In this day and age, newspapers rarely print fiction. Of course, there is the occasional magical story written by a third grade class that appears every once a week in the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper, but for the most part, fictional stories of real substance are not published in newspapers anymore. This was not the case in the 1800's. Appearing in The Valley Star each week was...
Betting during the earlier decades of the nineteenth century was remarkably more popular among southern citizens than among citizens of the northern states. Although forms of gambling were less common up north, it was a prevalent facet of southern society in 1821. While New Orleans proved to be the major gambling center in the south, even rural South Carolinians were likely to bet on cards, dice,...
America's fifth president, James Monroe, was a lawyer from the state of Virginia belonging to the Democratic - Republican Party, and served as president from 1817 to 1825. His presidency encompassed what came to be called the “Era of Good Feelings.' The largest political crisis Monroe faced while in office came toward the end of his first term, when the question of slavery shrouding...
On March 17, 1821, a woman named Harriet Lucas Huger penned an affectionate letter to her aunt, Mrs. Harriott Horry, thanking her for expressing concern over the family's well-being. Just days earlier, a catastrophic fire had destroyed the Huger's plantation home in Clermont, South Carolina; upon finding this out, Mrs. Horry had written a letter to her niece to ensure the Huger family's...
At around 2:45 a.m. on the morning of Wed., March 21, 1821, a fire broke out in the kitchen of a vacant tenement on the corner of Main and Market Streets in Portsmouth, Virginia. The Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald of Friday, March 23 reported that owing to the violence of the wind, which was blowing at the time a perfect gale from S. S. W., and the combustible nature of the buildings, the...
Beginning in 1818, President Monroe sent General Andrew Jackson to Spanish Florida to subdue the Seminole Indians, who were raiding American settlements. Liberally interpreting his ambiguous instructions, Jackson led his troops deep into areas of Florida under Spanish control, capturing two Spanish forts. Because Florida held the potential of becoming a new slave state, southern congressmen eagerly...
The site of the city, a trading post known as Le Fleur's Bluff near the Natchez Trace, is located on the west bank of the Pearl River thirty-five miles southwest of the geographical center of Mississippi, and was originally owned and inhabited by the Choctaw Indians. The Choctaw were the largest tribe found in the region and their lands stretched throughout western Alabama and southern Mississippi....
On February 7, 1821, an article in the Geneva Palladium attempted to vindicate the claims of the progenitor of the Erie Canal. The author of the article claimed that while DeWitt Clinton was often credited with the creation of the Erie Canal, Philip Schuyler and Elkanah Watson are in fact the true progenitors of this magnificent waterway. With the help of Robert Troup’s pamphlet published...
As the sun sank toward the horizon, the empty, blue enormity of the Pacific washed over three small whale boats. The Essex had sailed from Nantucket a year ago, scouring two oceans for the whale oil that drove the island’s economy. On November 20, 1820, the ship was 2000 miles west of South America, over 1200 miles from the nearest island. That day, an eighty-ton sperm whale escaped...
The United States, represented by Generals Andrew Jackson and Thomas Hinds, negotiated at Doak's Stand with “Mingoes,' or head men and warriors of the Choctaw nation, over land. The United States hoped to expand white settlement specifically in Mississippi, the Choctaw homeland. In return for the Choctaw land, President Monroe agreed to a cession of about one-fifth of the state of...