It Was a Most Thrilling Sight!
As I have written in a previous post, my great-grandmother Dorothy (Dollie) Loud grew up on cavalry posts across the western United States and, for high school, attended boarding school in Omaha, Nebraska. While Dollie was in Omaha during the mid-1890s, a particular highlight came when she and some of her school friends attended Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, most likely in 1896, when the show toured the Western states.
The Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Washakie
I can’t remember when I first learned about the Buffalo Soldiers. As I discussed in my last post, my great-great-grandfather John S. Loud had a thirty-year career as an officer with the 9th Cavalry. I did an 8th grade history fair project on his wife, Kate Mifflin Loud, some of whose experiences I described in an earlier post. My parents even had a painting from artist Burl Washington’s Buffalo Soldier series hanging in their living room. Stories of the Buffalo Soldiers were always a part of my world. And those stories are something everyone should hear.
The Road to Fort Washakie
One of my family’s most treasured heirlooms is a scrapbook containing photos taken between 1895 and 1897 at Fort Washakie, Wyoming. At that time, my great-great-grandfather John S. Loud was stationed there as an officer of the 9th Cavalry, one of the segregated Black cavalry regiments often called the Buffalo Soldiers. His wife, Kate Mifflin Loud, his son, James (Jim) Loud, age 19, and his daughter, my great-grandmother Dorothy (Dollie) Loud, age 16, lived at the fort with him, as they had at his previous posts on the western frontier.
The First English Settlers in New England
Until recently, if you had asked me what colony was established by the English in North America in 1607, I would have said Jamestown, and I would have been right, but only partially. In fact, there were two colonies established by the English in North America in 1607. Jamestown, established in May 1607 on the James River in Virginia, was one; the other was the Popham Colony, established in August 1607 at the mouth of the Kennebec River, north of what is now Portland, Maine.