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TERRITORY, Territory in the 1840s: 1 through 7 of 7

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  1. Poisoning in the Hyde Family
    date July 21, 1841 to July 22, 1841map TERRITORY, Territorytags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Race-Relations, Slavery, Women

    The entire Hyde family lay sick in bed and hoped that it was not their last hour. They had drunk their coffee and eaten breakfast as usual that morning, but began to feel ill soon afterwards. The shared pain made them wonder if someone had poisoned them. As it turned out, someone had slipped poisonous Jameson weed into their coffee. But who would do such a thing? That evening as the family recovered,...

  2. The Attempted Murder of William Goyens
    date August 27, 1842 to August 28, 1842map TERRITORY, Territorytags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations, Slavery

    There was a knock on the door of Adolphus Sterne's office. The townsmen that entered requested that Sterne issue a warrant for the arrest of William Simons. They informed Sterne that Simons had tried to kill a free African American blacksmith named William Goyens. Sterne did as the men asked and then did not hear about Goyens or Simons for the rest of the evening. The next day Sterne learned that the...

  3. The Annexation Debate
    date February 10, 1844map TERRITORY, Territorytags Economy, Government, Politics, Slavery

    The weather was the same as usual and so was the company. Adolphus Sterne went with his friends Mr. Houghson, Mr. Hoya, and Mr. Linn to Colonel Raguet's house for dinner. After dinner the Colonel accompanied the group to Mr. Moore's for a meeting of the debating society. Sterne presided over the debate and listened to each side equally. The fiery speech of wild Bill Sparks, a former Republic of Texas...

  4. Hundreds of Mormons in Honolulu en Route to California
    date June 20, 1846map TERRITORY, Territorytags Utah, Hawaii, Migration, Mormons

    It was June 20th, 1846, when the ship Brooklyn arrived in Honolulu, Oahu. Its passengers were hundreds of Mormon immigrants en route to California from New York led by a man named Samuel Brannan. The people of Hawaii were intrigued and confused by these new people, especially such a vast amount. The unknown elements were filled in by a history of the Mormon religion and its people. The history that...

  5. A Bitter Winter
    date November 4, 1846 to January, 1847map TERRITORY, Territorytags Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Migration/Transportation, Native-Americans, Women

    The winter of 1846 was physically, emotionally and mentally draining for twenty year-old Mary Ann Graves, a member of the group of emigrants now infamously known as the Donner Party. As one of the survivors of this horrible episode in history, she wrote a letter to Levi Fosdick on May 22 of the following spring recounting her experiences. Her concluding remark was "I have told the bad news, and bad...

  6. Malcolm H. Addison Gets Religion
    date March 4, 1849map TERRITORY, Territorytags Church/Religious-Activity, Education

    At the McKenzie College on the Texas frontier religion was taken seriously. The Reverend John Witherspoon Pettigrew McKenzie founded the school and was also its headmaster. Malcolm H. Addison attended McKenzie College and like most college students both past and present, he received letters from his parents. For Addison, the subject of these letters inevitably turned to a questioning of the status...

  7. California Opposes Slavery on Grounds of Social Idleness
    date May 12, 1848 to September 20, 1850map TERRITORY, Territorytags Politics, Slavery, Government

    By the late 1840s American feelings on slavery smoldered.  According to historian James McPherson, the southern states were pushing for a pro-slavery constitution in California, and western slavery not just as an abstraction, but as a legitimate southern goal.  As the debate raged in congress over the admittance of California as a free or slave state, the Californians in San Francisco had all but...