family, successful railway engineers from Baltimore, Maryland who moved into marine engineering with enthusiasm and great expenditures of their family wealth, but less success. Their radical marine design concept included an ultra-streamlined spindle-shaped hull with minimum superstructure. The Winans constructed at least four ships between 1858 and 1866. Continued

Photo: A print of Winan's new Iron Steamer, taken September 29th, 1858, on the eve of launching, by D. A. Woodward, artist (Library of Congress).

Mansion with a curious name kept Baltimoreans enthralled

(Jacques Kelly) Time, fashion and finances were not kind to a fabled West Baltimore mansion, a winter palace built by 19th-century railroad builder and engineer Thomas deKay Winans. He gave his residence a curious name, Alexandroffsky. It was every bit a walled Xanadu that caused Baltimoreans to gasp and gossip until the day the wreckers flattened it. Continued

Local African-American cemeteries topic of program

(YDR) Small cemeteries dot the York County landscape, some attached to country churches, others small family plots on ancestral farmland.
The York County Heritage Trust is presenting a program about African-American cemeteries at 5 p.m. Saturday in York.
The Beatty family cemetery -- sometimes called the Batty's Chapel, River Hills Cemetery or Black Diamond -- is different because it is one of the few African-American cemeteries throughout the county. Continued

Photo by Kim Choate

Barney Ewell

(Wikipedia) Harold Norwood "Barney" Ewell (February 25, 1918 – April 4, 1996) was an American athlete, winner of one gold and two silver medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics.
Born into poverty in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Barney Ewell was one of the world's leading sprinters of the 1940s. Mr. Ewell attended John Piersol McCaskey High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Continued

Photo: USA Track & Field

Makes you wonder why they closed the Baltimore Civil War Museum

(Baltimore Sun) Last year Baltimore's tourism officials encouraged visitors to find their "happy place" and created the world's largest smiley face to help lift the region out of its doldrums. In previous years, they coaxed city visitors and residents to see jellyfish at the aquarium and celebrate Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday. For 2011, the tourism agency, Visit Baltimore, plans to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War's start by promoting local museum exhibits and cultural attractions with connections to the war. Continued

Amelia Earhart Spit Samples to Help Lick Mystery?

(Natty Geo) Amelia Earhart's dried spit could help solve the longstanding mystery of the aviator's 1937 disappearance, according to scientists who plan to harvest her DNA from envelopes.
Using Earhart's genes, a new project aims to create a genetic profile that could be used to test recent claims that her bones have been discovered. Continued

Disunion: Lincoln slips through Baltimore

(NYTimes) Feb. 23, 1861: The last day of Lincoln’s journey was the most difficult of all. He had braved the elements, the enormous crowds and the strain of speaking incessantly. By his words, and even more by his physical presence, he had shored up America’s flagging belief in her institutions. “Never before have we had man in the open air,” Whitman once wrote. Now, a million or so Americans had glimpsed a top hat parting a sea of humanity, or seen a bearded man wave from the back of a speeding train, or waved to him on a balcony in a downtown hotel, and felt a connection to their government.
But on this day, he had to reverse his open-air approach, and indulge in a most un-Lincolnesque deception. Continued

Photo: Passage through Baltimore, Adalbert Volck, 1861 (Library of Congress).

Former railroad tunnel tourist venue

(WAVY) ... The group ventured out to view for themselves the stately, somewhat mysterious ruin known equally well as the Blue Ridge or Crozet Tunnel. There, the officials assessed the feasibility of allowing guided public access to the tunnel next year when events throughout the Shenandoah Valley are planned to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Stonewall Jackson's campaign during the American Civil War. Confederate troops at least twice made use of the tunnel, which Nelson County officials are now raising funds to renovate and connect to Waynesboro's as yet incomplete greenway. Continued

Photo: Crozet Tunnel (Library of Congress).

How The Great Gatsby Became A Long Lost NES Game

(Kotako) Great Gatsby—the "NES" version, that is—started its strange life as a single screen shot, a pixelated recreation of Francis Cugat's iconic cover art for F. Scott Fitzgerald's great American novel.
"It was just too funny," says The Great Gatsby NES lead developer Charlie Hoey of that artwork "all NESified and blocky with PRESS START on top of it."
"I started thinking about turning it into a full game." So that's just what he did. Continued

Md. gets a C for teaching of U.S. history

(Baltimore Sun) By the time students get to Matthew Finck's 11th-grade U.S. history class, the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln are vague memories, historical facts they haven't heard about since eighth grade.
Beyond a very simplistic view of the causes, "they have no knowledge of the Civil War," Finck said. Continued

Man seeks to preserve stone ruin in Owings Mills

(Baltimore Sun) One of Maryland's most mysterious ruins can't be seen from any nearby road. In fact, in summer you could stand within 20 feet of it and see nothing but the trees and vines that are slowly demolishing the fragile structure. But behind that green curtain, off Garrison Forest Road in Owings Mills, you would find stone walls two stories high, pierced by rows of vertical slit windows that suggest gun embrasures. Continued

Cry Havoc: How the Bard shaped American political conversation on the eve of the Civil War

(Disunion/NYTimes) A century and a half ago, as Lincoln was preparing to assume the office to which he’d been elected in November 1860, Congress was vigorously debating the issues that were tearing a nation asunder. A sense of impending doom was palpable, with delegates from the Deep South convinced that the incoming administration was eager to deprive them of inalienable rights, and delegates from the North insisting that such fears were groundless.
Many of the elected officials who took part in these deliberations quoted Lord Byron, John Milton and other poets to buttress their arguments. The author who surfaced most frequently, however, was William Shakespeare, a source of acknowledged wisdom whose influence rivaled holy writ. Continued

Photos: 1. The Booth brothers in Julius Caesar. 2. "I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest . . . where be your gibes now?--"Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 1" McClellan, in the character of Hamlet stands near an open grave holding the head of Abraham Lincoln. He soliloquizes, "I knew him, Horatio: A fellow of infinite jest . . . Where be your gibes now?" The cartoon evidently appeared following publication in the "New York World" of a scandalous but fabricated account of callous levity displayed by Lincoln while touring the battlefield at Antietam. (See also "The Commander-in-Chief conciliating the Soldier's Votes," no. 1864-31.) McClellan's lines here come from "Hamlet," act 4, scene 1, which takes place in a graveyard, where a gravedigger throws up the skull of Yorick, the king's jester. Hamlet picks up the skull and meditates on the nature of life. At left are the words, "Chicago Nominee," referring to McClellan. At right an Irish gravedigger pauses in his work. Horatio (far right) is New York governor and prominent Peace Democrat Horatio Seymour. The White House is visible in the distance.

The Drama of Steel

1946 ARC Identifier 12505 / Local Identifier 70.218. This documentary film starts with the history of the steelmaking process, explaining the operation of the blast furnace and the open hearth furnace. It goes on to cover the mining of ore and limestone, transportation and coking of coal, open hearth and rolling mill operations, and plating and finishing. In addition, it also illustrates many of the applications of steel mill products. The film is partly animated. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Mines. Pittsburgh Experiment Station. (1934 - 01/19/1975)

The Hanover line was a mighty slow line

(Cannonball) ... Finishing up my business there, I started for the Depot, intending to take the 10 o'clock train and so on to Hanover junction, and meet the next train for Hanover, and would have succeeded, had it not been for the unexpected detention of the down train, which did not arrive until an hour after it was due, and then having to wait half an hour for the up train, there being but a single track, which I must confess is a great inconvenience to travelers, and, what is more, a great nuisance, for when we arrived at the junction the cars had been gone one hour, and, as the next train did not leave until half-past four, we were compelled to wait the agreeable length of four hours and a half time, after which, jumping on the cars, we started, and how long would you think it took us to travel thirteen miles? Methinks I hear you answer, about forty-five minutes; but you are far from right, it having taken us but one hour and three-quarters. Continued

Photo: Hanover Branch Railroad at Hanover Junction, Pennsylvania, 1863

Ollie the Flying Cow

(Wikipedia) Elm Farm Ollie (known as "Nellie Jay" and post-flight as "Sky Queen") was the first cow to fly in an airplane, doing so on 18 February 1930, as part of the International Air Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. On the same trip, which covered 72 miles from Bismarck, Missouri, to St. Louis, she also became the first cow milked in flight. This was done ostensibly to allow scientists to observe midair effects on animals, as well as for publicity purposes. A St. Louis newspaper trumpeted her mission as being "to blaze a trail for the transportation of livestock by air." Continued

An 1873 postwar journey through York County

(Cannonball) ... We leave the river at once on crossing, and run southwest towards York, one of the most thriving towns in Pennsylvania, and well known to our readers as the locale of the extensive nurseries of E. J. Evans & Co. The whole of this ride is one of great beauty. The land in this part of the country is so rich, that it produces timber of magnificent proportions, while the hill-sides are so steep and rocky, that it will never be used for anything else but timber purposes; so literary fame; so that if forests are the greatest conservators of climate, the great keystone of the Union will always be as she is now, one of the healthiest and best blocks in the national arch. Continued

Photo: Station at Hanover Junction, Northern Central Railway (MDRails)

First Barbary War

(Wikipedia) The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Barbary Coast War or the Tripolitan War, was the first of two wars fought between the United States of America and the North African Muslim states known collectively as the Barbary States. These were the independent Sultanate of Morocco and Tripoli, which was a quasi-independent entity nominally belonging to the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Continued

Lew Wallace

(Wikipedia) Lewis "Lew" Wallace (April 10, 1827 – February 15, 1905) was a lawyer, governor, Union general in the American Civil War, American statesman, and author, best remembered for his historical novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
... Wallace's most notable service came in July 1864, at the Battle of Monocacy, part of the Valley Campaigns of 1864. Although the some 5,800-man force under his command (mostly hundred-days' men amalgamated from the VIII Corps) and the division of James B. Ricketts from VI Corps was defeated by Confederate General Jubal A. Early, who had some 15,000 troops, Wallace was able to delay Early's advance for an entire day toward Washington, D.C., to the point that the city defenses had time to organize and repel Early, who arrived at Fort Stevens in Washington at around noon on July 11, two days after defeating Wallace at Monocacy, the northernmost Confederate victory of the war. Continued

Images: Monocacy Railroad Bridge by Alfred Waud, Lew Wallace by Brady & Co. (Library of Congress)

Valentine’s Day

(LoC) On February 14, Americans celebrate love and friendship by exchanging cards, flowers, and candy. Although the origins of Valentine's Day are murky, ancient Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia, a spring festival, on the fifteenth of February. Like so many holidays, a Christian gloss was added to the pagan fete when the holiday moved to the fourteenth of February—the saint day associated with several early Christian martyrs named Valentine.
The romance we associate with Valentine's Day may spring from the medieval belief that birds select their mates on February 14. During the Middle Ages, lovers recited verse or prose to one another in honor of the day.
Handmade valentines, probably the first greeting cards, appeared in the sixteenth century. Mass production of cards began as early as 1800. Initially hand-tinted by factory workers, by the early twentieth century even fancy lace and ribbon-strewn cards were created by machine. Continued

Photo courtesy of the Historical Society of Cecil County, Maryland.

Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton (June 27, 1936 Depew, New York – February 13, 2010 Baltimore, Maryland) was an American writer and educator from Buffalo, New York. ... In 1967, they moved to Baltimore, Maryland. Her first poetry collection Good Times was published in 1969, and listed by The New York Times as one of the year's 10 best books. From 1971 to 1974, Lucille Clifton was poet-in-residence at Coppin State College in Baltimore. From 1979 to 1985, she was Poet Laureate of the state of Maryland. Continued

Nantucket Whaler Lost in Pacific Tells Its Tale at Last

(NYTimes) In the annals of the sea, there were few sailors whose luck was worse than George Pollard Jr.’s. Pollard, you see, was the captain of the Essex, the doomed Nantucket whaler whose demise, in 1820, came in a most unbelievable fashion: it was attacked and sunk by an angry sperm whale, an event that inspired Herman Melville to write “Moby-Dick.”
Unlike the tale of Ahab and Ishmael, however, Pollard’s story didn’t end there: After the Essex sank, Pollard and his crew floated through the Pacific for three months, a journey punctuated by death, starvation, madness and, in the end, cannibalism. (Pollard, alas, ate his cousin.) Continued

NAACP founded

(Wikipedia) The Race Riot of 1908 in Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois had highlighted the urgent need for an effective civil rights organization in the U.S. This event is often cited as the catalyst for the formation of the NAACP. Mary White Ovington, journalist William English Walling and Henry Moscowitz met in New York City in January 1909 and the NAACP was born. Solicitations for support went out to more than 60 prominent Americans, and a meeting date was set for February 12, 1909. This was intended to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated enslaved African Americans. While the meeting did not take place until three months later, this date is often cited as the founding date of the organization. Continued

A World War II airman finally comes home

(Baltimore Sun) In the photo from 1943, Tech. Sgt. Charles A. Bode and his fellow airmen gaze into the camera, some shirtless, some smiling, looking to modern eyes like cast members of the musical "South Pacific." But the B-24 bomber crew would soon embark on a very real mission during the intense combat for the Pacific in World War II. The men took off from a port in New Guinea on Nov. 20, 1943; after a routine radio check, the 11 crewmen were never seen or heard from again. Continued

William Fox Talbot

(Wikipedia) William Henry Fox Talbot was a British inventor and a pioneer of photography, born on February 11, 1800 and died on September 17, 1877. He was the inventor of calotype process, the precursor to most photographic processes of the 19th and 20th centuries. He was also a noted photographer who made major contributions to the development of photography as an artistic medium. His work in the 1840s on photo-mechanical reproduction led to the creation of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. Talbot is also remembered as the holder of a patent which, some say, affected the early development of commercial photography in Britain. Additionally, he made some important early photographs of Oxford, Paris, and York. Continued

Businesses now open in old Baltimore County Jail

(Towson Times) Brody Bond, who graduated from Towson High School before he earned a degree in communications studies from James Madison University, is proud to say the company he and friend Greg Rittler, a CPA, founded was the first tenant to move into the old Baltimore County Jail. Since Jan. 1, the newly remodeled building on the corner of Bosley Avenue and Towsontown Boulevard has been the new home of Blue Ocean Ideas, a firm that specializes in digital advertising, website design, video and social media for clients. Their new digs have come up in the world. The old jail is now called Bosley Hall, and it’s an office building. Continued

Treaty of Paris (1763)

(Wikipedia) The Treaty of Paris, often called the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of 1763, was signed on 10 February 1763, by the kingdoms of Great Britain, France and Spain, with Portugal in agreement. It ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War. The treaty marked the beginning of an extensive period of British dominance outside Europe. Continued

The Meteor procession of February 9, 1913

(Wikipedia) The meteor procession of February 9, 1913, was a unique meteoric phenomenon reported from locations across Canada, the north-eastern United States, Bermuda and from several ships at sea, including one off Brazil, giving a total recorded track of some 5659 miles (9105 km). The meteors were particularly unusual in that there was no apparent radiant, that is to say, no apparent point in the sky from which the meteors appeared to originate. The observations were analysed in detail, later the same year, by the astronomer Clarence Chant, leading him to conclude that as all accounts were positioned along a great circle arc, the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth. Continued

Pictured: "Meteoric Display of February 9, 1913, as seen near High Park. Drawn by Gustave (sic) Hahn" (Toronto Star)

Laura Ingalls Wilder

On every side now the prairie stretched away empty to a far, clear skyline. The wind never stopped blowing, waving the tall prairie grasses…And all the afternoon, while Pa kept driving onward, he was merrily whistling or singing. The song he sang oftenest was:

Oh, come to this country,
And don't you feel alarm,
For Uncle Sam is rich enough
To give us all a farm!

Laura Ingalls Wilder,
By the Shores of Silver Lake Continued

The Schoolhouse Blizzard

(Wikipedia) The Schoolhouse Blizzard, also known as the Schoolchildren's Blizzard or the Children's Blizzard, hit the U.S. plains states on January 12, 1888. The blizzard came unexpectedly on a relatively warm day, and many people were caught unaware, including children in one-room schoolhouses.
The stories:

• Plainview, Nebraska: Lois Royce found herself trapped with three of her students in her schoolhouse. By 3 p.m., they had run out of heating fuel. Her boarding house was only 82 yards (75 m) away, so she attempted to lead the children there. However, visibility was so poor that they became lost and all the children froze to death. The teacher survived, but her feet were frostbitten and had to be amputated.
  
  
• Holt County, Nebraska: Etta Shattuck got lost on her way home, and sought shelter in a haystack. She remained trapped there until her rescue three days later. She soon died due to complications from surgery to remove her frostbitten limbs.
  
  
• In Great Plains, South Dakota, the children were rescued. Two men tied a rope to the closest house, and headed for the school. There, they tied off the other end of the rope, and led the children to safety.
  
  
• Mira Valley, Nebraska: Minnie Freeman safely led thirteen children from her schoolhouse to her home, one half mile (800 m) away.^[1][2] The rumor she used a rope to keep the children together during the blinding storm is widely circulated, but one of the children claims that is not true. She took them to the boarding house she lived at about a mile away and all of her pupils survived. Many children in similar conditions around the Great Plains were not so lucky, as 235 people were killed, most of them children who couldn't get home from school. That year, "Song of the Great Blizzard: Thirteen Were Saved" or "Nebraska's Fearless Maid", was written and recorded in her honor by W.M. Vincent and published by Lyon & Healy.
  
  
• Ted Kooser, Nebraska poet, has recorded many of the stories of the Schoolhouse Blizzard in his book of poetry, "The Blizzard Voices".
  
  
• In 1967 a haunting mosaic mural by Jeanne Reynal was created for the west wall of the north bay in the Nebraska State Capitol building in Lincoln, Nebraska. It captures much of the mood and drama of the storm. The mural, executed in a semi-abstract style, portrays an incident that occurred in which a school teacher, Minnie Freeman, is supposed to have tied her children together with a clothes line and led them through the terrifying tempest to safety. Continued

Photo: Trout School, Felton, PA. (Falmanac).

The USO: Home Away from Home

(LoC) The United Service Organizations, popularly known as the USO, was chartered on February 4, 1941, in order to provide recreation for on-leave members of the U.S. armed forces and their families. The idea of coordinating civilian volunteer efforts on behalf of the rapidly growing armed forces was first proposed, in 1940, by General George C. Marshall.
At the recommendation of President Franklin Roosevelt, the task was put in the hands of existing public service organizations. The USO, Inc., was organized by representatives of five private social service organizations: the Salvation Army, the YMCA, the National Board of the YWCA, the National Jewish Welfare Board, and the National Catholic Community Service. A sixth organization, the Travelers Aid Association of America, joined in March 1941. Continued

Middle River, a small crossroads in the vicinity of Baltimore, Maryland. FSA (Farm Security Administration) housing project (later administered by the National Housing Agency) for Glenn L. Martin aircraft workers. Mrs. Helen Bird, USO (United Service Organization) traveler's aide, giving information to a newcomer in the Glenn L. Martin trailer village (John Collier/FSA/OWI/Library of Congress)

Lancaster preacher was chaplain of York's Civil War Army Hospital

(Cannonball) The Rev. James Allen Brown, one of eight children of Quaker parents from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, served as the chaplain of the military hospital for most of the war, serving from 1862 until 1864. His was a massive chore, as the facilities housed more than 14,000 different patients during the war, with the majority there during Brown's tenure as chaplain. Perhaps as many as 200 patients died; Reverend Brown officiated at many of the funerals for those fatalities who were buried in York's Prospect Hill Cemetery. Continued

Joseph E. Johnston

(Wikipedia) Joseph Eggleston Johnston (February 3, 1807 – March 21, 1891) was a career U.S. Army officer, serving with distinction in the Mexican-American War and Seminole Wars, and was also one of the most senior general officers in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
Johnston was trained as a civil engineer at the U.S. Military Academy. He served in Florida, Texas, and Kansas, and fought with distinction in the Mexican-American War and by 1860 achieved the rank of brigadier general as Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army. When his native state of Virginia seceded from the Union, Johnston resigned his commission, the highest-ranking officer to join the Confederacy. Continued

Top Photo: Johnston's grave at Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore (Find A Grave/Russ Dodge).

Historical origins of Groundhog Day

(Wikipedia) - An early American reference to Groundhog Day can be found in a diary entry, dated February 4, 1841, of Berks County, Pennsylvania storekeeper James Morris:

Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate."

In the United States the tradition may also derive from a Scottish poem:

As the light grows longer
The cold grows stronger
If Candlemas be fair and bright
Winter will have another flight
If Candlemas be cloud and snow
Winter will be gone and not come again
A farmer should on Candlemas day
Have half his corn and half his hay
On Candlemas day if thorns hang a drop
You can be sure of a good pea crop

This tradition also stems from similar beliefs associated with Candlemas Day and Groundhog Day. Candlemas, also known as the Purification of the Virgin or the Presentation, coincides with the earlier pagan observance Imbolc. Continued

Photo: Marumari/Wikipedia, some rights reserved.

Ice breaker works the Chesapeake Bay

York building getting a new life on North George Street

(YDR) A North George Street building that's been vacant since the 1950s will have new life thanks to a York County developer.
When York County began building the new judicial center, Randall Hirsch of Hirsch Partnership said he saw opportunity in the vacant, crumbling building across the street at the corner of North George Street and West Clarke Avenue. ... Hirsch said he thinks the building was built between the early 1830s and 1860s. Continued

Lillian E. Fishburne

(Wikipedia) Lillian Elaine Fishburne (born March 25, 1949) was the first African-American female to hold the rank of Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. She was appointed to the rank of Rear Admiral (Lower Half) by President of the United States Bill Clinton and was officially promoted on February 1, 1998. RDML Fishburne retired from the Navy in February 2001.

Rear Admiral (retired) Fishburne was born March 25, 1949 at Patuxent River, Maryland and raised in Rockville, Maryland. She was commissioned an Ensign upon completion of Women Officers School at Newport, Rhode Island in February 1973. Continued