https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog daily 0.75 2026-02-20 https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/the-grimke-brothers monthly 0.5 2026-02-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/77fde6cc-ad66-46fd-8232-76a34469412e/Archibald+and+Francis.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Grimké Brothers - It’s impossible to spend much time reading about the abolition and women’s suffrage movements in early 19th century America without running across the Grimké sisters. Sarah and Angelina Grimké were among the leading lights of both those civil rights movements prior to the Civil War, and I have long admired their courage and dedication to promoting social equality. It was only recently, however, that I learned that Sarah’s and Angelina’s nephews—the Grimké brothers—were among the leading lights of late 19th century and early 20th century intellectual and civil rights movements. They were also Black, and their experiences, like those of many people of color, have largely vanished from our historical narrative. In honor of Black History Month, here is the story of the Grimké Brothers, prefaced by that of their more famous aunts. Francis and Archibald Grimké. c 1865. Image from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1771548673749-P7FQ9861XHA16E9ABHA7/Sarah+LoC.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Grimké Brothers https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1771548679831-ZEGUBJ1ZNE310QMB2QXI/Angelina+LoC.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Grimké Brothers https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/833baa9e-518d-444a-8194-98c6e945b2d0/Pages+from+CAM_1.3_1900.08.NS_.png Looking at History Blog - The Grimké Brothers - Archibald Henry Grimké, born in 1849, graduated from Lincoln University in 1870 and from Harvard Law School in 1874. He practiced law in Boston and became active in politics, including serving as the U.S. consul to the Dominican Republic from 1895 to 1897. Like his aunts, he was a prolific writer and speaker on the topic of equal rights for Back Americans and for women. He wrote for, edited, and published a number of Black newspapers, becoming a prominent critic of both Republican and Democratic politicians who did not adequately support racial equality. In 1909, he became a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and went on to serve as its national vice president and as president of the Washington, DC, chapter until his death in 1930 (Perry 2002; Greenridge 2022). Archibald Henry Grimké. August 1900. Image from the The Colored American Magazine 1(3): 184. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/d3076d7d-0389-4151-bf4c-f149ff5cd312/Francis.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Grimké Brothers - Francis James Grimké, born in 1850, graduated from Lincoln University with his brother in 1870 and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1877. He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister and spent a long career at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, serving there until 1923. He spoke frequently from the pulpit on issues of racism and white supremacy and, like his brother, was a prolific writer. He took an active stance against the racism he experienced as a Black minister in a predominantly white denomination. He was also an outspoken critic of Booker T. Washington’s emphasis on vocational education, and both he and his brother were founding members of the American Negro Academy, an organization that supported Black contributions to scholarship and the arts (Weeks 1973; Perry 2002; Greenridge 2022). Francis James Grimké. 1927. Image from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a25d25d4-b789-4e51-93e3-9b53f690cdf2/Angelina+WG.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Grimké Brothers - Archibald’s daughter, Angelina Weld Grimké, born in 1880 and named for her famous great-aunt, was another example of the “talented tenth,” although her gender meant that she would not always be recognized as such. Nonetheless, she found success as writer during her lifetime. Her essays, poems, and stories were widely published in the Black press, including in a number of anthologies put together by the leading writers of the Harlem Renaissance. She is best known for her play Rachel, which addresses the horror of lynching and was staged in Washington, DC, in 1916 and in New York City and Cambridge, MA, in 1917. Angelina said of this play that she intended to invoke in white women a sense of sisterhood with Black women, a strategy that was also used by her great-aunts in their abolitionist work. Angelina Weld Grimké. 1923. Image from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division, The New York Public Library. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/cfeb91be-ef20-48a5-9d14-345b90deb345/Commonwealth_1868-02-01_2.png Looking at History Blog - The Grimké Brothers - Newspaper article through which the Grimké sisters first learned of their nephews. “Negroes and the Higher Studies.” Boston, MA, Commonwealth, February 1, 1868, p. 2. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/starvation-and-bad-treatment monthly 0.5 2026-01-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/63beaef7-244a-409b-a165-b81b55e6b4f0/Andersonville+map+2.jpg Looking at History Blog - Starvation and Bad Treatment - When the Civil War began in April 1861, the United States had only a small standing army. Over the next year, volunteer regiments were recruited from all the Northern states. One such regiment was the 103rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which was established in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, northeast of Pittsburgh, and enlisted men from the midwestern section of the state (Dickey 1910). Five of my relatives were among the men who volunteered for this regiment. These included my four-times great-grandfather Reese Thompson, who was nearly 50 years old but told the army he was 43, his 14-year-old son Milton, and his nephew and namesake Reese Shay. United States Sanitary Commission. 1864. Prison at Andersonville, Georgia. New York: Waters & Son. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/402b0933-51aa-45a5-bba4-824accb47334/Ablemarle.jpg Looking at History Blog - Starvation and Bad Treatment - “The '“Ablemarle” Ready for Action.” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel, Eds. New York: The Century Co., 1884, vol. 4, p. 633. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/c366c67f-ec2e-407f-b441-703568ea5f41/Andersonville+prisoners.jpg Looking at History Blog - Starvation and Bad Treatment - William Waud. 1864. A New Batch at Andersonville. Andersonville, Georgia. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/7edae634-0f71-4946-8ec1-321242cc704b/Camp+Parole.jpg Looking at History Blog - Starvation and Bad Treatment - “Parole Camp, Annapolis, Maryland.” Baltimore: E. Sachse & Co, 1864. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/5f3a35ab-6e86-4f8b-8984-bbc7e4829931/Camp+Fisk+exchange.jpg Looking at History Blog - Starvation and Bad Treatment - “The Last Exchange. Camp Fisk, Four Mile Bridge (Vicksburg), April 1865.” The Photographic History of the Civil War in Ten Volumes. Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed. New York: Review of Reviews Co., 1911, vol. 1, p. 108. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/3359f6a5-6965-460d-b5ff-64b27ea0800e/letter.png Looking at History Blog - Starvation and Bad Treatment - Letter from William Wion to his father James. 24 October 1862. Suffolk, Virginia. William Wion Civil War pension file. 1880-85. Washington, DC: National Archives. Photo by author. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/refugees-in-london monthly 0.5 2025-12-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/7c2f7f12-aeb1-4a76-a4df-683f2f93417b/The_State_of_the_Palatines_for_Fifty_Yea.png Looking at History Blog - Refugees in London - When I think of early immigration to the United States from the part of Europe that is now Germany, I tend to think of German settlers in Pennsylvania, many of whom were religious dissenters like the Mennonite ancestors I have written about in a previous post. As a result, I was quite surprised to learn that my seven-times great-grandfather, Johann Henrich Krantz, arrived in New York in 1710 and settled along the Hudson River in Ulster County. As I learned more about why he arrived when and where he did, I came to see many parallels between his experience and that of refugees and asylum seekers today. Title Page. 1710. The State of the Palatines for Fifty Years Past to this Present Time. London: printed for J. Baker. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/293ef853-b72b-4b64-8746-77bbc1c17776/Kocherthal+title+page.png Looking at History Blog - Refugees in London - Fear of war and starvation led these people to leave their home, but what brought them to England was advertising. In 1709, a new edition of a 1706 German-language book, entitled A Detailed and Elaborate Account of the Famous Carolina Region, Located in English America, began to circulate. It contained glowing descriptions of a land of peace and plenty and was so highly decorated that people called it the “Golden Book.” Rumors circulated that Queen Anne of Great Britain had promised to provide passage across the Atlantic Ocean and free grants of land for immigrants to the American colonies. For many residents of the Palatinate and surrounding regions, that rumor was enough for them to pack their household goods, sail down the Rhine to Rotterdam, and seek passage to London. Title Page. 1706. Joshua Kocherthal. Auβführlich und umständlicher Bericht von der berühmten Landschaft Carolina, in dem engelländischen America gelegen. Frankfurt: Georg Heinrich Oehrling. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/5df10fef-5ee9-433a-abcf-c2a3288c7b48/The_State_of_the_Palatines_for_Fifty_Years+1.png Looking at History Blog - Refugees in London - Woodcut showing the Palatines encamped on Blackheath outside London. 1710. The State of the Palatines for Fifty Years Past to this Present Time. London: printed for J. Baker, p. 16. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/767bf999-7c55-44f6-95bb-601803d1fead/Hunter.jpeg Looking at History Blog - Refugees in London - A final group of Palatine migrants, around 2,800 individuals, including my ancestor Johann Krantz and his family, were sent to New York. The new Governor of New York, Robert Hunter, proposed that the Palatines could be put to work producing pitch and tar for the British navy, which had been hampered by a Swedish monopoly on these crucial products. This work would repay the government for the cost of transporting the migrants to the colony and supporting them there. When the debt was paid off, they would receive grants of land (Knittle 1937; Otterness 2004). Godfrey Kneller. Robert Hunter (1666-1734). c 1720. Image from the New York Historical. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/62ab410e-85bc-44ee-b82c-34c1d9e3ddc7/LutheranChurchWestCamp.jpg Looking at History Blog - Refugees in London - Historic marker for the Lutheran Church in the West Camp part of Saugerties, New York. August 12, 2019. Image from Wikimedia Commons. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/at-home-in-the-arctic monthly 0.5 2025-12-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/ea840a74-50a6-4e6c-bc2f-67f8221b320c/VV+family+1.jpg Looking at History Blog - At Home in the Arctic - Some time ago, I wrote about my great-grandfather’s cousin Ethel Barnhart and her husband William Van Valin, who in 1911 became teachers in a school for Alaskan Natives run by the U.S. government. After four years, Will and Ethel returned to the continental United States, bringing with them a large collection of Native Alaskan artifacts, many of which they sold to the Penn Museum, a Philadelphia anthropological museum affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. A few years later, when the Penn Museum was offered funding for a research expedition to northern Alaska, museum staff turned to Will to lead the effort (Van Valin 1944). Ethel, Olive, and William Van Valin in Alaska. c. 1918. In William B. Van Valin. 1944. Eskimoland Speaks. Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers. After page 226. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/25d41fdc-5134-409f-b244-c3846d942237/Franz+Boas+2.png Looking at History Blog - At Home in the Arctic - Of particular importance was the work of Franz Boas, a German scholar who became a professor at Columbia University in 1899. Boas went on to train a generation of well-known American anthropologists, each of whom embraced his core belief that human society and culture could only be understood through empirical observation (Ericksen & Nielsen 2013). Professor Franz Boas, Vice-President of the Section for Anthropology, American Association for the Advancement of Science. March 1908. The Popular Science Monthly. Page 288. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1764726193615-LH74IMHOHY6TFHCDZHXT/VV+home+exterior.jpg Looking at History Blog - At Home in the Arctic https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1764726205203-QI4Z1CRTS5292AYLV3J7/VV+home+interior+2.jpg Looking at History Blog - At Home in the Arctic https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/34ff6d15-161c-421a-aace-1bcc7894ab04/VV+family+2.jpg Looking at History Blog - At Home in the Arctic - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/6cf04277-b717-4e10-9ae5-547ebd94f4d6/130058_1600.jpg Looking at History Blog - At Home in the Arctic - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/heresy-whaling-and-coffee monthly 0.5 2025-11-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/15ca2550-a07b-4fc4-b2e3-507cca2fb91c/top-view-cup-grains-coffee.jpg Looking at History Blog - Heresy, Whaling, and Coffee - Any of my friends will tell you that I love Starbucks coffee. I’m a coffee fanatic, in general, but I’ve always particularly enjoyed Starbucks. While in Seattle one time, I even visited the original location. So when I discovered that I am descended from a Starbuck, I was delighted and intrigued. Image from Freepik https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a90d5082-dfaa-4be7-b207-75020737fb5f/Nantucket+map.jpg Looking at History Blog - Heresy, Whaling, and Coffee - St. John De Crèvecoeur, J. Hector. 1782. Map of the island of Nantucket. London. Image from the Library of Congress. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/9635713a-fa03-44a4-affe-9848680b0b3e/Nantucket+land+map.png Looking at History Blog - Heresy, Whaling, and Coffee - The colonists did pay some of the local sachems for deeds to the land, but as a later petition by tribal members noted, these men had no authority to sell the land to the colonists. The colonial court ruled the colonists’ deeds valid anyway. The Wampanoag people on Nantucket were decimated by disease, alcohol, and indebtedness over the next century but still played a significant role in the development of Nantucket as a center of the whaling industry, working on whaling crews but seeing little of the profit (Vickers 1983). Starbuck, Alexander. 1924. “Nantucket House-Lot Section 1666-1680.” In The History of Nantucket. Boston, MA: C.E. Goodspeed & Co. Page 56. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/d5da5f28-2f9b-41d7-a0de-3e23e6152b4f/whaling.jpg Looking at History Blog - Heresy, Whaling, and Coffee Macaulay, James. 1880. “Whale Fishing.” In All True, Records of Peril and Adventure by Sea and Land, Remarkable Escapes and Deliverances etc.: A Book of Sunday Reading for the Young. New York: A.D.F. Randolph & Co. Page 27. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/0445e242-4f22-4a8b-bf61-afc9f286e579/Nantucket+MA.jpg Looking at History Blog - Heresy, Whaling, and Coffee Unknown artist. c1898. Between the Wharves, Nantucket, Mass. Detroit, MI: Detroit Publishing Company. Image from The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/wide-awake-in-1860 monthly 0.5 2025-11-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/3e62eeb5-053d-4a11-89b3-96a0bf1627b7/0030644.png Looking at History Blog - Wide Awake in 1860 - In 1860, my four-times great-uncle, Servetus Longley, invented and patented a street-sweeping machine. It’s an ingenious device, with brushes attached at an angle to a set of wheels so that the machine can be pushed along a street. It works, as Servetus explained in his patent application, “by sweeping the dirt into windrows from the middle to the sides of the street so that it may be rapidly carried away” (Longley 1860). Side elevation of Servetus Longley’s street sweeping machine with the driving wheel removed (Longley 1860). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/cf9bf947-a533-45af-89a6-d7ebefba47db/The_Cincinnati_Enquirer_1860_10_14_Page_2.jpg Looking at History Blog - Wide Awake in 1860 - “Cleaning the Streets.” October 14, 1860. The Cincinnati Enquirer. Page 2. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/cdc0bb71-707c-4f59-8370-708ab61622b9/07-1643a.gif Looking at History Blog - Wide Awake in 1860 - There’s a lot to unpack in those few paragraphs. The implication, of course, is that Servetus was only awarded the contract so that he would throw his support behind incumbent U.S. Representative John A. Gurley and the rest of the Republican ticket. [1] However, Servetus was undoubtedly already a Republican. He came from a family of abolitionists, and Gurley was, like Servetus’s own father, a Universalist minister and also the former owner of the Universalist newspaper Star of the West, which was at one time published by Servetus and his brothers (“Biographical” 1865). Given the ties between the two men, it seems unsurprising that Servetus would support Gurley’s campaign and Gurley would support Servetus’s bid for a city contract. Matthew Brady, photographer. c 1860. Hon. John A. Gurley, Ohio. Image from the National Archives. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/448ec4a4-d112-4ee1-bab2-eb583720035f/Pages+from+CT+Quarterly+1895.png Looking at History Blog - Wide Awake in 1860 Unknown photographer. 1860. Some of the original Hartford, Connecticut, Wide Awakes in uniform. In Rathbun, Julis G. 1895. “The ‘Wide Awakes’: The Great Political Organization of 1860.” Connecticut Quarterly 1 (10): 327-35. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/e5a54842-c718-436f-afcf-9b98d5a2c8ca/service-pnp-cph-3a10000-3a18000-3a18200-3a18217v.jpg Looking at History Blog - Wide Awake in 1860 - In November 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. He received a majority of the votes across Ohio but took Hamilton County, where Cincinnati is located, by only a small plurality. It’s impossible to know how much of an impact the Wide Awakes had on the election, but they brought to the streets—and to the polls—many young men who had not previously engaged in politics. They also had a lasting impact on American culture, with the militarism they pioneered visible in both political and fraternal organizations throughout the rest of the century, including the Masonic Knights Templar I wrote about in my last post (Grinspan 2024). Alschuler, Samuel G., photographer. November 25, 1860. Abraham Lincoln: President-elect. Image from the Library of Congress. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/b92218b3-8573-46c9-9f72-6ee08b17afb0/Screenshot+2025-10-12+202441.png Looking at History Blog - Wide Awake in 1860 - “Grand procession of Wide Awakes at New York on the evening of October 3, 1860.” October 13, 1860. Harper’s Weekly 4 (198): 648-9. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/16591859-02b5-4721-b52f-962ca194ee22/WA+membership+card+LOC.jpg Looking at History Blog - Wide Awake in 1860 - Membership certificate for the Wide-Awake Club. 1860. New York: Gavit & Co. Image from the Library of Congress. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/sir-knight monthly 0.5 2025-10-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/04963cc2-0896-4610-97d2-286199beadb1/20250909_173822.jpg Looking at History Blog - Sir Knight - I stumbled into exploring the world of Freemasonry somewhat by accident. My aunt mentioned that her grandfather had been a Knight Templer. I found this baffling because the only Knights Templar I knew of were the militant medieval order disbanded by the pope in 1312. Soon after, while researching one of my great-great-grandfathers, I learned that he was also a Knight Templar, which cemented my interest in learning about the organization. I came to understand that the modern Knights Templar exist as a somewhat separate organization within Freemasonry. The Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (aka the Shriners) is another such organization. Clothes brush owned by Frank W. Barnhart. The Henderson-Ames Company, in various incarnations, was a major producer of fraternal organization uniforms and regalia from 1866 to 1965. Photo by author. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a9207c51-cf60-41b4-81af-fa60fbe6b741/KT+regalia.png Looking at History Blog - Sir Knight Knights Templar regalia owned by Frank W. Barnhart. At left is the hilt of the ceremonial sword carried by all Sir Knights; at center, the Knights Templar badge, worn on the sword baldric across the chest; and at right, a badge for the Marietta, Ohio, Knights Templar Commandery. Photo by author. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/8d11f659-e407-46a1-bdff-d06967b89c50/JSL+KT+uniform+c1888.JPG Looking at History Blog - Sir Knight - It was within the context of this golden age of fraternalism that my great-great-grandfather John S. Loud became a Knight Templar. I don’t know when he joined the Masons or reached the rank of Knight Templar, but by 1880, he was both High Priest of the Santa Fe Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons and Eminent Commander of the Sante Fe Knights Templar Commandery. In March 1897, while he was at Ft. Washakie in Wyoming, the Army Navy Journal reported: Capt, Loud was present at the late meeting of the “Mystic Shriners” at Cheyenne, and has been lately elected as Eminent Commander of “Hugh de Payen” Commandery, Knight Templar, at Landon, Wyo. [2] He has been P.E.C. [Past Eminent Commander] of the same Masonic order for many years past, and we understand the Captain is one the highest Masons now in the army (“Personal” 1897). John S. Loud in Knight Templar uniform. c1888. His shoulder boards indicate his status as a Past Eminent Commander. Loud family photo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/bd114df2-44d6-4bba-8c05-bc4b8db66ff6/JSL+funeral+1909.jpg Looking at History Blog - Sir Knight - “Funeral of Col. Loud.” May 31,1909. Washington Evening Star. Page 9. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/d9d192f0-094e-4ba0-a740-f4fb72ce8881/2+photo.jpg Looking at History Blog - Sir Knight - Unlike John Loud, Frank’s name doesn’t appear in the newspapers for the cities where he lived, suggesting that he did not serve as an officer of the organization. I can only speculate about his involvement with the Knights Templar, but I feel confident that he attended the 1916 state conclave in Clarksburg, West Virginia, where he lived at the time. This event attracted some 3,000 Sir Knights from across the state and culminated in a grand street parade (“Knights Templar” 1916). He probably also participated in the Masonic funeral of his uncle, also a Knight Templar and Clarksburg resident, later that year (“Barnhart Funeral” 1916). Later in life, living in Longview, Texas, he likely attended the usual round of meetings, banquets, and funerals associated with most fraternal organizations as well as the annual sunrise Easter service that rotated among various local churches. Frank W. Barnhart in Knight Templar uniform. c1910. Barnhart family photo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/c0a34c50-4d50-45ee-b656-bf17d2dfafcc/KT+parade+Marietta+OH+1910.jpg Looking at History Blog - Sir Knight - Knights Templar on parade. 1910. Marietta, Ohio. Photo postcard, publisher unknown. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/it-was-a-most-thrilling-sight monthly 0.5 2025-12-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/127fcd37-ef0d-4b8c-b75d-9772c3bd8b0f/scan_0021+-+Dorothy+Loud+%28young%29+-+cleaned+up.jpg Looking at History Blog - 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. Dorothy (Dollie) Loud, c1890s. Longley family photo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a2a68f49-de1a-49eb-b571-a213da68084c/Deadwood+Stage.png Looking at History Blog - It Was a Most Thrilling Sight! - Unknown photographer. “Buffalo Bill and Members of the Wild West Cast with the Deadwood Stage Coach.” In Walsh, Richard J., with Milton S. Salsbury. 1928. The Making of Buffalo Bill: A Study in Heroics. Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, p. 260. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/40c5e2fc-7ba2-47cd-aceb-23f834d79ab4/Omaha_World_Herald_1896_09_27_10.jpg Looking at History Blog - It Was a Most Thrilling Sight! - Buffalo Bill’s Wild West was quite a spectacle. For the price of 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children, attendees could see several hours of horse racing, trick riding, and cattle roping as well as a herd of bison, which had by the 1890s nearly become extinct. An opening parade highlighted expert riders on horseback from all over the world. Sharp-shooting exhibitions were put on by Johnnie Baker and Annie Oakley, both of whom Dollie got to meet. Most importantly, the heart of the show was the set-pieces—among others, the attack on the Deadwood stagecoach that Dollie experienced, Indian attacks on a settler’s cabin or a wagon train, and a re-enactment of the Battle of Little Bighorn. These thrilling vignettes confirmed audience beliefs about the dangers of the Western frontier, despite the fact that, by the 1890s, there was little frontier left in America (Blackstone 1986; Reddin 1999). “Advertisement of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.” September 27, 1896. Omaha, NE: World Herald, p. 10. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/66cc1aea-5fe8-4fda-bddd-8152e1eca155/Buffalo+Bill+c+1880s+2.jpg Looking at History Blog - It Was a Most Thrilling Sight! - Buffalo Bill’s Wild West presented itself as a true depiction of the American West, and much of its legitimacy came from the fact that Buffalo Bill was himself a frontiersman. William Cody was born in Iowa in 1846, but his family moved to Kansas Territory when he was a boy. Following his father’s early death, [2] Cody went to work as a messenger for a company that hauled freight by wagon. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War and remained with the army after the war as a scout, which is likely how Dollie’s father, a cavalry officer, became acquainted with him. [3] Cody also had a contract to provide railroad workers with bison meat, and his success a hunter gave him his nickname. When Cody turned to show business, he was able to point to his experiences on the Western frontier for credibility, and his fame was only enhanced by his appearance as the hero of a series of dime novels (Blackstone 1986; Reddin 1999). Brisbois, Alfred, and Charles D. Mosher, photographers. c1880s. William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody. Chicago, IL. Photo from Milner Library Special Collections, Illinois State University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/d5d2a221-8a27-4c9d-9b88-5c7a1a70b76e/service-pnp-ppmsca-54800-54873v.jpg Looking at History Blog - It Was a Most Thrilling Sight! - Unknown artist. c1899. Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World. Image from the Library of Congress. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/jack-dempseys-rolex monthly 0.5 2025-09-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/daa1fc46-3760-4b84-b5bc-9754ba00c377/JD+FRE+3-61.jpg Looking at History Blog - Jack Dempsey’s Rolex - When I was a child, my parents always received a cheesecake from Jack Dempsey’s Broadway Restaurant at Christmas. I didn’t really understand who Jack Dempsey was or why he sent us a cheesecake every year, but the cheesecake was delicious. As I got older, I came to understand that my grandfather had at one point served as Dempsey’s attorney, and my grandparents had become friends with Dempsey and his fourth wife Deanna. Sadly, however, Dempsey’s restaurant closed in 1974, marking the end of an era for my family. Unknown photographer. March 17, 1961. ”Lend an Ear—Jack Dempsey, former heavyweight boxing champion of the world is shown shouting advice into the ear of his attorney, Longview’s Fred Erisman.” Longview Daily News, p. 9. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/3440050a-e7d4-48fa-b45d-bc9ecc57ce60/service-pnp-cph-3a30000-3a31000-3a31200-3a31207r.jpg Looking at History Blog - Jack Dempsey’s Rolex - Jack Dempsey was, of course, a boxer and the world heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926. His story is a rags-to-riches tale of a young man from a poor mining town in Colorado who gained fame and fortune with his fearless and aggressive style in the boxing ring. As his fame grew, he enjoyed life in the Roaring Twenties, hobnobbing with celebrities, mob bosses, rich businessmen, and beautiful women, including his second and third wives, film star Estelle Taylor and Broadway singer Hannah Williams (Dempsey 1977; Roberts 2003). Summerville, H. L, photographer. 1925. Gus Wilson, Jack Dempsey, Ray Newman, San Antonio, Tex., Sept. 25. Image from the Library of Congress. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/91743596-4dab-49b9-97c7-d6e791d91051/Jack+Deanna+Dempsey+DBE+FRE+Jr.jpg Looking at History Blog - Jack Dempsey’s Rolex - Jack and Deanna Dempsey with Fred and Dorothy Erisman. March 17, 1961. Longview, Texas. Erisman family photo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/7a175070-101d-4c56-bc1f-530b50aacbcc/East+Texas+oil+wells.jpg Looking at History Blog - Jack Dempsey’s Rolex - Unknown photographer. c 1950. Oil Wells Along U.S. 80 Between Gladewater and Longview, Texas. Image from DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a2d7ea18-6cd0-4d0a-8c03-904f81251181/Presentation1.png Looking at History Blog - Jack Dempsey’s Rolex - Rolex watch given to Fred R. Erisman, Jr., by Jack Dempsey at the conclusion of the Manziel trial, June 1959. Erisman family photo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/8c003bcd-87b8-4c89-8e80-c8394555bd55/PLE+Jack+Dempsey+1965.jpg Looking at History Blog - Jack Dempsey’s Rolex - Patricia L. Erisman and Jack Dempsey. July 24, 1965. Longview, TX. Erisman family photo. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/the-erisman-grocery-company monthly 0.5 2025-09-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/ce6b6ca8-08c7-46a5-9f75-cd31cbaceb62/directory+listing.png Looking at History Blog - The Erisman Grocery Company - Growing up in Ft. Worth, Texas, I was vaguely aware that my great-great-grandfather, Richard Y. Erisman, had once run a grocery store in the city. As a child, I supposed it was like the grocery stores I knew, where you navigated aisles of food and other products with a grocery cart and took your purchases to the cashier for checkout. Erisman Grocery Co. listing. 1909-10. Fort Worth City Directory. 15th Edition. Morrison & Fourmy Directory Co. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/10fa665e-6d7e-4a8e-be19-201ede9a4ee9/Erisman+Grocery+Store+2.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Erisman Grocery Company - Erisman Grocery Company, Ft. Worth, Texas, c. 1909. Family photo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/b363b32d-3f32-441a-868c-227941e66586/Fort_Worth_Star_Telegram_1910_05_15_5.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Erisman Grocery Company - Advertising played a role in this process, with wholesalers buying newspaper ads that listed the local retailers that carried their products. Once goods arrived at the store, they had to be stored and then retrieved for customers. The grocery stores of this era were full-service affairs, where the customer asked a clerk for the desired product and the clerk brought the product to the counter and packaged it for the customer (Mayo 1993). Fort Worth Cotton Oil Company advertisement. Fort Worth Star-Telegram. May 15, 1910. Page 5. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1757637507775-BNRBDQ0ZCU5239A3I3IW/Fort_Worth_Star_Telegram_1912_04_12_11.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Erisman Grocery Company https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1757637522868-GB7Q8QSD1MUMHLOT7EGY/Fort_Worth_Record_Telegram_1913_05_14_7.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Erisman Grocery Company https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1334a736-3869-4efa-a9b9-f806421a8855/Fort_Worth_Star_Telegram_1918_08_09_11.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Erisman Grocery Company - Piggly Wiggly advertisement. Fort Worth Star-Telegram. August 9, 1918. Page 11. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/officers-families-at-fort-washakie monthly 0.5 2025-08-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/f29557e9-2775-438d-880e-474189bd969f/Kate.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Life of an Officer’s Wife - I’ve written before about my great-great-grandmother Kate Mifflin Loud and her adventures as an army officer’s wife on the 19th century western frontier. We actually know quite a bit about what life was like for the wives of army officers of the era because there are many journals, compiled letters, and memoirs written by such women, some published in their lifetimes and others collected by modern scholars (Myres 1982; Eales 1996). Officers’ wives who wrote memoirs include Elizabeth Bacon Custer, wife of General George Armstrong Custer, and Ellen McGowan Biddle, wife of Colonel James A. Biddle, who was the commander of the 9th Cavalry at the time my great-great-grandfather John S. Loud and his family were living at Fort Washakie, Wyoming. [1] https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751932107947-IV58A4AP0ZYNUE47T9I7/JSL+parlor.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Life of an Officer’s Wife https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751932115394-P8FO9G3I8XK03V5TMUMY/Kate+parlor.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Life of an Officer’s Wife https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751932212831-TYBDRDMIYSTU1L6UFTD8/Kate+bedroom.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Life of an Officer’s Wife - Officers’ wives bore the primary responsibility for maintaining their homes, as their husbands were often away in the field. They also mended their husbands’ uniforms and made clothing for themselves and their children. As this photo shows, Kate Loud had a sewing machine, which had become available to consumers in the 1860s. Its convenience must have been worth the cost of transporting it to Fort Washakie. Kate Mifflin Loud in the bedroom in the Loud’s quarters. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751932222330-RWSRH3DFDV2PMZWOM54J/dining+table+2.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Life of an Officer’s Wife - For many officers’ wives, the solution was to hire “strikers,” enlisted men from their husbands’ companies, who took on the work to earn extra pay. The army forbade this practice in 1870 but to little effect. Enlisted men could earn $5-$10 per month working as a striker—a substantial sum given that the regular pay for a private was $13 per month—and many officers continued to employ enlisted men as servants (Stallard 1978; Eales 1996). Unidentified 9th Cavalry “striker” beside a table set for dinner. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751933675765-TTLM7QGNFNOG1XWFE9DV/women+riding.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Life of an Officer’s Wife - With servants to help with household chores, the officers’ wives had plenty of free time. Drives and picnics in the area surrounding the post were frequent diversions, provided the area was safe from bandits or attacks by Native Americans. Some officers’ wives learned to ride horseback, fish, and hunt for game, activities that helped them provide for their families as well as entertain themselves (Stallard 1978; Myres 1982). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751932742190-MC74265F8OLS8U87R10R/Sieberts+in+parlor.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Life of an Officer’s Wife - Popular leisure activities included making and receiving social visits, doing embroidery or other fancy handwork, engaging in card games, and playing croquet or lawn tennis (Stallard 1978; Myres 1982). Any sort of musical entertainment was highly prized (Handy-Marchello 2025), and the lady in this photo was likely a welcome guest at Fort Washakie parties, given her ability to play the lute. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751933703361-MUQOCC2913UVPNF20PUY/DLL+on+pony.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Life of an Officer’s Wife - The children of army officers on the western frontier enjoyed a freedom unheard of back east. They learned to ride very young and often had their own ponies (Stallard 1978). My great-grandmother Dollie Loud enjoyed riding to visit the Shoshone people who lived in the area of Fort Washakie. Dorothy Helene “Dollie” Loud, age about 12, riding a pony. c 1891. Most likely taken at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Loud family photo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751932525775-FBJ8MEGQWWMSIX7UOUE0/JML+with+pony.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Life of an Officer’s Wife - A serious challenge for many army officers and their wives was how to educate their children. At most western forts, there was no school. The officers’ wives would tutor their younger children and try to find opportunities for the older children to attend school, sometimes sending them back east to live with family members (Myres 1982; Handy-Marchello 2025). https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/buffalo-soldiers-at-fort-washakie monthly 0.5 2025-12-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/2ba54c0b-3d5f-4050-91fd-801ef527d3b2/IMG_4772-color+cast-rotated-camera+dist-crop+image-smartfix-levels-BW-crop+soldier.jpg Looking at History Blog - 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, one of the Buffalo Soldier regiments. I did an 8th grade history fair project on his family, including 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. Throwing a diamond hitch. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/0990c687-a66f-4322-abc8-8b458b512a88/map+of+western+forts+1877.png Looking at History Blog - The Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Washakie - After eight grueling years in Texas, the 9th Cavalry was transferred to New Mexico Territory, where they spent another six years quelling the Apache Wars and trying to police an area notorious for banditry. Their next post found them on the other side of the plains wars, protecting Native Americans in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) from illegally encroaching settlers. From there, 9th Cavalry troops served in Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming and were among the U.S. Army regiments sent to the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota in 1890 to quell the Ghost Dance movement, a campaign that ended in the massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee (Kenner 1999). Humphreys, Andrew A., and Edward Freyhold. 1877. Map of the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Army, Office of the Chief of Engineers. Image from the Library of Congress. Arrows indicate some of the posts of the 9th Cavalry, 1867-1897. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/197d02c5-d0b7-498c-a585-b3bd9e8a2ab5/Troop+D+9th+Cavalry.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Washakie - Troop D, 9th Cavalry, on parade. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/7eaf2fc1-46fc-40a1-8f17-724c68d7b131/wood+processing.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Washakie - Processing wood. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/90a4869f-f476-4b3c-b0f3-59d44777d15c/pool.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Washakie - 9th Cavalry soldiers in their recreation room. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751061649378-LWOT53MHORY40YA6CWFS/Troop+D+dining+room+2.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Washakie https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751061653379-DHJ0V9O48MRJUWCZSI5Q/Troop+D+dining+room+1.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Washakie https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/the-road-to-fort-washakie monthly 0.5 2025-12-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/b92daa01-58ce-4ef1-aef6-b4ce85c0d842/JSL+on+Punch.JPG Looking at History Blog - 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. Captain John S. Loud, 9th Cavalry, U.S. Army, on his favorite horse, Punch. 1895-7. Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Photo from Loud family scrapbook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/93db113d-f9e1-47ad-b4fe-c6691cb1e4bb/ANJ+1895+9-21.png Looking at History Blog - The Road to Fort Washakie - “The Army. 9th Cavalry-Col. James Biddle.” 21 September 1895. The United States Army and Navy Journal and Gazette of the Regular and Volunteer Forces. p. 39. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1750810627261-HKWQIMJHNO51Y4EQJ58U/adjutants+office.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Road to Fort Washakie - Lieutenant Guy H. Preston, Lieutenant John H. Gardner, unknown 9th Cavalry officer, and Lieutenant Howard R. Hickock in front of adjutant’s office. Fort Washakie. 1895-97 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1750810642079-3KKE42ILC4GR0NCZST48/post+trader.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Road to Fort Washakie https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1750885773820-GJ8XW46LVX2H9TAODWBJ/officers+quarters.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Road to Fort Washakie https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1750886129249-K3EL0BZDCQ372B9CR0SQ/hospital.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Road to Fort Washakie https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/ccdc50ac-8258-4d7c-91cc-ec6681b420c7/bath+house.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Road to Fort Washakie - One thing that author did get right was his description of “the great hot spring, or boiling lake, two miles below the post” (“Big Horn” 1895). This spring was the site of a bath house, enabling post residents to have hot baths even in the depths of a Wyoming winter. Bath house at hot spring near Fort Washakie. 1895-7. Photo from Loud family scrapbook. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/9909e7fc-c55c-42ea-8142-79186d9069d5/bath+house+1887.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Road to Fort Washakie - U.S. Army, Office of the Chief of Engineers. 1887. Ground Plan of a Bath House and Platform at Mineral Hot Springs Near Fort Washakie, Wyoming. Image from the National Archives. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1750886654275-6ILWQ4W2GSF00WKER184/family+in+front+of+officers+quarters.JPG Looking at History Blog - The Road to Fort Washakie - I’ll write more in my next few posts about life at Fort Washakie, but this overview sets the stage for understanding the situation at the fort, where white officers and civilian employees, Black cavalrymen, members of the Eastern Shoshone people, and even a few laundrymen born in China lived side by side, somewhat uneasily balancing Victorian mores with a life far different than anyone “back East” could ever imagine. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1156f74e-7d58-407f-890d-36a169c989ba/map+of+post+1893.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Road to Fort Washakie - U.S. Army, Office of the Chief of Engineers. 1893. Map of Fort Washakie, Wyomin g. Image from the National Archives. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/the-real-mccoy monthly 0.5 2025-07-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1631abf4-5835-45c2-b281-72acb3a90cf3/file.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Real McCoy - Lewis McCoy Civil War pension file. 1892-1905. Washington, DC: National Archives. Photo by author. When you’re working with Civil War pension files at the National Archives, you never really know what you’re going to get. A soldier’s file could be a few pages or a few hundred. It could include a simple rejection or repeated special investigations. If you’re lucky, it might include something like a photograph or an original marriage certificate. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/8c45dbc8-0a7e-411e-b77c-6c32a55331ab/IMG_7677+-+front+-+remove+color+cast-cropped-smartfix-touched+up+cropped.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Real McCoy - He remained in the area, working as a farm laborer on a series of plantations along the Mississippi River before finally settling in Concordia Parish, Louisiana. There he lived with a woman named Mallie and had a daughter, Mahala, with her in 1869. He reportedly had a reputation as a “blackleg,” a swindler or cheating gambler, and he was convicted and imprisoned twice for assault with a deadly weapon between 1870 and 1873. By 1878, he was out of prison and had married Lucinda Wade, who died around 1890. After that, he moved to rural Issaquena County, Mississippi, where he married a widow named Francis Hawkins in 1897 and died in 1905. Lewis McCoy, living in the Mississippi Delta, was unaware that his identity had been stolen in Caldwell, Kansas, by a man named James Nelson. Nelson never served in the military but filed for a pension first as James Nelson in 1892 and again under the name James King in 1893. [1] He claimed in both cases to have served in the 66th USCI but with details that were complete fabrications. For example, he stated that he enlisted in the regiment in May 1863, seven months before it was formed. H. C. Norman, Jr., Natchez, Mississippi. February 1900. “Photograph of Lewis McCoy.” Lewis McCoy Civil War pension file. Washington, DC: National Archives. Photo courtesy of Kathleen M. O’Brien. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1748462392622-6ZAUVVYTQL9S4E6LCA05/BoP+May+1898.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Real McCoy https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1748462405711-JK4ECMWCEEBPQ39600TP/The_Wichita_Eagle_1900_09_15_Page_3.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Real McCoy https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/bcf8e5e7-4563-4dde-bf5b-3ef0f5183759/pension+fraud+cartoon.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Real McCoy - Gillam, F. Victor. 1898. Throwing Light on the Subject. New York: Sacket & Willems Litho. & Pt'g. Co. Photo from the Library of Congress. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/she-has-always-exercised-and-enjoyed-those-rights monthly 0.5 2025-10-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/0f8b9fd4-411e-46f8-8756-3448f26dc6c7/MV+Longley+IPW+4-9+May+1889.jpg Looking at History Blog - She Has Always Exercised and Enjoyed Those Rights - As I said in my last post, my three times great-granduncle Elias Longley and his wife Margaret Vater Longley were idealists. Among Elias’s many publishing ventures was a newspaper, The Type of the Times. Its slogan was “Devoted to all true interests of the human race,” which, as one writer notes, included “women’s rights, as well as abolition, temperance, and even vegetarianism” (Durack 2020). Of these varied interests, the one to which Margaret, in particular, devoted the most time and energy was women’s suffrage. Portrait of Margaret Vater Longley. 1889. The Illustrated Phonographic World 4 (9): 184. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/b114489c-d604-4516-a3bc-fe9b47c9b16f/iiif-service_mss_mss34132_mss34132-012_00540-full-pct_100-0-default.jpg Looking at History Blog - She Has Always Exercised and Enjoyed Those Rights - Longley, Margaret Vater. 1872. Letter to Henry Blackwell. Cincinnati, OH. [1] A few months later, she served as a delegate to the first conference of the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) in Cleveland, Ohio, and was elected a vice president at large of that organization (Stanton et al 1881; 1886). [2] https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/301ea079-4140-434a-91ca-15b34654714c/The_San_Francisco_Examiner_1894_05_24_1.jpg Looking at History Blog - She Has Always Exercised and Enjoyed Those Rights - Sketch of Margaret Vater Longley. 24 May 1894. San Francisco Examiner, p. 1. After she and Elias moved to California in 1885, in an effort to improve his poor health, Margaret took up her work with the Women’s Suffrage Association of Los Angeles, serving as its president in 1890. A few years later, she expanded her political horizons and became active in the People’s Party, advocating that the party include a women’s suffrage plank in its platform and serving as a delegate to and vice-president of the party’s state convention in Sacramento in 1894 (Yasuoka n.d.). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/931388aa-f5a9-4934-aa54-ad60efb00e36/Final+Longley+marker+small.png Looking at History Blog - She Has Always Exercised and Enjoyed Those Rights - Margaret and Elias Longley historical marker on the National Votes for Women Trail. Downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. Photo courtesy of Katherine Durack. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/fonetic-speling monthly 0.5 2025-06-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/7ca7149d-eb25-4086-87c7-8cc94d79de5e/Elias+Longely+IPW+11-4+Dec+1895.jpg Looking at History Blog - Fonetic Speliŋ - I’ve written quite a bit already about my Longley relatives, including Thomas, who spoke out against slavery in Kentucky in 1805, and Abner, who joined a utopian socialist community in 1844. I joke sometimes that this branch of my family never met a radical idea they didn’t want to try out, and there’s actually some truth to that. Abner’s sons continued this pattern, becoming journalists, printers, flag and playing card manufacturers, utopian socialists, and in the case of his oldest son Elias Longley, a passionate advocate for phonetic spelling. It is Elias and his wife Margaret Vater Longley about whom I am writing today and in my next post. Portrait of Elias Longley. 1895. The Illustrated Phonographic World 9 (4): frontispiece. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/fb31e451-f0cb-43d6-af11-d9b7eab215ac/American+Manual+of+Phonography.jpg Looking at History Blog - Fonetic Speliŋ - Longley, Elias. 1855. The American Manual of Phonography. Cincinnati, OH: Longley Brothers, Phonetic Printers. Elias’s interest in phonography went well beyond its use to him as a reporter. Early in his career, while working with several of his brothers in the printing trade, he published The American Manual of Phonography, a textbook outlining his approach to shorthand. His shorthand system remained in use throughout his lifetime. The U.S. Bureau of Education in 1893 reported that the Longley system was being taught at 28 schools of shorthand across the country, including two run by members of the Longley family (Rockwell 1893). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/ee04349b-b604-4ab5-b742-63740bce8e84/%5B1882%5D+Type-writer+lessons+for+the+use+of+teachers+and+learners.png Looking at History Blog - Fonetic Speliŋ - Longley, Margaret Vater. 1882. Type-Writer Lessons, for the Use of Teachers and Learners. Cincinnati, OH. Like her husband, Margaret worked as a journalist and editor, but her principal contribution to their many professional interests was in typewriting. Margaret learned to type soon after the emergence of commercially available typewriters in the 1870s and, by 1882, had invented the eight-finger typing method still used today, in which the thumbs operate the space bar and the remaining fingers type specific letters on each side of the keyboard (Yasuoka 2009). She published this method in textbooks such as Type-Writer Lessons, for the Use of Teachers and Learners. She also taught typing at the shorthand and typing schools she and Elias established, first in Cincinnati and later in Los Angeles, after they moved there in 1885 (Messenger 2011). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/86651e2d-a419-4ef3-b1c3-594646a71a6f/Longley+phonetic+alphabet.png Looking at History Blog - Fonetic Speliŋ - Longley, Elias. 1855. The American Manual of Phonography. Cincinnati, OH: Longley Brothers, Phonetic Printers, p. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/a-well-known-furniture-manufacturer monthly 0.5 2025-09-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/8bec3fc6-caa8-4e2d-9299-944cbf065e76/20250512_153843.jpg Looking at History Blog - A Well-Known Furniture Manufacturer - My mother owned quite a few antiques although she wasn’t really a collector. She only occasionally purchased antiques herself, but she had many objects that she had inherited from family members. When she passed away last year, I went through these items and consigned most of them to an antique store. I ended up keeping one chair, however, after my cats adopted it as their own. As it turns out, those cats have impressively good taste in antique furniture. Hunzinger patent mark on fancy chair. After 1869. Photograph by author. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a155ed11-d231-4cdc-9699-43d7a8a564da/20250512_153653.jpg Looking at History Blog - A Well-Known Furniture Manufacturer - The chair in question, I have learned, is a 19th century “fancy” chair designed by George Hunzinger. Such chairs were used as accent pieces rather than being purchased as part of a suite of matching furniture (Harwood 1997). It belonged to my great-grandmother Florence Roberts Mierau, who was born in New Jersey in 1892, and most likely was originally purchased by her mother or mother-in-law. The chair’s design was patented by Hunzinger in 1869, and similar chairs were produced by his firm into the 1880s. The chair itself isn’t especially remarkable—you can see similar chairs for sale on eBay today—but it illustrates the work of a furniture designer who has not always received enough credit for his innovation and imagination. Hunzinger fancy chair. After 1869. Photograph by author. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/e422b37d-8308-4242-a0e7-e38ccacb6102/GJH+naturalization+oath.jpg Looking at History Blog - A Well-Known Furniture Manufacturer - George Hunzinger naturalization oath of allegiance. 16 Oct 1865. New York, NY. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/3c5489e7-f788-4a4d-ba1d-84c8f701b568/GJH+obituary.jpg Looking at History Blog - A Well-Known Furniture Manufacturer - George Hunzinger obituary. 30 Oct 1898. The New York Tribune, p. 12. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1747004809343-KAJM1KUFZZUKTI9RE3W7/Pages+from+1869+patent.png Looking at History Blog - A Well-Known Furniture Manufacturer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1747083379442-PJKTUL0VJ2D2NQMUSHTX/20250512_153733.jpg Looking at History Blog - A Well-Known Furniture Manufacturer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/06940f2a-5832-46a6-a199-5ce15cf133ca/Kimballs+catalogue+3.png Looking at History Blog - A Well-Known Furniture Manufacturer - Kimball, J. Wayland. 1876. Kimball’s Book of Designs: Furniture and Drapery. Boston, MA: J. Wayland Kimball., plate 4 and page 9. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/a-manifest-incongruity monthly 0.5 2025-05-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/f8bb6644-b7bd-49d4-bcd8-4e88e333703f/service-pnp-cph-3b20000-3b22000-3b22700-3b22753r.jpg Looking at History Blog - A Manifest Incongruity - Because my family has lived in America for a very long time, I am eligible to join many of the lineage societies that limit their membership to the descendants of early settlers or men who served in various wars. I can’t say I’ve ever had the desire to actually join any of these societies, however, with one exception. I am intrigued by the Associated Daughters of Early American Witches, a lineage society dedicated to “preserving and honoring our ancestors who were accused of witchcraft in Colonial America prior to 31 December 1699.” A lineage society based on recognizing the consequences of the misogyny and scapegoating so prevalent in our history? Sign me up! As it happens, though, I’m not actually descended from anyone accused of witchcraft in Colonial America. Instead, I’ve learned that I’m related to one of the people responsible for conducting the infamous Salem witch trials. Mather, Cotton. 1693. Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches, Lately Executed in New-England. Boston, MA: John Dunton. Image from the Library of Congress. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/9769d7f8-9a90-46a3-9069-19de82971364/PetitionForBailFromAccusedWitches.jpg Looking at History Blog - A Manifest Incongruity - The Salem witch trials dominated life in northeastern Massachusetts throughout 1692. More than 200 people, nearly 80% of them women, were accused of witchcraft; 54 confessed; 30 were convicted; 19 were executed; five died from the miserable conditions in which they were jailed; and one was pressed to death with stones in an effort to elicit a plea. More people might have died had not the colonial governor Sir William Phips in October 1692 forbade further imprisonment for those accused and provided reprieves to some of those convicted, actions possibly motivated by the fact that his wife was among those recently accused. Widow Penny et al. 1692. Petition to the Governor and General Assembly of Massachusetts from accused witches asking for bail. Image from the Library of Congress. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/4df3559f-a224-42eb-8ab5-d1273c954ee9/LARGILLI%C3%88RE_man_in_purper.jpg Looking at History Blog - A Manifest Incongruity - In an odd postscript to these events, Nicholas Noyes’s other claim to fame was his intense opposition to the wearing of wigs, particularly by men, and most particularly, when these wigs were made of women’s hair. In the latter part of the 17th century, the wigs worn by the wealthy and elite in Europe were highly ostentatious, and that fashion had begun to spread to the American colonies. For many Puritan residents of New England, wearing a wig seemed like a worldly vanity. For Noyes and others of his time, wigs were even more problematic (Godbeer 1997). de Largillière, Nicolas. c 1700. Portrait of a Man in a Purple Robe. Image from the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel, Germany. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/4b83da50-f8a5-49fd-862f-8941501fb6db/Danvers_victims_memorial%2C_principal_inscription.jpg Looking at History Blog - A Manifest Incongruity - Helminski, Francis. 2019. Part of the memorial for the victims of the 1692-3 witchcraft trials, Danvers (formerly Salem Village), Massachusetts. Image from Wikimedia Commons. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/the-only-thing-you-can-do-is-refuse-to-forget monthly 0.5 2025-05-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/d2d8963a-307e-482d-aa0d-4b28ff906b53/CPT_Donald_B._Stewart_and_LTC_John_H._Van_Vliet_Jr_Szubin%2C_Poland_memorial.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Only Thing You Can Do Is Refuse To Forget - When I was about 12 years old, my father pulled an old magazine out of a closet and showed it to me. He explained that an article in there described something awful, but it was true and was something I should know about. This was my introduction to an atrocity. Discussing it with my father created a personal connection for me to the thousands of men who had been murdered and then had their massacre blanketed in lies and silence. I found myself following in others’ footsteps: remembering the victims and telling their story. Memorial plaque for Lt. Col. John H. Van Vliet, Jr. and Capt. Donald B. Stewart, U.S. Army officers, English-speaking witnesses to Katyn, erected in 2015 at the site of the former Oflag 64 prison camp at Szubin, Poland. Image from Wikimedia Commons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/062f0023-8b0c-4a81-9dfa-90a2a09e56fd/Je%C5%84cy1.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Only Thing You Can Do Is Refuse To Forget - At the time these officers were taken prisoner, Poland's conscription system required every nonexempt university graduate to become a military reserve officer. By capturing the officers, Germany and the Soviet Union imprisoned a significant portion of Poland’s educated class. Polish prisoners of war captured by the Red Army after the Soviet invasion of Poland. September 1939. Image from Wikimedia Commons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/167c69f4-8b71-4b0d-8ce4-fd3895d66eea/Stewart_and_Gilder_review_exhumed_documents_at_the_Katyn_grave_site.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Only Thing You Can Do Is Refuse To Forget - My uncle, Captain Donald B. Stewart, U.S. Army, was one of these POWs and appeared in some of the German photos along with his senior officer, Colonel John H. Van Vliet. Before traveling to Katyn, both men had been convinced that Katyn was all German propaganda. While there, they both noted specific details that ultimately convinced them that the victims had been murdered by the Soviets. They were given documents and photos about Katyn to take back with them to their POW camps. When Uncle Don was marched out of Oflag 64 by the Germans on January 21, 1945, he retained the photos and documents that he'd been given about Katyn by sewing them in the lining of his greatcoat. Captain Donald B. Stewart and Lt. Colonel Frank Stevenson reviewing exhumed documents at Katyn. May 1943. Image from Wikimedia Commons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/9479b644-7635-4b4a-9fad-fc65fc96287f/Stewart_showing_Madden_where_the_graves_were_in_the_Katyn_Forest.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Only Thing You Can Do Is Refuse To Forget https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/227d725a-ac72-4f1c-875b-0479295e92ab/Russia_3850_%284183428042%29.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Only Thing You Can Do Is Refuse To Forget - An official cemetery has been built at the site of the massacre, and the Muzeum Katyńskie in Warsaw was opened in 1993. When Polish President Lech Kaczyński was killed in a plane crash in Smolensk in 2010, the passengers in that aircraft had been going to attend a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. Polish War Cemetery at Katyn: circular alley listing thousands of names of the known victims at Katyn. Image from Wikimedia Commons https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/01bd8e6e-79fa-4fed-a518-57d7bdbc4d58/Katyn_a.png Looking at History Blog - The Only Thing You Can Do Is Refuse To Forget https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/whenunclesamwasready monthly 0.5 2025-09-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/0973f01e-235e-4c0b-bed5-8ba8cd201f51/FFL+Tours+France+1919+cropped.jpg Looking at History Blog - When Uncle Sam Was Ready, Things Moved Fast - Francis Fielding Longley on top of Charlemagne’s Tower, Tours, France, 1919. Longley family photo. My great-grandfather, Francis Fielding (Frank) Longley, was a civil engineer who specialized in water treatment systems. Clean and readily available water is one of those things that it’s easy to take for granted, and learning about his work has really opened my eyes to what it takes to provide water to those who need it. He had a long and varied career and wrote a number of interesting accounts of his experiences, but this blog post will focus on only his work with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/5d3a3f71-4a97-4814-aaac-6307ebc98770/Officers+26th+Engineers.png Looking at History Blog - When Uncle Sam Was Ready, Things Moved Fast - Officers, 26th Engineers, Bourg-sur-Gironde, France, January 1919 (Lee 1919). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/4fdcedf2-28f3-49d8-ab32-5de685f82365/water+truck+customers.png Looking at History Blog - When Uncle Sam Was Ready, Things Moved Fast - Customers of a Water-Purification Truck. "Chloropump" in background. On right, a company water cart. On left, an ammunition truck converted into a water wagon by means of French wine casks (Lee 1919). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/387ffce7-8540-439c-81a8-a30aceced02f/mobile+water+purification.png Looking at History Blog - When Uncle Sam Was Ready, Things Moved Fast - Water-Purification Truck ("Sterilab"). Pumping and filtering equipment in rear, chlorination equipment in center, and laboratory space in forward portion of housing (Lee 1919). Water-Purification Truck ("Sterilab"). Pumping and filtering equipment in rear, chlorination equipment in center, and laboratory space in forward portion of housing (Lee 1919). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/5d38a8a7-9a18-474c-99aa-44f63d1ffb0b/Buzancy+schematic.png Looking at History Blog - When Uncle Sam Was Ready, Things Moved Fast - Schematic Plan of Water Supply, Advance of November 1, 1918, Argonne-Meuse Offensive (Lee 1919). https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/occupation-legislator monthly 0.5 2025-09-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/6f96fcd3-ef60-4480-b87a-e94986ae6450/service-pnp-ppmsca-12800-12860v.jpg Looking at History Blog - Occupation: Legislator - I'm running behind on blog posts because I spent the last several weeks in Washington, DC, working in the National Archives on a project related to the 66th U.S. Colored Infantry (USCI) regiment. In (belated) honor of Black History Month, I’d like to share the stories of two of the enlisted men who served in this regiment during the Civil War. Von Seutter, E. 1875. Members of the Legislature of the State of Mississippi, 1874-'75. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1f5a56d1-b23e-409c-a9b9-581a3c9e5eb9/4273810_00248.jpg Looking at History Blog - Occupation: Legislator - U.S. Census Bureau. 3 Aug 1870. Inhabitants in the County of Washington, State of Mississippi. Washington, DC, page 235 (241), lines 17-19. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/42249f56-6711-48a4-8fe4-78b226984ed7/John_H._Morgan.png Looking at History Blog - Occupation: Legislator - Morgan was born into slavery in Cumberland County, Maryland, around 1841 [1]. Like many other enslaved individuals at that time, he was sent “down the river” into the deep South as part of a mass movement of human property driven by the economic demands of the cotton industry and the fears of enslavers that the growing abolition movement would deprive them of this property (Kolchin 1993). In December 1863, at the age of 22, Morgan enlisted as a private in the 66th USCI, where he was eventually promoted to First Sergeant of Company A. When the regiment disbanded in March 1866, he was its Sergeant Major, the highest possible noncommissioned rank. After leaving the army, he married in 1868, was elected to the legislature in 1869, representing Washington County, Mississippi, took his seat in January 1870, and served until 1875. Sadly, he died of consumption (tuberculosis) in April 1877, leaving behind his wife and four small children. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/37ce2047-09ee-4d01-ac7b-59aab72c45c0/Peter_Barnabus_Barrow.png Looking at History Blog - Occupation: Legislator - Peter Barrow’s story is a somewhat happier one. Barrow was born into slavery in Virginia around 1840, was sent to Alabama as a child, and then became the human property of his enslaver’s son-in-law Jackson Barrow. In March 1864, he enlisted in the 66th USCI. After being hospitalized for sunstroke early in his time in the regiment, he went on to spend much of his military service as a nurse in the regimental hospital at Vicksburg, caring for the men suffering from illness or injury [2]. After mustering out of the army in March 1866, he, like Morgan, married and then was elected to the legislature, representing Warren County, Mississippi. After serving one term as a state representative, Barrow was elected to the state senate, where he served until 1875. Following his time as a legislator, he taught school in Mississippi for nearly 15 years (Coleman 2013; Wilson 2024). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/4f4faf85-fd86-483f-ab21-2c1d8267da23/3682f82a33b3e7375cb066dc7bce237c.jpg Looking at History Blog - Occupation: Legislator - Libby, Charles A. 1921. Calvary Baptist Church. Charles A Libby Collection. Spokane, WA: Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/firstnewenglandsettlers monthly 0.5 2025-02-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1b4af69b-da20-4aff-b819-cd385fe20040/Shipbuilding_1957_issue-3c.jpg Looking at History Blog - The First English Settlers in New England - U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing. 1957. US postage stamp, 1957 issue, shipbuilding, violet-blue, 3c. Image from Wikimedia Commons. 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. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a12bf074-0eb5-470d-8213-51296d0e89e0/VA+Co+charter.gif Looking at History Blog - The First English Settlers in New England - Charter of the Virginia Company, 1606. Image from the Library of Congress. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/7f52f6a8-2447-4fba-9969-2b0c093d8e88/Hunt_map_pinnace.jpg Looking at History Blog - The First English Settlers in New England - In February 1608, George Popham became the only casualty of the colony, dying of unknown causes, and leadership fell to the much younger Raleigh Gilbert, nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh. The colony persisted until September 1608, during which time the settlers build a 50-foot pinnace, the Virginia, the first ship built by the English in North America. The final blow to the Popham Colony was the arrival of news that Raleigh Gilbert was now the heir to his family’s estate. He chose to return to England to claim his fortune, and most of the remaining colonists went with him, some of them aboard the Virginia, which was able to make the Atlantic crossing safely (Chandler 1998; Higgins 2000; Thayer 1892). Hunt, John. 1607. Detail of pinnace from plan of Fort St George. Image from Wikimedia Commons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/c8a1a643-8294-426d-86ff-835c9d49b95a/Maine_Fort.St.George_Map.1607.jpg Looking at History Blog - The First English Settlers in New England - Hunt, John. 1607. The draught of St. George’s Fort erected by Captayne George Popham Esquire. Image from Wikimedia Commons. While this plan was drawn only a few months after the colony was founded, archaeologists have confirmed its general accuracy. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/friends-of-humanity monthly 0.5 2025-01-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/5bbe7871-d712-4ca4-9831-da050f131a1b/Religious_Camp_Meeting_%28Burbank_1839%29.jpg Looking at History Blog - Friends of Humanity - Religious Camp Meeting. Watercolor by J. Maze Burbank, c. 1839. Old Dartmouth Historical Society-New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Some time ago, I wrote about my five-times great-grandfather Thomas Longley, who moved his family from New York City down the Ohio River to Kentucky in 1788. Thomas was a Baptist. I don’t know if he was raised in the denomination or converted at some point, but I know he attended the First Baptist Church of New York City, where he served as a deacon from 1787 until his departure to Kentucky (Parkinson 1846). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/5bc2a97b-20fc-4405-9f53-74e7ca20f43b/Pages+from+ThomasInventory_0002.png Looking at History Blog - Friends of Humanity - Excerpt from the inventory of Thomas Longley’s estate, including a sermon by Jacob Grigg. 1818. Photo by author. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/airship-dreams monthly 0.5 2025-01-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/82b016f8-afcc-4cbe-8ff1-55fcfb9833ae/IMG_27+3.jpg Looking at History Blog - Airship Dreams - It seems like many of my ideas for blog posts come from finding mysterious family photos that, once researched, yield insight into things I knew very little about. Today’s post originated with a photo of my grandmother’s family standing in front of a large pile of debris. I had no idea what to make of this image, but I was certainly curious about it. My great-grandmother Henrietta Switzer Barnhart (left) and my grandmother Dorothy Barnhart (center facing camera) with other relatives in front of the wreckage of the USS Shenandoah, Neiswonger farm, Noble County, Ohio, circa September 4,1925. Barnhart family photo. Photographer unknown. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a89d72f3-0e77-42d2-8923-bc6c95d3083f/NH+98221.jpeg Looking at History Blog - Airship Dreams - The airship was christened on October 10, 1923, by the Secretary of the Navy, who then took his wife and son with him on a flight along with the families of several of the airship’s officers (NASM 2023). Christening ceremonies for USS Shenandoah (ZR-1), held inside the airship hangar at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, 10 October 1923. Collection of the Society of Sponsors of the United States Navy. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/95ea184c-9849-4cdc-8fdf-039f7a72fd98/NH+51492.jpeg Looking at History Blog - Airship Dreams - Over the next few months, the Shenandoah made flights to its namesake Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and, after several weather delays, to New York and Massachusetts. USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) flying in the vicinity of New York City, circa 1923. U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/3ece6d8e-54df-45ba-ba57-4a97e54df559/20241020_185227.jpg Looking at History Blog - Airship Dreams - In October 1924, the Shenandoah undertook its most ambitious trip yet, a 19-day, 9,000 mile cross-country tour. The airship made stops at Ft. Worth, TX, San Diego, CA, and Tacoma, WA—these being among the few places that had mooring towers suitable for such a large airship (Copas 2017; NASM 2023). [3] The USS Shenandoah moored at Ft. Worth, TX, circa October 9, 1924. Barnhart family photo. Photographer unknown. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/fcc84652-0ed4-4120-b810-6c82cef6f567/IMG_26_1.jpg Looking at History Blog - Airship Dreams - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/efbeb9a0-2c37-4719-b9d2-b5124712d219/shenandoah-diagrams.jpg Looking at History Blog - Airship Dreams - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/every-family-has-a-maverick-part-2 monthly 0.5 2025-01-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/fd4bcad1-cfbf-4323-b234-96b00a9bbb7b/Grandpa+%28Jones%29+Collins+-+Myrtle+Erisman%27s+Grandfather.jpg Looking at History Blog - Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 2 - When we last left our intrepid protagonist, John Jones, the Civil War veteran formerly known as Walter W. Collins, he had been honorably discharged from the army in February 1866 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was settling into a new life. Somewhere along the way, he had picked up skills in the building trades and was now working as a brick mason. This career seemed to suit his restless nature, as it allowed him to move from place to place, following the demand for new construction, considerable in the post-Civil War South, and he practiced this trade for much of the rest of his life. Walter W. Collins, alias John Jones. c 1890s. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/8e9afb55-947d-4404-9fdd-fb61f5b66836/Daily_Arkansas_Gazette_1873_02_01_Page_1.jpg Looking at History Blog - Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 2 - Anonymous. February 1, 1873. “Proceedings of the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas.” Daily Arkansas Gazette, p. 1. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/976d68d7-5d85-4f1a-a193-52c9e8712f66/veterans+schedule.png Looking at History Blog - Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 2 - U.S. Census Bureau. 1890. Special Schedule—Surviving Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines, and Widows, etc. Washington, DC: National Archives. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/665c5fc3-dafb-46c5-a009-b392a0fc0b12/20240812_125117.jpg Looking at History Blog - Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 2 - In the end, the pension office concluded that he was entitled to the pension, having served a full term in the army, albeit under an assumed name. They did, however, note that he was receiving too large a pension payment, given that he was born in 1838, rather than 1835 as he had said in his original application. I doubt they got their money back, since John died soon after, but the paper trail the bureaucracy left allowed me to follow the tracks of my family maverick. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/every-family-has-a-maverick-part-1 monthly 0.5 2025-01-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/b1cf6fd8-4fc6-4c41-be89-63cd4db692ee/IMG_1290.JPG Looking at History Blog - Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 1 - Every family has a maverick (or two), and one of my family’s mavericks was my great-great-great-grandfather Walter White Collins. Walter was born in Guernsey County, Ohio, in 1838 and moved with his family to Lineville in south central Iowa around 1855. In 1857, Walter, then 19 years old, married Elizabeth Paul, and settled on a small farm next to those owned by his father and two older brothers. He and Elizabeth had two children over the next few years, and had it not been for the Civil War, that might well have been the end of his story. Walter W. Collins, 1863, daguerrrotype found in Civil War pension file, Washington, DC: National Archives. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1727538162419-YILGPO6G6DOHSTX41DLS/10+.+Walter+Collins+Co+K+7+MO+Cav+Record+Personal+Description.jpg Looking at History Blog - Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 1 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1727538197455-KMS3SOG2E8MVRCTI87EX/IMG_6660.JPG Looking at History Blog - Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 1 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a399d30b-67ac-43a4-9173-e2f4cb1b04ae/20240812_154522.jpg Looking at History Blog - Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 1 - After six months of training near St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1864, Walter’s regiment was sent by steamboat down the Mississippi river to Arkansas, where they remained for the next two years, mustering out in the spring of 1866, nearly a year after the end of the war (Logan 1910). For the most part, Walter seems to have kept out of trouble during this second enlistment, with the exception of an incident in September 1864 when he and most of the other non-commissioned officers in his company were reduced to ranks for “gambling and disobedience of orders.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1c5b841d-f9b4-450f-a324-f5cbe000c54a/20240812_155730.jpg Looking at History Blog - Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 1 - Walter’s company commander may have regretted losing all his experienced NCOs at once because, in May 1865, with the note that his demotion had been for “an offense not heinous and having comported himself as a soldier ever since,” Walter was reinstated as sergeant. A few months later, he was made his company’s quartermaster sergeant, responsible for obtaining, maintaining, and transporting all of the company’s property, and he mustered out at that rank in Little Rock, Arkansas, in February 1866 (Logan 1910). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/8dd4f9d5-dedf-407f-8511-c572fdd5d58a/20240812_112227.jpg Looking at History Blog - Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 1 - 9th Iowa Cavalry. 1866. John Jones discharge certificate. Washington, DC: National Archives. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/netties-story monthly 0.5 2024-12-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/d4147619-b847-4891-a95a-af3a7d270353/Nettie+headstone.jpeg Looking at History Blog - Nettie’s Story - Find a Grave Memorial ID 204392490, Sacred Grounds Lower Cemetery, Skillman, Somerset County, New Jersey, USA. Maintained by McGiiver (contributor 47857751). Photo used with permission. My family was surprised when I told them that my great-grandmother, Florence Roberts, had three siblings. They only knew of one, her older brother Walter. The explanation for one of these missing siblings is easy to understand. Florence’s younger brother Schuyler was born in 1895 and died as a child between 1900 and 1905. In that era, the fact that his family didn’t talk about his death is unremarkable. The mystery of what happened to Florence’s older sister, however, is a much more complicated story. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1724273836712-TM705LGXQJHMCD28V370/image+3.png Looking at History Blog - Nettie’s Story - Small Cottage for Women, New Jersey State Village for Epileptics https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1724275306680-OIBYGS1OU7DX2R4AM443/image+4.png Looking at History Blog - Nettie’s Story - Ward Cottage for Men, New Jersey State Village for Epileptics https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/f8374e28-4f59-4f72-aca8-8ef704f34978/Courier_Post_1950_05_12_Page_3.png Looking at History Blog - Nettie’s Story - Photo from Morse, Wilbur, Jr. May 12, 1950. “State Village for Epileptics at Skillman Shows Great Need for Rehabilitation.” Courier-Post. Camden, NJ: 3. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/b390d2fc-c307-4e7f-a02d-dbef202836bd/census+edited.png Looking at History Blog - Nettie’s Story - U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1930. Fifteenth Census of the United States. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/who-needs-the-mason-dixon-line monthly 0.5 2024-09-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/aa990125-ab9b-4c70-b831-74c8df88dbe2/service-pnp-habshaer-pa-pa0000-pa0027-photos-131441pv.jpg Looking at History Blog - Who Needs the Mason-Dixon Line? - In reading about Pennsylvania, as I have been doing a lot lately, I have come across many references to the Mason-Dixon line. We’re all familiar with the Mason-Dixon line, of course. It has served as a powerful symbol of the division between the free North and the slaveholding South, the line enslaved people had to cross to escape to freedom.[1] Despite that knowledge, it had never before occurred to me to wonder why the Mason-Dixon line exists at all. It’s quite a story, involving royal patronage, feuding families, a minor war, a famous lawsuit, and some cutting-edge science. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/fe25c123-5b3a-445c-b819-c37ae05bffa7/Penncolony.png Looking at History Blog - Who Needs the Mason-Dixon Line? - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1722808814011-UF9DZCFWZZ1FCID5MS3F/Francis_Place_Chalk_Portrait_of_William_Penn_1695.jpg Looking at History Blog - Who Needs the Mason-Dixon Line? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1722808821072-SE7K2BVU9DTIS71CFUD4/Charles_Calvert_3rd_Baron_Baltimore.jpg Looking at History Blog - Who Needs the Mason-Dixon Line? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/d249fc6d-c145-4d64-a662-1ada7306223b/Mason_and_Dixon.png Looking at History Blog - Who Needs the Mason-Dixon Line? - Recognizing that the remaining work—surveying an 80-mile line dividing Delmarva vertically and a 233-mile line marking the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland—would be much more challenging, the colonial proprietors sought expert help from England in the form of Charles Mason and his assistant Jeremiah Dixon, who had recently gained considerable acclaim from their observations of the transit of Venus under commission from The Royal Society. Both Mason and Dixon had studied astronomy and mathematics, and Dixon had also trained as a surveyor, making them well equipped to undertake this complex project (Black & Arkles 2016; Robinson 1902). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/5fbe0c0f-35c2-4c93-bb19-45dc3d3e5634/iiif-service_gmd_gmd384_g3841_g3841f_ct002075-full-pct_25-0-default.jpg Looking at History Blog - Who Needs the Mason-Dixon Line? - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/the-motherlode-of-erismans monthly 0.5 2025-09-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a65e0bdc-26dd-4482-9d24-68fed18a8819/Erisman+Rd+Lancaster+PA.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Motherlode of Erismans - I have an unusual last name. For much of my life, I never met anyone named Erisman to whom I wasn’t closely related, close enough that we could easily calculate what flavor of cousin we were. Some years back, however, while visiting Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on a business trip, I was suddenly inundated by Erismans—a colleague’s child’s kindergarten teacher, a local car dealership, the high school’s star quarterback smiling from a billboard. There were Erismans everywhere, even on a road sign. I had, I concluded, found the motherlode of Erismans. Erisman Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Photo by author. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/51d26298-4162-4a99-b7a9-223f2285c150/1024px-Palatinate_of_the_Rhine.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Motherlode of Erismans - Understandably, some Mennonites chose to leave Switzerland, and large numbers were also exiled by the Swiss government. Many of these expatriate Mennonites settled in the Palatinate, a region in southwest Germany along the Rhine River. This area had been decimated during the Thirty Years War, which ended in 1635, and its leaders welcomed new settlers who could farm their lands (Eschleman 1917; Smith 1909). Seutter, Matthäus. c1750. The tormented geography of the Rheinish Palatinate. Image from Wikimedia Commons. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/94fb52ce-a171-4a2a-ac6b-ecf6056d0802/service-rbc-rbpe-rbpe14-rbpe140-1400010a-001dr1.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Motherlode of Erismans - By the early 1700s, the situation in the Palatinate was bad enough for some Mennonites to consider moving yet again. In 1710, a group of Mennonite families arrived in London and sought assistance in immigrating to the American colonies. While in London, they seem to have met with an agent of William Penn, who was seeking settlers for the enormous grant of land he had received in 1681 and who promised new settlers religious freedom and the prospect of actually owning their own land (Dunn 1983). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/7373cecc-c51d-41df-a8ac-438619a52088/Hans+Herr+House.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Motherlode of Erismans - With the success of the Lancaster County Mennonite settlement, its leaders sought to encourage others to join them, sending one of their number, Martin Kendig, back to Germany to report on their situation. In 1717, more than 350 of the remaining Palatine Mennonites packed up their families and set sail for Philadelphia in three ships, again relying on financial assistance from the Dutch Mennonites to help poorer families pay for their passage (Beiler 1997; Scheffer & Pennypacker 1878; Smith 1909). Melchior Erisman and his wife Edith were among these immigrants. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/97350646-9e4e-4dd6-b4d2-31e760fb846a/Erisman+Mennonite+Church.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Motherlode of Erismans - For all that Melchior’s journey to American was rooted in his Mennonite faith, my branch of the family didn’t stick with those ideals for very long. Melchior’s grandson Johannes, my five times great-grandfather, left Lancaster County in 1805 after getting married in the Reformed Church. Many of Melchior’s descendants did remain in Lancaster, of course, producing the motherlode of Erismans that I found there. Johannes’s brother Abraham, in fact, became the founder of the Erisman Mennonite Church in 1799, a church that still exists in Lancaster County and is a clear reminder of my family’s nonconformist roots (Eby 1991). https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/an-actual-privateer monthly 0.5 2026-02-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1a7310f1-d84b-4cd8-8e8e-349a45e72549/20061225130414%21Capture_Of_Cacafuego.jpg Looking at History Blog - An Actual Privateer - Levinus Hulsius. 1626. “The capture of the Cacafuego by Sir Francis Drake.” Description of the Four Most Wonderful Voyages. Kraus Sir Francis Drake Collection. Image from the: Library of Congress. When I decided on the title for this blog, I was shooting for alliteration, of course, but also for a representation of my family’s past. Pioneers and preachers we have in abundance, but there really were some privateers as well. Here’s what I have learned about one of them. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/bfdbc929-cc01-47ac-98b3-b8e3c1a7bc2a/Parker+will+excerpt.jpg Looking at History Blog - An Actual Privateer - Excerpt from William Parker’s 1617 will, probated in 1619. Wills Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, and now Preserved in the Principal Probate Registry 1605 to 1619. Image from the The National Archives, Kew, England. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/fecc86a3-1885-42c9-9174-71d8f8165af3/interior.jpg Looking at History Blog - An Actual Privateer - Interior of Merchants House Museum. Plymouth, England. Photo by author. There’s an interesting postscript to this story. Parker’s timber-framed house in Plymouth was turned into a local heritage museum. Oddly enough, I went there in 2003, long before I learned that I was related to William Parker. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/flying-camps-prison-ships-and-the-battle-of-long-island monthly 0.5 2025-01-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/ff4f046b-b69d-4663-8129-8784428c329f/service-rbc-rbpe-rbpe14-rbpe144-14402100-001dr.jpg Looking at History Blog - Flying Camps, Prison Ships, and the Battle of Long Island - I've come to realize that I really know very little about the American Revolution. I remember learning about the Minutemen at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, of course, but my knowledge of what happened during the subsequent eight years is quite limited. Happily, as I've spent time researching my family's past, I've learned a good deal more about what went on during the Revolution. Three topics that recently came to my attention are George Washington's “flying camps,” the Battle of Long Island, and the incarceration of American soldiers by the British on prison ships. Each of these played a big role in the Revolutionary War experience of my five times great-grandfather Jacob Holtzinger. Pennsylvania Convention. 1776. In Convention for the State of Pennsylvania. 7 resolutions: ordering march of the entire State militia; excepting several western counties: and others relating to the flying camp. Philadelphia: Henry Mille. Image from the Library of Congress. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/26b2a004-be72-4737-badf-cd5ce3a106c6/iiif-service_gmd_gmd380_g3802_g3802l_ar114800-full-pct_25-0-default.jpg Looking at History Blog - Flying Camps, Prison Ships, and the Battle of Long Island - Jacob fought in only one battle during the Revolution. To his misfortune, it was the Battle of Long Island, fought August 27, 1776, in what is now Brooklyn, defending against a substantial British force that had landed at Staten Island some weeks earlier. The battle was a complete disaster for the Americans, who were badly outnumbered as well as poorly trained. Jacob and many of his flying camp comrades, for example, had been in the army for less than two months at this point. British General Howe’s troops were able to flank the American forces, resulting in high casualties, particularly among the inexperienced flying camp battalions, although George Washington was able to preserve the core of the regular Continental Army through a strategic retreat (Devine 1979; Onderdonk 1849; Richards 1908). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/b7e48b00-8984-4415-87d3-372fc0dbf560/service-pnp-cph-3a00000-3a09000-3a09100-3a09150r.jpg Looking at History Blog - Flying Camps, Prison Ships, and the Battle of Long Island - Jacob spent the next two years as a prisoner of the British, at first aboard one of the derelict prison ships moored in Wallabout Bay, the current location of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Conditions on these ships were appalling. Lack of food and poor sanitation led to the death of thousands of prisoners from starvation and disease (Richards 1908). Darley, Felix Octavius Carr, artist, and Edward, Bookhout, engraver. 1855. Interior of the old Jersey prison ship, in the Revolutionary War. Cincinnati: H. Howe. Image from the Library of Congress. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/e70933b5-9cb8-4683-838e-5069f7caa573/Page+3.jpg Looking at History Blog - Flying Camps, Prison Ships, and the Battle of Long Island https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/the-phalanstery-is-mans-true-home monthly 0.5 2024-08-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/5510f085-567b-4695-b19d-b9b2147c8957/Clermont+Phalanx+1844.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Phalanstery is Man's True Home - A. J. Macdonald. Sketch of the Clermont Phalanx. 1844-47. Writings on American Utopian Communities. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/cd820167-caf7-41b4-bf5d-a53497cff3d0/Id%C3%A9e_d%27un_phalanst%C3%A8re.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Phalanstery is Man's True Home - Victor Considerant. 1836. Idée d'un phalanstère. La Phalange, journal de la science sociale découverte et constituée par Charles Fourier. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/9c360c61-6323-4be8-9a8a-bba6fc0580e0/durectory.png Looking at History Blog - The Phalanstery is Man's True Home - Abner Longley and his family returned to Cincinnati, most likely well before the final dissolution of the Clermont Phalanx, as the 1846 Cincinnati directory shows him living in the city. The failure of this utopian experiment doesn’t seem to have quenched his family’s idealism, however. Several of his sons were also involved with utopian socialism, including living in communal homes at various times in their lives and publishing a Fourierist newspaper titled The Phalansterian Record. Abner’s son Alcander Longley, in fact, so took to heart his father’s utopian values that he dedicated his life to the cause, a story I will save for another post. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/3a2b5e6d-a5f6-44c7-a312-918f043bb2a3/service-pnp-fsa-8a12000-8a12900-8a12994v.jpg Looking at History Blog - The Phalanstery is Man's True Home - Arthur Rothstein. 1940. Melting snow, Utopia, Ohio. Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Library of Congress. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/juneteenth monthly 0.5 2025-10-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/43bb9cd4-6596-4daa-bb70-9628cbfd4c71/metapth124053_xl_PICA05476.jpg Looking at History Blog - Juneteenth - Stephenson, Mrs. Charles (Grace Murray). 1900. Emancipation Day Celebration, June 19, 1900, Photo from University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History. This isn’t a story about my ancestors, but it is one worth telling. Growing up in Texas, I was certainly aware of Juneteenth, which has only been a national holiday since 2021 but has been a Texas state holiday since 1980. [1] To me, as a young person, the holiday wasn’t much different from Memorial Day or Independence Day, one of those summer holidays marked by parades and cook-outs and sometimes fireworks. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/b24ed99a-4229-477d-8177-c8b976bc920c/general-order-3-juneteenth.png Looking at History Blog - Juneteenth - Major General Gordon Granger. June 19, 1865. General Order #3. Headquarters, District of Texas, Galveston, TX. Photo from the National Archives. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/918d11aa-e916-41a7-a697-e616d68716c0/service-pnp-ppmsca-58400-58423r.jpg Looking at History Blog - Juneteenth - Bell & Hall, Photographers. Unidentified Soldier of XXV Corps in Uniform. Photo from the Library of Congress. In May 1865, the XXV Corps as sent to Texas as the principal occupying force, tasked with freeing enslaved people, enforcing order, and re-establishing the federal government but also with providing security against a possible invasion from Mexico.[2] After landing along the Gulf Coast, the XXV Corps ventured inland, occupying forts that had gone unused since war was declared in 1861. These soldiers remained in Texas for as much as two years, with various regiments mustered out between January 1866 and July 1867 (Dobak 2011). While they were not in Texas indefinitely, their presence had a major impact on the formerly enslaved people to whom they brought liberation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a8e4006e-5ac1-498d-9509-0713ceddfd72/AbsoluteEquality.png Looking at History Blog - Juneteenth - Absolute Equality. Old Galveston Square Building, Galveston, TX. Photo by Juneteenth Legacy Project. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/her-children-sign monthly 0.5 2024-08-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/f44abfb1-d1fc-48c0-9680-a77915c19214/Increase+Mather+essay.jpg Looking at History Blog - Her Children Sign from the Breast - Cover of Increase Mather’s treatise, 1684 In a 1684 treatise with a title far too long to include here, Increase Mather, a noted Puritan minister, set out to describe instances where God had intervened in the world in remarkable and miraculous ways. Among the “illustrious providences” he recounted was the story of my nine times great-grandparents Matthew and Sarah (Hunt) Pratt, both of whom were hearing and speech impaired but who were also respected members of the church and community in 17th century Weymouth, Massachusetts (Carty, MacReady, and Sayers 2009). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a83289d7-1b92-4ce4-968d-34baa21f581d/Portrait_of_minister_Thomas_Thacher.png Looking at History Blog - Her Children Sign from the Breast - Portrait of minister Thomas Thacher from The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Volume 47, 1916, page 414, reproduced from a painting in the Museum of the Old South Church Association Thacher seems to have been a forward-thinking individual. Trained in medicine as well as theology, in 1678, he published and distributed a pamphlet addressing the causes and treatment of smallpox, the first medical publication in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Carty, MacReady, and Sayers 2009). For Sarah, the choice of guardian may have proven providential. As Mather explained, Thacher “laboured with design to teach her to understand Speech or Language by Writing” (Mather 1684). Without these efforts, Sarah would have been unlikely to have led the life she did. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/9feb9f9c-accc-4341-95c8-68e7bdcf3533/William+Pratt+birth.jpg Looking at History Blog - Her Children Sign from the Breast - Birth record for William Pratt, second son of Matthew and Sarah and my eight times great-grandfather, 1673 (5th line from top) https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/11670-miles monthly 0.5 2025-01-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/74b8cc93-b314-4735-a357-e4942f6592ca/map.png Looking at History Blog - 11,670 Miles - Map by Hal Jespersen, www.cwmaps.com 11,670 miles—that’s how far my three times great-grandfather Christopher Erisman is said to have traveled with his regiment—by rail, by river, on horseback, and on foot—over the course of the Civil War (Vance 1886). That’s a long way. Google tells me I could go to Paris and back and still be a few hundred miles short. And that would be by airplane. From Illinois to Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Washington, DC, and eventually Kansas. Christopher and his fellow soldiers saw a lot of the southern United States over the course of their four years and four months of military service. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/916ced9d-21e7-47a8-b259-4e93e3751abf/23+14th+Illinois+Infantry+memorial.jpg Looking at History Blog - 11,670 Miles - 14th Illinois Infantry Memorial, Vicksburg, Mississipp. Photo by author. After wintering in Tennessee, the 14th Illinois were ordered in May 1863 to join General Ulysses S. Grant’s forces at the Siege of Vicksburg. Following the Confederate surrender on July 4, 1863, the 14th Illinois remained in Mississippi for nearly a year, guarding Vicksburg and participating in the siege of Jackson and campaigns against Natchez and Meridien. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/6767651d-c279-49b2-9d03-3def62a7d9eb/Grand+Review.jpg Looking at History Blog - 11,670 Miles - The Grand Review of the Army passing on Pennsylvania Avenue near the Treasury, May 1865. Washington, DC: Library of Congress. After a 21-day march to Washington, DC, the 14th Illinois, newly re-formed with an influx of recruits, participated in the Grand Review of the Armies, held on May 22-23, 1865. During this celebration, two massive parades of some 150,000 Union troops marched up Pennsylvania Avenue from the U.S. Capitol past the White House where various political and military notables were seated. Unfortunately, Christopher, who had made it through four years of war without injury, fell off his horse while in Richmond, Virginia, on the way to Washington, DC, and badly hurt his ankle, an injury which would plague him for the rest of his life. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/fbd66a0b-6be5-4b02-8240-56a51b23caf3/medical+report+for+pension.JPG Looking at History Blog - 11,670 Miles - Make it stand out Medical report from Christopher Erisman’s pension application, 1891 https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/why-reindeer monthly 0.5 2025-12-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1029a724-6704-4ba0-a1b2-afd4cf9ccc64/1+1913+Cape+Douglas+reindeer.jpg Looking at History Blog - Why Reindeer? - 500 Cape Douglas reindeer, William Van Valin, 24 March 1913 A few years ago, while going through a scrapbook put together by my great-grandmother, I found an odd photo. It showed a man dressed in fur, some sleds, and what appeared to be a large herd of reindeer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a2c732fb-e4d1-4b69-90ef-23c06ec8f328/10+1911+white+pop+Sinuk+AK.jpg Looking at History Blog - Why Reindeer? - Make it stand out White population of Sinuk, Alaska, 17 Nov 1911. Olive, Ethel, and Will Van Valin are shown in the middle of the photo. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/2f463e66-c620-4685-8511-75061eb86355/In+and+near+Sinuk.png Looking at History Blog - Why Reindeer? - Cover of fundraising pamphlet, Woman's Home Missionary Society, Methodist Episcopal Church, between 1887 and 1907 In the late 1800s, the federal government began to establish schools to educate Alaska Natives, some run by the government and others by missionary societies. These schools, like those coordinated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the lower 48 states, were designed to assimilate Native children into the worldviews of white America (Barnhardt, 2001). In addition, educators in Alaska, beginning with Sheldon Jackson, the first General Agent of Education in the Alaska Territory, were concerned about the negative influence that white miners and frontiersmen, as purveyors of alcohol and solicitors of prostitution, had on Native communities. As a result, they chose to situate schools for Alaska Natives well away from mining communities such as Nome (Ducker 1996). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/5f764984-faa3-4ba7-9a9d-9ee4e0814dfc/Alaska+map+1.png Looking at History Blog - Why Reindeer? - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/brave-women monthly 0.5 2025-12-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/ea4b5dfa-b492-4bcb-b077-c203dcaf3346/James+KDL+MTL+c1877+front.jpg Looking at History Blog - Brave Women - Kate Boyd Dyer Mifflin Loud with her two oldest children, circa 1877 Kate Dyer Loud and John Sylvanus Loud around 1890 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/3f5f0cc6-0087-4923-8d46-25c7ec0e72bb/KDM+Feb+1866+front.jpg Looking at History Blog - Brave Women - Kate Boyd Dyer Mifflin, age 21, Philadelphia, February 1866 Kate Boyd Dyer was born in 1844 in Pennsylvania. She lost her parents quite young and was adopted by her aunt Theresa “Tacy” Worrell Mifflin. Tacy had married into an affluent and well-known Philadelphia family. Her husband's great-uncle Thomas Mifflin, for example, was the first governor of Pennsylvania following the American Revolution. So Kate grew up in Philadelphia in a comfortable environment and would presumably have been expected to marry a Philadelphia merchant and live a life much like that of her aunt. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/e7764213-6eb4-4bf7-af32-167d5b9c8ce4/Fort_lancaster_1861.jpg Looking at History Blog - Brave Women - Make it stand out Harper’s Weekly, 23 March 1861 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/8d0066d9-b8d4-4c2d-ba3c-62ec80d69a3e/SA+Express+society+column.jpg Looking at History Blog - Brave Women - Wedding announcement for John Sylvanus Loud and Kate Boyd Dyer Mifflin San Antonio Express, June 10, 1868. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/7bfe46c4-bfaf-412c-bc6d-5bab8d414be8/Menger_Hotel_San_Antonio_Texas_photo_of_histrical_photo.jpg Looking at History Blog - Brave Women - Menger Hotel, 1865 (photo is hanging on the wall of the Cavalier Room at the hotel) Image by Ted Ernst https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/971113fa-a2be-4c11-a26e-17dea3fe8680/scrapbook_loose_02_JSL_and_Kate_Mifflin-cleaned+up.jpg Looking at History Blog - Brave Women - Make it stand out Kate Boyd Dyer Mifflin Loud and John Sylvanus Loud, circa 1900 https://pioneerspreachersprivateers.net/blog/down-the-ohio-river monthly 0.5 2026-02-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/57ae8395-ff2c-4f32-a586-519085d47a1c/ship+at+anchor+%282%29.jpg Looking at History Blog - Down the Ohio River - The Queen of the Mississippi moored at Louisville, KY. Photo by author. In July 2017, my parents and I went on a cruise down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, near where the Ohio meets the Mississippi. We sailed on the Queen of the Mississippi, which offered many amenities—cabins with balconies looking out on the river, comfortable lounges in which to relax, delicious meals, warm chocolate chip cookies every day—all the wonders of modern luxury transportation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/08236acc-7a7b-4085-971b-1320d122c9e1/New-York_Packet___November_2_1787.jpg Looking at History Blog - Down the Ohio River - Advertisement in the New York Packet, November 2, 1787 After selling his land and house in New York City, Thomas and his family, including his wife, his elderly mother-in-law, and five children under the age of ten, embarked first for Pittsburgh, presumably by wagon so that they could carry their household goods, and then down the Ohio River. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/501b8587-7b1e-465d-a88c-20ab3f6bb297/Limestone+Landing.jpg Looking at History Blog - Down the Ohio River - Mural depicting arrival of settlers, Limestone Landing, Maysville, KY. Photo by author. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/c61eef17-ac9b-4959-9f6a-bf03470d2754/1796+marriage+record.jpg Looking at History Blog - Down the Ohio River - Martha Hixson’s consent to marry Thomas Longley, 1796 Thomas Longley remained in Mason County, Kentucky, for more than 20 years, living much of that time in the settlement of Mays Lick. After his first wife’s death in about 1795, he married my five times great-grandmother Martha Hixson and had six more children. In 1810, Thomas, with Martha and their children, removed to Butler County, Ohio, north of Cincinnati and about 100 miles from Maysville, where he lived until his death in 1818. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/6783e694-aba3-43b3-b615-7f55db4e14be/wooden+cabin+c+1790.jpg Looking at History Blog - Down the Ohio River - Mefford’s Station: cabin built using lumber from the flat boat in which George Mefford and his family arrived at Maysville in 1787. 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Nicholas Noyes and the Salem Witch Trials https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1764188771654-UCKZX914Z3PQEPNY3GQD/top-view-cup-grains-coffee.jpg Index Heresy, Whaling, and Coffee: Edward Starbuck and the settlement of Nantucket https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1707021086438-4X90XC94ZLTU60CDNPL3/Increase+Mather+essay.jpg Index Her Children Sign from the Breast: Deafness in Colonial America https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1722809886304-6HEKHDPL0F0C1K4LXU10/service-pnp-habshaer-pa-pa0000-pa0027-photos-131441pv.jpg Index Who Needs the Mason-Dixon Line? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1765234389044-T4X37RYETAAFFQNC4BWN/The_State_of_the_Palatines_for_Fifty_Yea.png Index Refugees in London: 18th C German immigrants to England and New York https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/8ea9dddd-4719-4cfa-9181-fe467ddb9b4a/Erisman+Rd+Lancaster+PA+1.jpg Index The Motherlode of Erismans: Early Mennonites in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/26b2a004-be72-4737-badf-cd5ce3a106c6/iiif-service_gmd_gmd380_g3802_g3802l_ar114800-full-pct_25-0-default.jpg Index Flying Camps, Prison Ships, and the Battle of Long Island: Jacob Holtzinger in the American Revolution https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1702509126083-NSALJZ98PNE3ZC6EV29F/ship+at+anchor+%282%29.jpg Index Down the Ohio River: Thomas Longley's journey to Kentucky https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1c95929c-2543-4819-bdc9-247bab320d77/Religious_Camp_Meeting_%28Burbank_1839%29.jpg Index Friends of Humanity: Thomas Longley and the Kentucky Baptists https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1716921383963-9GMLY8NFAQ0Z1JT2RMEH/Clermont+Phalanx+1844.jpg Index The Phalanstery is Man's True Home: Abner Longley and utopian socialism https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1771608928796-TGSNS01G71X81R4L1SAW/Archibald%2Band%2BFrancis.jpg Index The Grimké Brothers: The abolitionist Grimké sisters and their Black nephews https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/3e62eeb5-053d-4a11-89b3-96a0bf1627b7/0030644.png Index Wide Awake in 1860: Servetus Longley and the 1860 election https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1706823682103-QV29FZRTUFJU57SDMKZ6/23+14th+Illinois+Infantry+memorial.jpg Index 11,670 Miles: Christopher Erisman in the Civil War https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1767827321370-S7DA2SKR4AOAA538LTFS/Andersonville+map+2.jpg Index Starvation and Bad Treatment: Union prisoners at Andersonville, GA, and Florence, SC https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1719341444766-AKYO4AMCLTRUF3XCYDYL/metapth124053_xl_PICA05476.jpg Index Juneteenth and the XXV Army Corps https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/527385e1-7763-4ee6-a0a7-7738be9afbd9/service-pnp-ppmsca-12800-12860v.jpg Index Occupation Legislator: Veterans of the 66th USCI during Reconstruction https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/25726259-44fd-43fc-b9f7-8682e77d6d3f/IMG_1290.JPG Index Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 1: Walter Collins in the Civil War https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/fd4bcad1-cfbf-4323-b234-96b00a9bbb7b/Grandpa+%28Jones%29+Collins+-+Myrtle+Erisman%27s+Grandfather.jpg Index Every Family Has a Maverick, Part 2: Walter Collins after the Civil War https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1748027909310-JZZQ7T76Z2DTN373JBHQ/Elias+Longely+IPW+11-4+Dec+1895.jpg Index Fonetic Speliŋ: Elias and Margaret Longley innovate in shorthand and typewriting https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1748029350515-VSIWH1BVRPNFIR2M6Q7S/MV+Longley+IPW+4-9+May+1889.jpg Index She Has Always Exercised and Enjoyed Those Rights: Margaret Vater Longley, suffragist https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1706066372415-J5DU90GH4D0OSJ3U70QQ/James+KDL+MTL+c1877+front.jpg Index Brave Women: Kate Mifflin Loud at Ft. Lancaster https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1750811501860-1RYXCEOLYC98ENFLXFUG/JSL+on+Punch.JPG Index The Road to Fort Washakie: The Loud family at Fort Washakie, 1895-7 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/9716c193-2657-40e4-a91d-24b6bb511f8b/9th+Cav+D+Troop+PS.jpg Index The Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Washakie, 1895-7 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1751934256834-G9OHUXKUVY2YCAIZ2K3N/Kate.JPG Index The Life of an Officer’s Wife, Fort Washakie, 1895-7 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/850af18a-d800-44d6-9f27-f875c9813b6f/Dorothy+Loud+%28young%29.jpg Index It Was a Most Thrilling Sight! Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1896 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/a155ed11-d231-4cdc-9699-43d7a8a564da/20250512_153653.jpg Index A Well-Known Furniture Manufacturer: George Hunzinger, 19th C chair designer https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/9a11e168-c5c8-4ef1-8599-c43f8e65032e/file.jpg Index The Real McCoy: A case of 19th century identity theft https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1759970225910-WUS535J7Z1RZVN2P3S78/20250909_173822.jpg Index Sir Knight: Masonic Knights Templar in the 19th and 20th centuries https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1757638893022-TZU2N3ZEIJ81MT3HN56Z/Erisman+Grocery+Store+2.jpg Index The Erisman Grocery Company: Ft. Worth, TX, around 1910 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/ef2396f0-917b-4ba7-ad51-0311cd7da62c/FFL+Tours+France+1919+cropped.jpg Index When Uncle Sam Was Ready, Things Moved Fast: The 26th Army Corps of Engineers in WWI https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/d4147619-b847-4891-a95a-af3a7d270353/Nettie+headstone.jpeg Index Nettie’s Story: Nettie Roberts and the New Jersey Village for Epileptics https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1706066428917-89O85GG3TQ6YXUSY6HK0/1+1913+Cape+Douglas+reindeer.jpg Index Why Reindeer? The Van Valin family in Alaska https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1764726598647-J7PVT93B34VTQFC01NWK/VV+family+1.jpg Index At Home in the Arctic: The Van Valin family on the Wanamaker Expedition https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1735760668289-SBU6WYTRC1A185Y8Q5XX/IMG_27+3.jpg Index Airship Dreams: The wreck of the USS Shenandoah https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/1745512979901-JJ7DQGLKNGJ6L1LUL7RN/CPT_Donald_B._Stewart_and_LTC_John_H._Van_Vliet_Jr_Szubin%2C_Poland_memorial.jpg Index The Only Thing You Can Do Is Refuse To Forget: WWII massacre at Katyn https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64b17b6c266b235b04449152/daa1fc46-3760-4b84-b5bc-9754ba00c377/JD+FRE+3-61.jpg Index Jack Dempsey’s Rolex: Boxer Jack Dempsey and his attorney Fred Erisman