Gerrit Smith was a prominent abolitionist and leader of the early Liberty Party during the 1840s and 1850s. He worked to help slaves and promote abolitionism in his lifetime, including spending his own money for the cause. In a letter to a friend, Smith described how he had posted bail on different occasions for a man named Chaplin, who was being punished for enticing slaves away from their southern...
Governor Wright's approval of this law showed the strong support which both he and state of Indiana had for the Union. In his message on Jan 4th, 1851 he eloquently summed up his feelings on the matter, “There is no safety for property or life except in the absolute supremacy of the law: no higher duty of the citizen than to maintain by word and deed, that supremacy, as we value the heritage,...
As the daughter of Don Andres Almonaster y Rojas, the Cabildo's original benefactor, the Baroness Pontalba was no stranger to the notion of civic duty expressing itself through architecture. After a tumultuous marriage and divorce to a Parisian nobleman, sensationalized in various newspapers, she returned permanently to her hometown and sought to transplant the culture and sophistication she...
One could argue that it was the governor of New York, DeWitt Clinton, who made the United States what they are today. Without him, and his efforts to build the Erie Canal, the United States would have experienced slower economic growth. He linked the Atlantic with the Great Lakes, via the Erie Canal running through New York State, empowering the North.
DeWitt Clinton saw the opportunity...
On June 22, 1852, Edmund Patton took off upon a massive steamship from London on a voyage to America. He noted the scene upon leaving within the pages of his book, “One of these noble ships leaves the port of London weekly; they are fitted up to carry several hundred emigrants, who are glad to leave Europe, in the hope of improving their condition in the New World, which offers a fair prospect...
James Cody of Bryan County, Georgia prided himself in having a good reputation as a respectable Southern man. When his neighbor John Baily accused him of buying rice from a slave without written permission from the slave's owner, he was extremely offended. He considered these accusations to be false and demanded to meet John Baily in court to settle this slanderous dispute. Cody felt that Baily's...
On December 5th and 6th, 1850, local agrarian worker and miners convened in Richmond, Virginia by the order of Virginia Delegates, to publish a memorandum to Congress. The purpose of the memorandum was to report to Congress on the state of the Virginia economy. There were many workers from the Atlantic regions of the United States present at the conference from a variety of industries, including...
On November 12, 1850, Dr. Philip Claiborne Gooch (1825 , 1855), celebrated Virginian physician, wrote a letter to mail out to potential subscribers of new medical journal he was founding “The Stethoscope'. His letter proposes that “the subscriber to embark in the responsible undertaking, and will issue the first “The Stethoscope' or “VIRGINIA MEDICAL GAZETTE' on the...
On October 25, 1850, only one month after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, John Knight and Willis Hughes traveled to Boston from Macon, Georgia to retrieve the escaped slaves, William and Ellen Craft. Upon arrival in the city, referred to by Civil War historian James McPherson as the “communications center for abolition,” Knight and Hughes were met with hostility and resistance,...
It was a grave tragedy. An enslaved African American woman of Polk County, Tennessee put an end to the lives of her children and then took her own life one September night in 1852. Authorities confirmed that the woman killed all four of her children by slitting their throats while they slept. After the gruesome deed had been carried out, she too ended her life in the same manner. When questioned...