Franklin Peale

Benjamin Franklin Peale (born Aldrovand Peale; October 15, 1795 – May 5, 1870) was an employee and officer of the Philadelphia Mint from 1833 to 1854. Although Peale introduced many innovations to the Mint of the United States, he was eventually dismissed amid allegations he had used his position for personal gain.
Peale was the son of painter Charles Willson Peale, and was born in the museum of curiosities that his father ran in Philadelphia. For the most part, Franklin Peale's education was informal, though he took some classes at the University of Pennsylvania. He became adept in machine making. In 1820, he became an assistant to his father at the museum, and managed it after Charles Peale's death in 1827.
In 1833, Peale was hired by the Mint, and was sent for two years to Europe to study and report back on coining techniques. He returned with plans for improvement, and designed the first steam-powered coinage press in the United States, installed in 1836. Peale was made Melter and Refiner of the Philadelphia Mint that year, and Chief Coiner three years later upon the retirement of the incumbent, Adam Eckfeldt, who continued in his work without pay. Eckfeldt's labor allowed Peale to run a medal business using Mint property. This sideline eventually caused Peale's downfall: conflicts with Engraver James B. Longacre and Melter and Refiner Richard Sears McCulloh led to Peale being accused of misconduct, and he was dismissed by President Franklin Pierce in 1854.
In retirement, Peale continued his involvement in and leadership of many civic organizations; he died in 1870. Numismatic author Q. David Bowers suggests that the facts of Peale's career allow writers to draw very different conclusions about him.
Early life and career.
Benjamin Franklin Peale was born October 15, 1795, to painter Charles Willson Peale and his second wife, the former Elizabeth de Peyster. As well as pursuing his art, Charles Peale ran a museum of curiosities housed in Philosophical Hall in Philadelphia, home of the American Philosophical Society. The boy was born in the family quarters in the museum. He was given the name Aldrovand, after the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi.
Charles Peale recorded family births on the flyleaf of a copy of Matthew Pilkington's "Dictionary of Painters", rather than in a Bible, and after recording "Aldrovand" added the notation, "if he likes that name when he comes of age". The father was a member of the American Philosophical Society, and in February 1796 brought his young son to a meeting, and asked the members to select another name for the child. They decided on Benjamin Franklin Peale, naming the boy after the Society's founder, Benjamin Franklin. Society legend holds that the boy was given the name while placed in the chair of the president of the Society, which had been donated by Franklin.
Franklin Peale was one of sixteen children his father would have by his three wives. Elizabeth Peale died when Franklin was eight years old, but his father soon remarried, and the child was thereafter cared for by his stepmother. He was given little classroom education, though he did spend some time at a local school in nearby Bucks County, as well as at Germantown Academy and the University of Pennsylvania. For the most part, his education was informal, as was usual in the Peale family, with the student given the means to study what interested him, or what he appeared to be good at. In Franklin Peale's case, he made toys as a boy, and surveyed his father's farm near Germantown. Although he lacked the artistic talent of some of his brothers, such as Titian Peale, he proved mechanically inclined.
At age 17, Peale began to work for the Delaware cotton factory of William Young, on the Brandywine River, learning the making of machines. He was an apt student, becoming adept as a turner, founder, and draftsman. He was tolerated in his desire for a mechanical career by his father, who considered it a foolish whim. Within a year, one of the Hodgson brothers, who ran a nearby machine shop, described Peale as highly capable with tools. At age 19 Peale returned to Germantown, where, having designed and supervised the installation of the machinery for a cotton factory there, he was put in charge, and continued to manage the factory for several years. He then moved to nearby Philadelphia, and worked for the firm of John & Coleman Sellers, which made machinery for card sticking.
On April 24, 1815, Peale, still a minor at age 19, married Eliza Greatrake without his father's consent. Almost immediately, it became evident she had mental problems. Although Eliza bore Peale a child within the first year of the marriage (a daughter, Anna), she thereafter left him, returning to live with her mother, who had her committed to Pennsylvania Hospital as a "lunatic". The Peale family began a lengthy effort to show that Eliza Peale was mad when she married Franklin, a ground for annulment. With aid from the testimony of Captain Allen McLane, they were successful, and the annulment was granted on March 22, 1820. Franklin Peale was required to post assets as security for the support of his former wife; his sister Sophy lent him some of her stock in the museum for that purpose.
In 1820, Peale left factory management to assist his aging father in running the museum, and remained there for over a decade. When Charles Willson Peale died in 1827, Franklin became the manager of the museum, and like his siblings, inherited stock in it. He not only maintained the exhibits, but added to them, contributing a "curious speaking toy" as well as the model for an early locomotive, which was used to draw two small cars in the museum, with seating for four people. At the time, the museum was located in the Old State House (today, Independence Hall), and Peale worked out a system for using the State House bell to inform fire companies of the location of a blaze.
Peale was one of the founders of The Franklin Institute in 1824, one of several mechanics' institutes that came into being in the early 1820s to provide working men with technical education. It quickly became important and influential, organizing an exhibition of American manufactured goods that October, one of at least 26 such shows that it put on in the first 34 years of its existence. Peale taught natural history, mechanics (illustrating his lectures with models and drawings), and chemistry, livening the talks with experiments. He was for many years actively involved with The Franklin Institute, writing articles for its "Journal" and serving on key committees.
Mint employee and officer (1833–1854).
Hiring and Europe mission.
The second building to house the Philadelphia Mint opened in 1833, with up-to-date technology except in the coining process. For this, it used the transplanted machinery of its predecessor, using human muscle power to strike coins. Although the Mint wanted all coins to be identical to others of the same denomination, the use of the screw press was an impediment to this, as the force used to impress the design on the coins was not uniform. Additionally, the coinage dies were made by hand, leading to differences between coins of the same year struck from different dies. This state of affairs was unsatisfactory to the director, Samuel Moore, who had for several years contemplated purchasing a modern set of steam machinery for the production of coins from the Soho Mint in Birmingham, England, founded by coining pioneer Matthew Boulton. Moore instead decided to engage a new employee and send him on a special tour of European mints and refineries, in order to learn the best features of each and bring the knowledge home for use at the Philadelphia facility. The individual would be given the title of Assistant to the Assayer, Jacob R. Eckfeldt. Moore obtained the approval of Treasury Secretary Louis McLane and an appropriation of $7,000 for the purpose.
Moore, in a letter to McLane, noted that sending an agent to Europe to gather technology had been discussed in the past, but proposals had foundered over the difficulty of finding a person both competent enough to undertake the trip successfully and not too busy to spend a year or more in Europe. At the recommendation of the director's first cousin, Robert M. Patterson, Moore hired Peale for the position. According to Patterson, "I do not know any man more likely to succeed in such a mission. His skill, his perseverance, his address all fit him for the errand." Peale was willing to go, writing, "a variety of circumstances render me very desirous of vacating the situation that I have held for many years as Manager of the Phila Museum, it will therefore be agreeable to change even at a pecuniary sacrifice."
Peale departed from New York for Le Havre on May 8, 1833, arriving in Paris late in the month. At this time, it was only certain that Peale would visit Paris—a visit to England, with instruction at local mints and refineries, was still under discussion. Peale had been instructed to learn "parting," a newly developed method for separating gold and silver. This process, also dubbed refining, is necessary because nuggets that contain gold also contain some silver, and the latter metal must be removed before the gold can be alloyed with copper for coining. The older method of removing silver involved the use of nitric and sulphuric acids, and was dangerous and expensive. Director Moore also instructed Peale to gain the method of assaying silver by the "humid process" (titration), and to learn everything he could of coining technology and how it was powered by steam. Moore warned, "a very material object of your mission is to be regarded as unaccomplished, until you have become familiar with everything requisite for directing the formation of an establishment "de novo" [from nothing] ... and until you shall have acquired a good share of adroitness in the actual manipulations ... Whatever can be added to our information in regard to the treatment of the precious metals, and Mint processes and machinery is within the scope of your inquiries." Moore asked that, if Peale had any time remaining, to look into other technologies that might be useful to the United States, such as the gas illumination of cities.
With the aid of the United States Minister to France, Edward Livingston, Peale gained permission to study closely the workings of the "Monnaie de Paris". The staff there was cooperative, and Peale was able to learn the "humid" method from watching the assayer as he verified the silver content of the coins from the French branch mints. Peale's notes were supplemented by detailed engravings of all the fixtures used in the process, published and sold by the Paris mint at an expense of 98 francs 50 centimes, which Peale deemed worth the purchase on the US government's behalf. Peale also purchased a set of the apparatus for the humid method, made and sold by the mint; Peale paid 500 francs for this.
Some of the machinery that would be installed on Peale's return to Philadelphia was based on what he saw in Paris. He sketched the "Monnaie de Paris"'s Thonnelier model coin presses. He also copied the Paris facility's "Tour á portrait" reducing lathe. He could not learn parting there as the facility contracted the process to private refineries; attempts to gain permission to learn the process at these facilities failed when their owners demanded huge sums, believing that Peale, as a government agent, was flush with money.
Peale journeyed to London, hoping that Moore's connections could get him instruction in the parting process. Although he visited the Royal Mint, he found officials there unhelpful and unwilling to teach him. In England, Peale studied the method of assaying via the humid process at Percival N. Johnson's refinery, and in 1835 introduced it to the Philadelphia Mint, replacing assaying by cupellation. Peale wrote that he "cannot speak in too high terms of Mr. Percival Johnson ... I have derived much useful information in his refinery particularly his method of separating silver, gold and paladium [palladium] by a shortened process". While in London, Peale ordered a delicate balance scale from his friend, expatriate American Joseph Saxton, and later induced Saxton to return to the United States and work for the Philadelphia Mint.
Peale returned to France where, as the refiners wanted payment for teaching him the French method of parting, he learned it by observing the assayer at the branch mint in Rouen. He was not completely happy with this, as he was not allowed to practice it himself, or to experiment, but felt that he could reproduce what he had seen on his return to Philadelphia. Peale also visited the German mints of Dresden, Stuttgart, and Karlsruhe. In Germany, parting was done in iron vessels; although Peale noted these were cheaper than platinum ones, he preferred the latter, writing in December 1834 that use of iron "sometimes leads to losses that are embarrassing." He also visited Freiberg, in Saxony, observing the smelting and refining of lead ore.
Return and results.
On June 17, 1835, Peale submitted his report to Moore, 276 pages of his observations at the various European mints he had visited, and his comments and recommendations. He warned, "in the organization of Mints in both France and England that there are offices and incumbents, that are useless, and who render no services of importance for their appointment". He recommended favorably the French practice of not appointing a coin designer, but having competitions judged jointly by Mint officers and by artists. Peale also urged the passage of a single, comprehensive Mint Act, to replace the scattered bits of legislation passed over the years; this was done in 1837. One recommendation submitted by Peale, but not adopted, was to have the Mint set up a guaranty department, to hallmark items made of gold or silver by the private sector as public assurance of their quality, as done by the Goldsmiths Company in London. He also recommended that the Philadelphia Mint strike medals, as did its French counterpart. He suggested that the Mint establish a museum of coins and coining, as the Paris facility had.
Peale returned from Europe with plans he had drawn for a steam-powered coinage press, borrowing the steam machinery design from English mints and the toggle joint technology from French ones. In September, Patterson, by then Mint Director in place of the retired Moore, wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Levi Woodbury, "we have just completed under the superintendence of Mr. Peale, a model of a coining press from plans which he saw in successful operation in France and in Germany, and possessing many very manifest advantages over the Screw press now applied at the Mint. Among these one of the most important is that [it] admits the immediate and easy application of steam power." Director Patterson called March 23, 1836 "an epoch in our coinage". To take advantage of the new press's increased production capacity, Peale designed a new machine to cut planchets, or blanks, from metal strips. This machine remained in use, almost unmodified, until 1902.
Another of the steam-powered machines Peale had installed on his return was a milling machine, which was used to "upset" the coin—to form a rim around it. A Contamin portrait lathe was imported from France and installed at the Philadelphia Mint in 1837. Prior to this time, all coin dies for American coins had to be made individually, by hand at Philadelphia. Once the lathe was installed, they could be reproduced mechanically by the pantograph-like device.
The first pieces produced by steam power at the Philadelphia Mint, commemorative medals, were struck on March 23, 1836. The first steam press there then began minting cents, with silver and gold coinage first struck there by steam towards the end of the year. Built by the Philadelphia firm of Merrick, Agnew, and Taylor to Peale's design, the press was able to coin 100 pieces per minute. After being retired from government service, the press was used at The Franklin Institute to strike miniature medals for many years, and in 2000 was moved to the American Numismatic Association's Money Museum in Colorado Springs. Patterson wrote,
Numismatist Roger Burdette notes, "in most respects, Peale seems to have selected the best from European examples, and discarded all unnecessary complexity and ineffective motion." Although minor improvements were made from time to time, these machines struck the nation's coinage for the remainder of Peale's life.
According to numismatist David Lange, "the fact-finding journey of [future] Philadelphia Mint Melter and Refiner Franklin Peale through the mints of Europe from 1833 to 1835 assured that United States coins would be second to none in terms of technology." Lange, in his history of the Mint, notes that though Peale ended his career by being fired amid accusations of impropriety, upon his return from Europe, "he was the bearer of many innovations devised in the mints of Europe and now made available to the United States Mint at Philadelphia".
Robert Patterson III, son of the Mint Director under whom Peale served for many years, wrote that through Peale's report, "our Mint was placed in full possession of all that was then worthy to be known" from foreign mints and refineries. Patterson indicated that he had often thought, as he passed through the Philadelphia Mint's coining department, that a plaque should be set up to Peale reproducing the tribute to Sir Christopher Wren in London's St. Paul's Cathedral, "Si Monumentum Requiris, Circumspice" (if you seek his monument, look around you).
Melter and Refiner.
Joseph Cloud had held the position of Melter and Refiner of the Philadelphia Mint since 1797. The Washington administration appointee resigned, effective at the start of 1836. Peale was nominated as Cloud's replacement by President Andrew Jackson on December 21, 1835, and was confirmed by the Senate on January 5, 1836.
On taking office as Melter and Refiner, Peale implemented the changes he had recommended based on what he had seen in Europe. He also wanted additional mechanization in the mint's Coining Department, headed by Chief Coiner Adam Eckfeldt, whose son Jacob was the Philadelphia Mint's Assayer. Adam Eckfeldt had helped strike some of the first federal coins in 1792 and had been in his office since 1814. Eckfeldt was reluctant to adopt all Peale's recommendations, telling Peale's nephew, engineer George Sellers, "If Mr. Peale had full swing he would turn everything upside down ... he wants something better and no doubt he would have it if we were starting anew." As improvements crept in despite Eckfeldt's caution, the Chief Coiner saw their value and became more enthusiastic, noting the savings in working time afforded by the Contamin lathe, which had been imported from France after being seen by Peale there. To help deal with the increased output from the Philadelphia Mint, Peale invented a piling-box, allowing planchets or coins to be quickly stacked, and a counting board, speeding the work of the clerks. The counting board remained in use until the mints installed mechanical counters in 1934.
One of the innovations that Peale introduced as Melter and Refiner was the use of salt in parting, using it to recover the silver dissolved in nitric acid when gold bullion was being purified. Previously, this could only be done by using copper, a process that generated dangerous and offensive fumes. Table salt (sodium chloride), dissolved in nitric acid, caused silver chloride to precipitate, which could be recovered as metallic silver through the use of zinc and sulfuric acid. This was a further refinement of the parting process; the director of the "Monnaie de Paris", Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, had first used a salt solution as an easy, accurate means of assaying silver. A Senate report in 1873 stated that Peale's advancement of this process "attests to his genius, enterprise, and high attainments". When there were calls in Congress in 1836 for a two-cent piece to be made of debased silver, or billon, Patterson had Peale, working with Second Engraver Christian Gobrecht, strike pattern coins to show that the coins would be easily counterfeited using base metals.
In 1835, Congress had authorized branch mints at Charlotte, North Carolina, Dahlonega, Georgia, and New Orleans, Louisiana, to strike into American coin the gold being mined in or entering the country through the South. Despite the rich gold deposits nearby, both Charlotte and Dahlonega were in areas lacking men with technical training; accordingly trained personnel would have to be sent from Philadelphia. New buildings were to be constructed. In August 1837, Mint Director Patterson received word of problems at both sites, including a partial collapse of the Dahlonega building. He wrote to Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury, proposing "to send, to both the Gold mints, a confidential & skillful person, who may ... give instructions as to correcting the errors, that have been committed ... I know of no one competent to this task, except our Melter & Refiner, Mr. Peale." Woodbury agreed, informing Patterson, "you are authorized to send Mr. Peak."
Peale, accompanied by his daughter Anna, arrived in Charlotte on September 23, 1837. He found that necessary equipment had not yet arrived, and without it he could do little. Peale ordered a search made, and reported to Patterson that he was "in a trap" in "this fag end of creation" in a town where "the only active beings are the hogs". Peale spent time visiting the mines on which the Charlotte Mint would rely for bullion. He proposed to Patterson that he continue to New Orleans after Dahlonega, to which the Mint Director replied that he would "exercise my "veto" upon your proposed long delay" and "your presence [in Philadelphia] cannot be dispensed with". On October 27, much of the missing equipment arrived in Charlotte, and Peale was able to complete his mission there and leave for Dahlonega on November 10. Following a difficult journey over primitive mountain roads, Franklin and Anna Peale arrived there on November 15. After assessing the problems at the nascent Dahlonega Mint, Peale reported to Patterson,
Nevertheless, Peale recommended that construction on the building continue, as he deemed Congress unlikely to pass another appropriation for construction. The Peales left Dahlonega at the end of November. On their way north, Anna was slightly injured when the train in which they were riding through Virginia derailed. Peale was back at his desk at the Philadelphia Mint on December 23, 1837.
Roger Burdette discusses the influence Peale had on the Mint in the 1830s:
Chief Coiner.
Appointment and early years.
When Adam Eckfeldt retired in 1839, he recommended Peale as his successor. As the Senate was not sitting, Peale was given a recess appointment as Chief Coiner of the Philadelphia Mint by President Martin Van Buren on March 27, 1839. On January 23, 1840, after the Senate reconvened, Van Buren nominated Peale; the Senate gave its approval on February 17. Despite his retirement, Eckfeldt continued to come to the mint every day until shortly before his death in February 1852, performing the function of Chief Coiner and leaving Peale with time on his hands.
Soon after his appointment, Peale began to engage in a private business on the Mint's premises. He did this by designing, striking and selling medals for private commission, using government property and labor, and the Philadelphia Mint's facilities. Peale's enterprise was very profitable, as his expenses were minimal. This activity took place with the knowledge of the other officers of the Philadelphia Mint, most of whom were Peale's friends and relatives. Clients included corporations as well as one couple celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary. According to Robert E. Wright in his history of Philadelphia as an early financial center, the legality of Peale's business was unclear, but "the uncertainty of the situation made it almost inevitable that someone would make a stink on [Philadelphia's] Chestnut Street."
This activity has been variously characterized by numismatic writers. According to coin dealer and numismatic author Q. David Bowers, "Peale started to abuse his position and privileges, in effect stealing services from the government". Burdette notes, "Overall, it appears that Peale used mint equipment and employees to make medals as instructed by Congress and the mint director, and to produce copies from private and official dies for sale to anyone who was interested. In the case of private sales, Peale seems to have used government metal, then reimbursed the bullion accounts when he collected for the medal. Profits were not accounted for in mint ledgers and it is unknown how much went to Peale, others at the mint or into the mint's Cabinet of Coins. The total amount was probably not large."
After scalemaker Saxton left the Mint Service in 1844, much of the work of maintaining and modifying the sensitive balances for which Saxton was responsible fell to Peale. The Chief Coiner made a number of improvements to the scales, which he wrote up for an article in the "Journal of The Franklin Institute" in 1847. These balances, sensitive to , were protected by plate glass from air currents and dust.
Conflict with Longacre.
In 1844, Engraver Gobrecht died, and was replaced by James B. Longacre. The new incumbent had obtained his appointment through the influence of South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun. He had no relationship to the families that dominated the Philadelphia Mint, such as the Pattersons and Eckfeldts, and the connection with the Southerner Calhoun was objectionable to Peale, Patterson, and their associates. They would have preferred no replacement for Gobrecht, with the New York engraver Charles Cushing White or others they knew and trusted brought in on contract as necessary. This would ensure Peale's highly profitable medal business was not threatened. Additionally, Longacre had no training, prior to his appointment, in coin or medal design, being a successful plate engraver, and Lange states that the Mint officers were "understandably" prejudiced against him.
Peale sometimes worked on medals for the government, taking care to exclude Longacre from the process. During the Mexican–American War, Congress voted a gold medal to Major General Zachary Taylor for his victories at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. Peale engraved the design from a portrait by William Carl Brown and a model by John T. Battin. After Taylor became president, Peale designed his Indian Peace Medal; Peale also engraved Indian Peace Medals for presidents John Tyler and James Polk, working from designs or models by other men. In 1846, Peale designed and engraved the Coast Survey Medal (also called the George M. Bache medal). Peale believed that all national commemorative medals, those authorized by Congress, should have their dies lodged at the Philadelphia Mint, and be struck there, and with Patterson's support urged the issuance of medals for presidents for whom no Indian Peace Medal had been designed, such as John Adams and William Henry Harrison. This was done, but not in Peale's time—for example, the William Henry Harrison medal was designed by later Assistant and Chief Engraver George T. Morgan. These works, like Peale's Indian Peace Medals, form part of the Mint's Presidential series, which continues to the present day.
Peale's improvements had made it possible for dies to be reproduced mechanically, relieving the Mint's Engraver of much of his routine duties. In the absence of a need for new designs or denominations, Longacre had little to do but add the dates to dies. Some of these insertions were blundered, and modern-day numismatic scholars, such as R. W. Julian, have wondered if, as Peale and those who worked under him also sometimes inserted dates into dies, these mistakes were done intentionally in an attempt to bring discredit on Longacre. Nevertheless, Longacre's first few years at the Philadelphia Mint passed without serious conflict with Peale. All this changed in 1849, when Congress authorized a gold dollar and a double eagle ($20 piece). This made Longacre the center of attention at the mint, as he would be responsible for producing the new designs and dies. It also brought him into direct conflict with Peale: the Engraver would need to use the Contamin lathe, which was necessary to Peale's medal business. Peale sought to sabotage Longacre's attempts, with the goal of having him dismissed, and such work contracted for outside the government, allowing the medal business to continue undisturbed. In this, Peale had the support of Director Patterson.
As Longacre worked to complete the two new coins, he had to deal with interference from Peale. In early 1849, according to a letter written by Longacre the following year, the Engraver was approached by a member of the Mint staff, warning him that another officer (plainly Peale) sought to have the engraving work done outside the Mint, making Longacre redundant. Longacre's response to the information was to spend much of March 1849 preparing the dies for the gold dollar, at some cost to his health, as he later related. Longacre proceeded with work on the double eagle through late 1849, and described the obstacles set in his path by Peale:
According to numismatic historian Don Taxay, "under the circumstances, Peale's adoption of a process not normally used at the Mint, together with its catastrophic failure, seems more than coincidental." When Longacre completed the double eagle dies, they were rejected by Peale, who stated that the design was engraved too deeply to fully impress the coin, and the pieces would not stack properly. Taxay, however, noted that the one surviving 1849 double eagle displays no such problems, and by appearance would be level in a stack. Peale complained to Patterson, who wrote to Treasury Secretary William M. Meredith asking for Longacre's removal on December 25, 1849, on the ground he could not make proper dies. Meredith was apparently willing to have Longacre fired, but relented after the Engraver journeyed to Washington and met with him personally.
Beginning in 1849, there were calls for a silver three-cent piece, and pattern coins were struck at the Philadelphia Mint. Longacre's design featured a shield within a six-pointed star on one side. Peale offered a competing design, showing a Liberty cap, very similar to one Gobrecht had made in 1836 when a gold dollar had been proposed. Patterson preferred Peale's design, but reluctantly endorsed Longacre's, since it was in lower relief and could be struck more easily, and Treasury Secretary Thomas Corwin approved the Engraver's work. The three-cent piece went into circulation in 1851.
In 1850, with the Mint faced with a vast increase in gold deposits due to the California Gold Rush, Peale suggested that the Mint hire women to supplement the staff assigned to weigh and adjust gold planchets, or coin blanks, describing the work as "being entirely suited to their capacity". The Mint did hire 40 women, who were (as of 1860) paid $1.10 per ten-hour day, a sum considered generous. The Mint's hiring of women was the first time the American government had employed women to fill specific jobs at regular wages.
In 1851, Peale designed a new steam engine for the Philadelphia Mint, using a "steeple" design without exterior pipes. Although designed to generate 100 horsepower, wear soon reduced its capacity. American journals of engineering mentioned Peale's latest work without comment; British journals pointed out the defects and suggested that time had passed Peale by.
Downfall.
Not all of Peale's innovations were successful. He caused the Mint to purchase a large lathe for turning heavy metal rolls, which cost the government at least $2,000 and that Peale conceded had never worked and likely never would. He bought from his nephew, George Sellers, a set of molds for casting ingots and accompanying equipment, which proved unusable as they were not adapted to the Mint's machinery. A drawbench made by Peale at the cost of at least $1,500 proved dangerous as the piston would drive with tremendous force against the end of its cylinder, causing a concussion and endangering those nearby. "Peale's machine gun" was put aside by Mint staff as useless soon after its introduction. An 1853 attempt by Peale to convert the Philadelphia Mint's wood-burning annealing furnaces to use anthracite coal destroyed the furnaces, cost the government several thousand dollars, and led to Peale being ordered to undertake no more such projects. One invention that worked well was the "noisy sofa"—sitting on it set off a trumpet blast. Constructed at the cost of about $200 in government funds, it graced in turn the offices of Peale and Patterson.
These activities were financed through a provision of the Mint Act of 1837 that Patterson interpreted to allow the Mint to decline to give credit for small amounts of silver in gold deposits. This practice was twice approved by the then-Secretary of the Treasury, in 1837 and 1849. Small deposits of bullion were rounded down to be divisible by $5, with the surplus kept and used at the discretion of Mint officials. This, and similar practices whereby officials financed activities without an appropriation from Congress, were brought to an end after Peale proposed a $20,800 renovation of part of the Philadelphia Mint building in 1850, and ran over budget by $12,000. To pay this, Patterson used the profits, or seignorage, projected to be made from the new three-cent pieces. When Congress heard of this, it passed the Act of February 21, 1853, requiring the Mint Director to regularly pay the seignorage into the Treasury.
One flaw in Peale's medal business was his need to acquire gold and silver bullion within the Mint. This was paid for once the medal sold, and there was no problem while the Melter and Refiner of the Philadelphia Mint was Peale's friend Jonas R. McClintock. But in 1846, McClintock resigned and was replaced by Richard Sears McCulloh. At first, McCulloh gave Peale whatever gold and silver he needed without question, but came to object to doing so. Peale and McCulloh made a deal whereby the struck medal would remain in McCulloh's custody until Peale had replaced the bullion, but Peale objected that the procedure was "inconvenient". Beginning in August 1849, McCulloh refused further requests from Peale for bullion, and Peale instead gained it from the Mint's Treasurer.
Peale did his best to make McCulloh's position difficult, such as refusing to accept bullion for coins except from McCulloh personally. In 1850, McCulloh resigned. In November of that year, the former official published an article in the "New York Evening Express" alleging that those employed at the Mint had transformed "it into a workshop for their gain". President Millard Fillmore sent the article to Secretary of the Treasury Corwin for an explanation; Corwin forwarded it to Patterson, who confirmed that Peale was running a private medal business on the premises, but stated that there was no interference with the performance of Peale's duties as Chief Coiner. Taxay noted that this was only true because the retired Adam Eckfeldt was still performing the duties of that office without salary, and this ceased in February 1852 when Eckfeldt died after a brief illness. The death of his predecessor caused Peale to write "a frantic letter" to the new Mint Director (Patterson had retired), George N. Eckert, stating that he urgently needed an assistant.
McCulloh's campaign had continued; on August 1, 1851, he wrote directly to President Fillmore, accusing Peale of "lavish and unnecessary expenditure of public money", and stating that Peale was unfit to hold office. He alleged that Mint workmen had been detailed to make repairs to Peale's house while being paid for their time by the government. One man subsequently stated that he and another Mint employee spent two days working on Peale's house; another alleged that whenever the archery club of which Peale was a member met, Mint employees were sent to help with the arrangements. McCulloh also accused Peale of having Mint workers make furniture for his use when they would otherwise be idle. Corwin ordered an investigation, which dragged on for the next year and a half. Peale entered a statement in April 1852, alleging that McCulloh was accusing the Director and the accounting staff of "gross neglect of duty", and that McCulloh's attack on Peale's medal business was a slight on "the late venerable and much loved Adam Eckfeldt", whose precedent Peale stated he was following. Peale wrote in his defense, "I boldly claim to have done for the Mint and my country, much that will entitle me gratitude."
Eckert was friendly towards Peale, and worked to discredit the accusations. McCulloh urged Corwin to review the correspondence himself, and the Secretary agreed, but both Corwin and Eckert left office in early 1853 with no action having been taken against Peale. McCulloh that summer published a pamphlet, "The Proceedings of the Late Director of the Mint in Relation to the Official Misconduct of Franklin Peale Esq., Chief Coiner and Other Abuses in the Mint", printing much of the correspondence. This tract was reviewed by the new Mint Director, James Ross Snowden; he and the new Treasury Secretary, James Guthrie, decided to forbid private enterprises on the Mint's property. In August 1854, Guthrie issued regulations banning the practice.
Taxay recorded that the new policy "seem[s] to have been ill-received in certain quarters of the Mint" but that as not all records are extant, the specifics are uncertain. According to Taxay,
The reasons for Peale's firing were not publicly announced, and his friends and allies, such as William DuBois (Adam Eckfeldt's son-in-law and the Assistant Assayer (later Assayer) of the Philadelphia Mint) stated that it was so President Pierce could have the position to fill from the Democratic Party. Taxay noted that this explanation ignored the fact that Martin Van Buren, under whose administration Peale had been appointed Chief Coiner, was also a Democrat as president. Nevertheless, an 1873 Senate report on Peale's request for compensation after being dismissed stated, "why such a valuable officer was displaced does not appear".
Later years, death, and assessment.
After his departure from the Philadelphia Mint, Peale initially retired from all employment. In 1864, he returned to the private sector as president of the Hazelton Coal and Rail Road Company, in which he had long been involved, remaining in that position through 1867. Civic organizations of which he was president included the Musical Fund Society of Pennsylvania and the Institution for Instruction to the Blind. He had been elected a manager of the latter organization in 1839, served on many important committees, and was elected its president in 1863, still holding the office at his death in 1870. A member of the American Philosophical Society since 1833, he served as one of its curators from 1838 to 1845 and from 1847 until 1870. A longtime member of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, which his father had helped to found, he served as one of its directors through much of his retirement. He was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1865.
In his later years, Peale spent some of his autumns at the Delaware Water Gap north of Philadelphia, searching for Stone Age artifacts and amassing a major collection. Peale catalogued his finds and added narrative descriptions, bequeathing the collection to the American Philosophical Society. An adept archer, he helped found the United Bowmen club, members of whom carried his casket to his grave, at his instructions. He was also, at his death, president of the Skater's Club. He was a lifelong skater, and developed a method for extracting a skater who broke through the ice that saved many lives.
Peale was among those consulted in 1870 by Treasury Secretary George Boutwell in preparing the legislation to reform the Mint that became the Coinage Act of 1873. Peale advocated for the office of the Mint Director to be moved from Philadelphia to Washington; this was enacted. He supported the abolition of the gold dollar and the three-dollar piece, but these coins were not ended by Congress until 1890. He denigrated recent coin issues (many designed by Longacre, who had died in 1869), saying that their designs have, "hitherto been lamentably, if not disgracefully deficient".
Peale married twice; his first marriage to Eliza Greatrake, contracted in 1815 while he was still a minor, produced one daughter, Anna, who survived him. His second, childless, marriage was to Caroline Girard Haslam, a widow, and the niece of the wealthy Stephen Girard; it lasted from 1839 to his death. He enjoyed the company of children, making toys by his own hand for them. Peale was in declining health in his final months, but was still able to continue his activities, and only a short illness preceded his death at his home at 1131 Girard Street in Philadelphia, on May 5, 1870. His final words were, "If this is death, it is as I wished, perfect peace, perfect comfort, perfect joy."
Mint Director Henry Linderman stated in 1873 of Peale, "Although Mr. Peale undoubtedly received the cooperation of [Patterson and others], the inventions and improvements were peculiarly Mr. Peale's. I have no doubt whatever on that point. They were of almost incalculable value to the public service." George G. Evans, in his late 19th century history of the Mint, described Peale, "his mildness, integrity, gentlemanly bearing and high moral and mental culture constituted him a model officer". Walter Breen deemed Peale, "brilliant but unscrupulous". Burdette writes of Peale and his effect on the Mint, "during the generation from about 1830 to 1855, the greatest influence to operations and production came from one man: Benjamin Franklin Peale. He was the consummate 'machinist' of the day at a time when this term encompassed imaginative design, planning, construction and improvement of working processes ... While he had the complete support of mint directors Moore and Patterson, he was also held in high esteem by the common mint workers and Philadelphia's scientific elite. Results of many of his ideas lasted a century or more, until growth in population made nineteenth century engineering insufficient for modern coinage needs." According to Bowers, "today Peale is one of several Mint people who can be viewed from many different angles, each perspective sometimes leading certain writers to draw widely differing conclusions."
After his dismissal, Peale petitioned Congress for $30,000 as payment for improvements and inventions he had made for the government. The Senate twice, in 1858 and 1860, passed legislation to pay Peale $10,000, but the House of Representatives declined to vote on it. In 1870, it was introduced in the Senate again, but did not pass. Legislation to compensate Peale in the amount of $10,000 was enacted on March 3, 1873, after his death—the act was, according to its title, in relief of Anna E. Peale, Franklin Peale's daughter. The following month, Caroline Peale, Franklin's widow, gave the Mint a marble bust of her late husband, "to be set upon a pedestal, in some position, where it may be open to the inspection of visitors and preserve his memory to future generations." Taxay, writing in 1966, stated that he had been unable to ascertain the bust's whereabouts.
References and sources.
Notes
References
Sources


New York City Police Commissioner

The New York City Police Commissioner is the head of the governing body of the New York City Police Department. The commissioner is appointed by the mayor, and serves at the mayor's pleasure. The commissioner is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the department as well as the appointment of deputies including the Chief of Department and subordinate officers. Commissioners are civilian administrators, and they and their subordinate deputies are civilians under an oath of office, not sworn members of the force. This is a separate position from the Chief of Department, who is the senior sworn uniformed member of the force.
Theodore Roosevelt, in one of his final acts as Governor of New York before becoming Vice President of the United States in March 1901, continued reforms he began when he was police superintendent by signing legislation that replaced the police commission and office of the police chief (previously the superintendent) with a single police commissioner.
The current police commissioner is Dermot F. Shea, who had previously been Chief of Detectives. Shea was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio on November 4, 2019 and took office on December 1 upon the retirement of James P. O'Neill, who left for a job in the private sector. The longest-serving commissioner was Raymond W. Kelly who served for 13 years in two separate appointments (1992–1994, 2002–2013), under mayors David Dinkins and Michael Bloomberg, respectively.
List of superintendents, chiefs, and commissioners.
Pre-1901.
Prior to 1901, the New York City Police Department was run by a board of four to six commissioners. The following is a list of some of the most famous members of the Police Commission:
Post-1901.
Since 1901, a single commissioner has been in charge of the New York Police Department. The following is a list of the commissioners:
In popular culture.
In the police procedural television show "Blue Bloods", the fictional New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan is played by Tom Selleck. His father, Henry Reagan, is also a former Commissioner.
Salary.
The public disclosure of salary as of 2020 is approximately $205,180.00 base, this is considered in line with what most large US cities pay their respective chief of police, and a bit lower then that of the chief of the Los Angeles, CA chief.


MV Cygnet

MV "Cygnet" was a by motor launch that provided ferry and freight service on Skaha Lake in British Columbia, Canada. She was built by Summerland Boat Works in 1911 for the South Okanagan Transportation Company, owned by James Fraser Campbell and A. S. Hatfield, to replace the tug "Kaleden". "Cygnet" had a Fairbanks marine engine that was started by turning the flywheel with a steel bar that fitted into sockets in the wheel. In the early 1920s, she was moved to Okanagan Lake to carry fruit to Kelowna, British Columbia for a summer before she was sold in Kelowna.


Zipper Interactive

Zipper Interactive was an American video game developer based in Redmond, Washington and part of SCE Worldwide Studios. It was founded in June 1995 by Jim Bosler and Brian Soderberg. It created many different games, including the "SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs" series of games. "SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs" was created in collaboration with the Naval Special Warfare Command and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. On January 25, 2006, Sony announced that it had acquired Zipper Interactive to add it to its group of development studios.
Closure.
On March 29, 2012, Sony announced that it would be closing Zipper Interactive due to "resource re-alignment." The closure of Zipper Interactive was later confirmed by Sony Computer Entertainment the next day on March 30, 2012. Prior to its closure, Zipper Interactive were working on two unannounced titles for the PlayStation 4 before both projects were cancelled once the closing was complete. One was another entry in the U.S. Navy SEALs series, and the other was a first-person shooter meant to be a new IP.


Onondaga Clear Sky First Nation

The Onondaga Clear Sky First Nation is an Onondaga First Nation in southern Ontario, and a member nation of the Six Nations of the Grand River. Its reserves include the shared reserves of Glebe Farm 40B and the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation.


Marrisa Shen


Williamson Mound Archeological District

The Williamson Mound Archeological District is an archaeological site in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. Located north of Maud in Butler County, the mound appears to have been the work of peoples of the Hopewell tradition.
Although a small hole was dug into the top of the Williamson Mound at some point before 1972, the mound remains in premium condition. It sits atop a ridgeline above an intermittent stream in a rural part of increasingly urbanized Butler County.
As one of the best preserved Hopewell mounds in its region, the Williamson Mound is potentially a significant archaeological site. For this reason, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.


Arikara scouts

Arikara scouts were enlisted men from the Arikara Nation serving in the U.S. Army at different frontier posts in present-day North Dakota from 1868 to 1881. The enlistment period was six months with re-enlistment possible. Each scout received a uniform, firearm and drew rations. Scout duties ranged from carrying mail between commands to tracking down traditional enemies perceived as hostile by the Army in far ranging military campaigns. Detailed to secure the horses in located enemy camps, the scouts were often the first to engage in battle. The Arikara took part when the Army protected survey crews in the Yellowstone area in the early 1870s. They participated in the Great Sioux War of 1876 and developed into Colonel George Armstrong Custer's "… most loyal and permanent scouts …".
Nearly 150 Arikara enlisted at different times from 1868 until the end of the Indian Wars in the area. They served "bravely and honorably". The experience of the scouts motivates some present-day Arikara people to carry on the tradition and enter military service.
History of service.
There are abundant historical examples of Native Americans joining with whites to fight against other tribes. On the northern plains, 700 Yankton, Yanktonai and Lakota people were the first to aid the U.S. Army in an attack on two adjoining Arikara villages in South Dakota in 1823. In 1868, Osage scouts found Cheyenne chief Black Kettle's camp, leading to the Battle of Washita River.
To commanders of the frontier Army, the need for native scouts with special skills not easily found among ordinary soldiers was pressing. On August 1, 1866, the "Act to increase and fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States" came into force, and the Army could now legally enlist a certain number of native scouts, but no more than 1,000 nationwide at any time, as long as needed.
Enlistment and the life at the garrisons.
On May, 1868, the first Arikara enlisted at Fort Stevenson, to duplicate the success of the Pawnee scouts already enlisted in Nebraska. All recruits came from the tribal police force of chief White Shield. Initially armed with infantry rifles, they soon received Spencer repeating carbines in addition to other equipment. They were paid 40 cents a day for the use of their own horse.
Additional members later enlisted at Fort McKeen down river. Strikes Two, Pretty Crow, Elk Tongue and other Arikara made the tour in three days in bull boats. The Army provided clothing including under-clothes, a flannel shirt, footwear and a plumed hat. Some scouts lived with their immediate family at the scout quarters of the garrison. Arikara like Forked Horn and Black Fox served as cooks for the scout unit. They received pay in the amount of 16 dollars per month disbursed every second month and scouts received an addition 12 dollars per month if they rode their own horse.
Service history.
At Fort McKeen.
Scouts at Fort McKeen, near the confluence of Heart and Missouri Rivers, fought the Lakota in 1872. Although the latter had agreed "not to attack any persons" after the signing of the Fort Laramie treaty of 1868. On August 26, more than 100 Sioux attacked seven soldiers and two scouts outside the fort and the Arikara there were killed. The scouts were again involved in fights with the Lakota near the garrison on October 2, October 14 (with eight scouts taking part) and November 3, with the apparent primary target being the Arikara scouts themselves. Due to the heavy losses, some scouts left the service. However, Arikara second chief Son of the Star still encouraged the men to enlist.
Protecting surveying crews.
Arikara scouts formed part of the forces assigned to protect crews surveying a route from Bismarck, North Dakota to Bozeman, Montana for the Northern Pacific Railway in 1873. The Dakota had attacked crew members and soldiers the year prior, despite treaty provisions stipulating that they would allow rail construction "not passing over their reservation".
Bloody Knife served as "scout and guide" to the leader of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, George A. Custer. Bloody Knife took part in the defense, when the Cavalry came under attack in U.S. territory north of the Yellowstone near the mouth of the Tongue on August 4. Again on August 11, the Army and the scouts were attacked by hundreds of Lakota, with the tribesmen shouting at one another through breaks in rifle fire.
Black Hills Expedition, 1874.
In the summer of 1874, Arikara scouts guided an exploring and gold seeking expedition from Fort Abraham Lincoln (formerly Fort McKeen, moved further to the south) to the Black Hills in the Great Sioux Reservation. Because the Black Hills are considered sacred to the Lakota, and were barred from white encroachment by treaty, many foresaw a Lakota attempt to halt the expedition. Accordingly, it was protected by both Infantry and Cavalry. George A. Custer was in command.
The expedition was delayed from the outset. News reached Fort Abraham Lincoln of a large Lakota war party on its way to attack Like-a-Fishhook Village almost 100 miles outside the Great Sioux Reservation, and General Philip Sheridan made stopping this a priority. Although he ordered Custer to protect the Arikara "same as white settlers", the Lakota attacked on June 13 and killed five men along with the Mandan Foolish Head. The later U.S. scout Running Wolf gives the names of the killed Arikara as Bear-Turning, Little Crow, Standing Bear, Black Shirt and the former U.S. scout Bear-Going-in-Woods.
The expedition set off with a number of young Santee Sioux serving as scouts beside the Arikara, and Bloody Knife along with Lean Bear taking lead roles. Some of the 22 members in the scout group, as recalled by Strikes Two and Bear's Belly, were Enemy Heart, Young Hawk, Goose and Red Horse. The scouts rode ahead of the columns and guarded their flanks, so that they were "covering much country".
One morning the Arikara discovered a small hunting camp of Oglala Lakota in the Black Hills. All the Arikara scouts rode up and struck a single man in the village with their horse whip. Cautiously, a few returning hunters visited the camp of the whites. Upon their return, a mounted Lakota tried to take a Santee scout's firearm, but failed and fled, with he or his horse hit by a shot. Neither the hunter nor the fleeing camp was overtaken by the pursuing Arikara. An old Lakota was held captive for a few days and then released. Accounts of these events differ to some degree.
The later Indian enthusiast George Bird Grinnell was invited to join the Black Hills expedtion as a collector of birds and fossils. Grinnell rode together with Luther H. North, brother to the leader of the Pawnee scouts. "Lute talked Pawnee fluently, and this was a password to the good graces of all the Rees [Arikara]." Once, a scout went a long way round to offer Grinnell and North water, and when in camp, some scouts came to watch Grinnell skinning the bird specimens he had collected, and discuss the day's events.
Great Sioux War, 1876.
In 1876, the second chief Son of the Star informed a number of Arikara in the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation about an expedition against some Sioux commanded by "Long Hair" or Custer. The father of Young Hawk, Forked Horn, enlisted immediately and said his son would go as well. Twenty-three additional Arikara enlisted similarly. A few days later, Red Bear joined after being scolded by Son of the Star. During the Little Bighorn campaign, the 38 Arikara engaged there worked to protect base camps, and were dispatched as riders, forming a part of the front battle line.
The scouts were the first to parade at the departure from Fort Abraham Lincoln. On the way westward to the Yellowstone, scouts on high hills guarded the camp throughout the night, while those in camp were always near the tent of Custer, who would occasionally visit with them. The scouts served as mail carriers between the camp and the fort, and in addition to letters to the soldiers, Red Bear brought moccasins for the scouts from their wives at the garrison. Skilled hunters like Strikes Two and Goose each earned more than 100 dollars during the expedition by selling specific cuts of game at fixed prices to the soldiers.
Slowed by the advance of the accompanying wagon train, the Cavalry separated from it at the confluence of the Yellowstone and the Powder rivers. The infantry, along with scouts such as Tall Bear and Black Porcupine, guarded the wagons. Realizing that a large number of Lakota were somewhere in the Yellowstone area, the field scouts received orders to retreat to this position in case of defeat. On June 21, a scouting party returned to camp with news of a large Lakota trail near the Rosebud River. Now trailing the enemy, the scouts sang their sacred songs, seemingly encouraged by Custer. "Custer had a heart like an Indian…" declared Red Star, "…if we ever left out one thing in our ceremonies he always suggested it to us."
Six Crow Indian scouts joined the Cavalry for similar reasons as the Arikara. The area ahead was traditionally Crow territory, and acknowledged as such by the Lakota in the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. Since then, the Lakota had taken over the eastern Crow land, including more recently the Bighorn River area in the Crow Indian Reservation, created on May 7, 1868. By now, they were "… menacing and often raiding the Crow in their reservation camps."
First sergeant Bobtailed-Bull advanced up the Rosebud on one side of the river with a group of scouts, while Red Bear and Soldier directed another group on the opposite bank. Close behind came the mounted troops. By the end of the day, they came to the place of a recently moved Lakota camp. Signs and drawings left by the Lakota were understood to show Lakota confidence in case of battle. Bull and Red Star, along with other Arikara followed four Crow scouts in an advanced search. Lieutenant Charles Varnum joined as Army leader of the scouts, along with Charley Reynolds. The Crow guided the whole party, being in their own territory.
The slower main body rested at the forks of the Rosebud. Custer consulted the remaining scouts and assigned their role in a planned attack to drive away as many enemy horses as possible. The group again mounted and rode throughout the night. During a quick breakfast Bull and Red Star arrived with news of a located enemy camp.
Custer followed Red Star to a nearby hill where the Crow scouts had discovered the Lakota camp in the distance. Custer preferred to wait and station his troops around the camp during the night but the Crow convinced Custer that the Lakota were well aware of the presence of the Army and Custer readied his troops for a quick attack. The 22 Arikara present assembled, and the experienced warriors encouraged the young scouts. They rode ahead, found a lone Lakota tipi and counted coup on it. Here they were overtaken by the mounted troops and reproached by Custer for going against his orders to disperse the enemy horses and render them on foot prior to a Cavalry charge.
The best mounted scouts followed the fast moving Cavalry on the way to Little Bighorn River. They, along with Little Sioux, Red Bear and 11 scouts crossed the river south of the Lakota camp along with the troops under Major Reno. Red Star, Boy Chief and Strikes Two escaped with 28 Lakota horses.
When skirmishing began, both scouts and soldiers dismounted and formed a line. Bloody Knife joined, wearing a black handkerchief with blue stars given him by Custer, and informed Young Hawk and the other scouts that a number of horses had been taken from the enemy. Some were retaken by the Lakota later. The fight grew more intense. During a general retreat, a number of Arikara and two Crow took shelter in a thick grove on the east side of the river. Here, Goose was shot in the hand, while the Crow scout White Swan was wounded in both the hand and leg. Lakota attempts to drive the scouts out into the open failed, and Custer's attack further north drew the Lakota away.
The scouts left the thicket, and flying a white flag, headed for a hill where they could see the flag of the U.S. troops. They managed to reach Major Marcus Reno's forces, pursued by the returning Lakota. Here they received word that Bob-tailed Bull had been killed. Other scouts reached Reno's troops. A number stayed, while some drove around 40 captured horses towards the depot on the Powder River, as ordered in case of defeat.
As night fell, four scouts carrying a copy of the same message tried to break through the ring of Lakota surrounding Reno Hill, but were turned back. About noon the next day, the Lakota broke camp. Shortly after, some went down a ridge west of their abandoned location. Assuming them to be soldiers, Young Hawk and his father rode towards them. The two scouts returned to the hilltop and reported the location of the party. An officer told them, "Now let us go and look for Custer's body."
On the battlefield, a soldier directed the scouts to the dead body of an Arikara in a grove, possibly that of Bloody Knife. The body of Little Brave, who had also been killed was never found. Young Hawk led a pony with the wounded Goose on a travois to the steamboat Far West stationed at the mouth of the Little Bighorn River.
The first Arikara scouts reached the Infantry camp at the Powder. When they recounted what had happened, all the soldiers doubted them.
Some scouts continued carrying mail during the following days, while other worked to locate the scattering Lakota.
In September, General George Crook and his men were in dire need of supplies when they followed the trail of a Lakota camp southward to the Black Hills. Some of the five The Arikara accompanying Crook started on their way to Fort Abraham Lincoln with a message asking for relief, and carried the urgent telegram to its destination in only three days.
Later.
In 1889, the scouts paraded through the city of Bismarck on the 4th of July. They formed the United States Volunteer Indian Scouts in 1912. Despite promises to the contrary, most of them never received a pension. In memory of Custer, the old scouts composed and sang a song on Memorial Day in 1917. Some of the descendants of the scouts still sing the "Custer Song".


Sinnamon Love

Sinnamon Love (born December 31, 1973) is an American former pornographic actress and director.
She directed the movie "My Black Ass 4", which received nominations at the 2001 AVN Awards for Best Ethnic-Themed Video and Best Anal Sex Scene (Video). Love was admitted into the Urban X Hall of Fame in 2009, and the AVN Hall of Fame in 2011.
Love appeared on the "Jerry Springer Show" in 1995, and in 2003 she was on the cover of the first issue of the hip hop and pornography magazine "Fish 'N Grits" with hip hop star Redman. As of 2008 she was a cohost of "Fetish at Night" on PrimeTimeUncensored.com. She also appeared on "The Tyra Banks Show".
She has survived a bout with ovarian cancer, but lost an ovary and a fallopian tube.
Her hobbies include cooking and board games.
In 2010, Love appeared in a Public Service Announcement for the Free Speech Coalition on the topic of Internet copyright infringement of adult content, directed by Michael Whiteacre.
In 2018, Sinnamon Love served as an independent judge for adult directory Slixa.com's first essay contest, calling for entries on the impacts of FOSTA/SESTA.


26th Parliament of British Columbia

The 26th Legislative Assembly of British Columbia sat from 1961 to 1963. The members were elected in the British Columbia general election held in September 1960. The Social Credit Party led by W. A. C. Bennett formed the government. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) led by Robert Strachan formed the official opposition.
Lorne Shantz served as speaker for the assembly.
Members of the 26th General Assembly.
The following members were elected to the assembly in 1960:
Notes:
By-elections.
By-elections were held to replace members for various reasons:
Notes:


Isaac Stevens

Isaac Ingalls Stevens (March 25, 1818 – September 1, 1862) was an American career Army officer and politician, who served as governor of the Territory of Washington from 1853 to 1857, and later as its delegate to the United States House of Representatives. During the American Civil War, he held several Union commands. He was killed at the Battle of Chantilly, while at the head of his men and carrying the fallen colors of one of his regiments against Confederate positions. According to one account, at the hour of his death Stevens was being considered by President Abraham Lincoln for appointment to command the Army of Virginia. He was posthumously advanced to the rank of Major General. Several schools, towns, counties, and lakes are named in his honor.
Descended from early American settlers in New England, Stevens – a man who stood just tall – overcame a troubled childhood and personal setbacks to graduate at the top of his class at West Point before embarking on a successful military career. He was a controversial and polarizing figure as governor of the Washington Territory, where he was both praised and condemned. He was described by one historian as the subject of more reflection and study than almost the rest of the territory's 19th-century history combined. Stevens' marathon diplomacy with Native American tribes sought to avoid military conflict in Washington; however, when the Yakama War broke out as Native Americans resisted European encroachment, he prosecuted it mercilessly. His decision to rule by martial law, jail judges who opposed him, and raise a "de facto" personal army led to his conviction for contempt of court, for which he famously pardoned himself, and a rebuke from the President of the United States. Nonetheless, his uncompromising decisiveness in the face of crisis was both applauded by his supporters and noted by historians.
Isaac Stevens was the father of Hazard Stevens, the hero of the Battle of Suffolk and one of the first men to summit Mount Rainier.
Early life and education.
Isaac Stevens was born in North Andover, Massachusetts to Isaac Stevens and Hannah Stevens (née Cummings), a descendant of early Puritan settlers from a gentry family that had produced several distinguished members of the clergy and military. As a young man, he was noted for his intelligence, particularly his mathematical acuity. His diminutive stature – in adulthood he stood tall – has been attributed to a possible congenital gland malfunction.
Stevens resented his father, described by historian Kent Richards as a "stern taskmaster", whose unrelenting demands on his son pushed the young man to his breaking point. While working on the family farm, Stevens once nearly died of sunstroke. After Stevens' mother died in a carriage accident, his widowed father married a woman whom Stevens disliked. According to Stevens, he came close to suffering a mental breakdown in his youth.
Stevens graduated from the male prep school Phillips Academy in 1833 and was accepted to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated in 1839 at the top of his class.
Career.
Stevens was the adjutant of the Corps of Engineers during the Mexican–American War, seeing action at the siege of Vera Cruz and at Cerro Gordo, Contreras, and Churubusco. In the latter fight, he caught the attention of his superiors, who rewarded him with the brevet rank of captain. He was again cited and breveted for gallantry at the Battle of Chapultepec, this time to the rank of major. Stevens participated in combat at Molino del Rey, and the Battle for Mexico City, where he was severely wounded. He later wrote a book on his adventures, "Campaigns of the Rio Grande and Mexico, with Notices of the Recent Work of Major Ripley" (New York, 1851).
He superintended fortifications on the New England coast from 1841 until 1849. He was given command of the coast survey office in Washington, D.C., serving in that role until March 1853.
Governor (1853–1857).
Stevens was a firm supporter of former brigadier general Franklin Pierce's candidacy for President of the United States in 1852, as both men had served in the Mexican–American War. Stevens was rewarded by President Pierce on March 17, 1853 by being named governor of the newly created Washington Territory. (The position also included the title of Superintendent of Indian Affairs for that region). Stevens chose to add one more duty as he traveled west to the territory he would govern: the government was calling for a surveyor to map an appropriate railroad route across the northern United States, hoping that a transatlantic railroad would open up Asian markets. With Stevens' engineering experience (and likely the favor of Pierce yet again, as well as Secretary of War Jefferson Davis), he won the bid. His party, which included Dr. George Suckley, John Mullan and Fred Burr, son of David H. Burr, spent most of 1853 moving slowly across the prairie, surveying the way to Washington Territory. There Stevens met George McClellan's party, which had surveyed the line between the Puget Sound and the Spokane River. He took up his post at Olympia as governor in November that year.
As a result of his expedition, Stevens wrote a third book, "Report of Explorations for a Route for the Pacific Railroad near the 47th and 49th Parallels of North Latitude, from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Puget Sound", (commissioned and published by the United States Congress) (2 vols., Washington, 1855–1860).
Stevens was a controversial governor in his time. Historians consider him even more controversial, for his role in compelling the Native American tribes of Washington Territory by intimidation and force to sign treaties that ceded most of their lands and rights to Stevens' government. These included the Treaty of Medicine Creek, Treaty of Hellgate, Treaty of Neah Bay, Treaty of Point Elliott, Point No Point Treaty, and Quinault Treaty. During this time, the Governor imposed martial law to better impose his will on the Indians and whites who opposed his views. The consequent political and legal battles would soon overshadow the Indian war.
Stevens did not hesitate to use his troops for vengeance, and waged a brutal winter campaign against the Yakama tribe, led by Chief Kamiakin. This, along with his unjustified execution of the Nisqually chieftain Leschi, led to widespread pleas to President Pierce to remove Stevens from his post. Two men were particularly vocal in their opposition to Stevens and his policies: territorial Judge Edward Lander and influential private citizen Ezra Meeker. While Meeker was ignored, Lander was arrested by Stevens' forces due to his opposition. Pierce refused to remove Stevens from his position, but eventually sent word to the governor expressing his disapproval. Any opposition eventually died down, as most white settlers in Washington Territory felt that Stevens was on "their side", while they considered Meeker to be too sympathetic to Native Americans.
As a result of this public perception, Stevens was popular enough to be elected as the territory's delegate to the United States Congress in 1857 and 1858. The tensions between whites and Native Americans would be left for others to resolve. Stevens is often charged with responsibility for the later conflicts in eastern Washington and Idaho, especially the war fought by the United States against Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce, These events were decades in the future when Stevens left Washington State for good in 1857.
Martial law.
In April 1856, Governor Stevens removed settlers whom he believed to be aiding the enemy (in many cases because they had married into local tribes) and placing them in the military's custody. Governor Stevens declared martial law in Pierce County in order to conduct a military trial of those settlers. He next declared martial law in Thurston County. But only the territorial legislature had the authority to declare martial law, and representatives fought Stevens' effort to abrogate their authority. A bitter political and legal battle ensued.
Stevens was forced to repeal the declaration and fight subsequent calls for his removal. His decision to use martial law was the result of his determination to enforce a blockhouse policy in the war against the Indians of the Puget Sound region. Indian raids on scattered settlements and an intimidating attack on the city of Seattle in February 1856 resulted in Governor Stevens concluding that he needed to concentrate on defensive measures, given the limited number of men at his disposal. He determined that the white population should be concentrated at specific strongly protected points. For that reason, the volunteers under Stevens' command built a series of forts and blockhouses along the Snoqualmie, White, and Nisqually rivers. Once completed, Stevens ordered the settler population to leave their claims and take temporary residence in these safer areas.
Once Stevens proclaimed martial law, he raised a new and more significant issue. Stevens' proclamation of martial law in Pierce County stated:
Whereas in the prosecution of the Indian war circumstances have existed affording such grave cause of suspicion, such that certain evil disposed persons of Pierce county have given aid and comfort to the enemy, as that they have been placed under arrest and ordered to be tried by a military commission; and whereas, efforts are now being made to withdraw, by civil process, these persons from the purview of the said commission. Therefore, as the war is now being actively prosecuted through- out nearly the whole of the said county, and great injury to the public, and the plans of the campaign be frustrated, if the alleged designs of these persons be not arrested, I, Isaac I. Stevens, Governor of the Territory of Washington, do hereby proclaim Martial Law over the said county of Pierce, and do by these presents suspend for the time being and till further notice, the functions of all civil officers in said county.
On May 11, 1856, attorneys George Gibbs and H. A. Goldsborough sent a letter to the Secretary of State denying that the war situation throughout the territory, and especially in Pierce County, was as grave as Governor Stevens had declared at the time of proclaiming martial law. They said that Stevens' allegations made against Charles Wren, John McLeod, John McField, Lyon A. Smith, and Henry Smith, were based wholly on suspicion. They asserted that the only factual related evidence was that on Christmas Day, a party of Indians had visited McLeod's cabin and had forced him to give them food. Gibbs and Goldsborough declared that:
The sole object of the proclamation was to get half a dozen obscure individuals into his absolute control, and to demonstrate that he, Isaac I. Stevens, could, on the field offered by a small Territory, enact, at second hand, the part of Napoleon.
The territorial organic act designated the governor as "commander-in-chief of the militia thereof," but there were not a regularly constituted militia. Stevens assumed his powers from his control of local volunteer troops, which had been organized to meet the necessities of the situation. These had not been authorized either by the federal government or by the territorial legislature. Stevens' position as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the territory had a broad administrative responsibility but possessed no direct military power. On May 24, 1856, following a legal opinion rendered by Judge Chenoweth, ruling that Stevens had no legal power to declare martial law, Governor Stevens rescinded his proclamation in Pierce and Thurston counties.
Civil War.
After the Civil War began in 1861, and following the Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run, Stevens was commissioned in the Army again. He was appointed as Colonel of the 79th New York Volunteers, known as the "Cameron Highlanders." He was promoted to a brigadier general on September 28, 1861, and fought at Port Royal. He led the Second Brigade of the Expeditionary Forces sent to attack the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina. He led a division at the Battle of Secessionville, where he led an attack on Fort Lamar, in which 25% of his men were casualties.
Stevens was transferred with his IX Corps division to Virginia to serve under Major General John Pope in the Northern Virginia Campaign and the Second Battle of Bull Run. He was killed in action at the Battle of Chantilly on September 1, 1862 after picking up the fallen regimental colors of his old regiment, shouting "Highlanders, my Highlanders, follow your general!" Charging with his troops while carrying the banner of Saint Andrew's Cross, Stevens was struck in the temple by a bullet and died instantly.
He was buried in Newport, Rhode Island at Island Cemetery. In March 1863, he was posthumously promoted to major general, backdated to July 18, 1862.
Stevens had married. His son, Hazard Stevens, had become a career officer and was also injured in the Battle of Chantilly. He survived and eventually became a general in the U.S. Army and an author. Together with P. B. Van Trump, he participated in the first documented ascent of Mount Rainier in Washington State.
Death on the battlefield.
A combination of an increasingly violent thunderstorm and unrelenting Confederate fire had slowed the advance of the 79th New York Regiment to a crawl. Five successive regimental color bearers had died leading the line. When Stevens saw that yet another soldier who was carrying the regimental flag had been shot, he raced from his position in the rear, through the panicked body of his men, to wrench the flag from the wounded man's grasp. According to witnesses, the injured color bearer - knowing the regimental flag would be a target - yelled at Stevens "for God's sake, General, don't take the colors!"
Stevens ignored the man's appeal and seized the colors, at which point his own son Hazard – who was serving in the regiment – was shot and injured by a Confederate volley. Hazard Stevens cried out to his father for help, to which the general replied, "I can't attend to you now, Hazard. Corporal Thompson, see to my boy". Stevens turned to his men and yelled "Follow your General!" Facing the Confederate line and waving the recovered regimental colors, Stevens proceeded to charge the Confederate positions, his men following in close order. The renewed advance forced the defending Louisianans to fall back into the woods.
Stevens led his men over the abandoned Confederate ramparts, pursuing the retreating Confederate forces into the forest. At that moment, a Confederate bullet struck Stevens in the head, killing him instantly. As he collapsed, his body twisted, wrapping itself in the flag that he was still carrying and staining it with his blood. According to a period newspaper report, Stevens' body was recovered an hour after his death, his hands still clenched around the staff of the flag.
He was buried in Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island.
Legacy.
Reputation.
Historians have generally viewed Stevens as a complicated figure. According to historian David Nicandri, the four years in which he ruled Washington "takes up a greater volume of concern and consciousness than the entire balance of the territorial officialdom up until the time Washington becomes a state in 1889". Accounts of Stevens' tenure have been highly polarized. Writing in 1972, Richards observed that nearly all accounts of his tenure have either "condemned" or "uncritically applauded" him. Ezra Meeker, an historian, settler, and contemporary opponent of Stevens, described him as one who would "take no counsel, nor brook opposition to his will".
In 2016, the chairman of the Suquamish Nation, one of the tribes of the region that had made a treaty with Stevens, said that while the governor may "have rushed the treaties and that the process had other flaws, their more positive impacts are felt every day in modern tribal life".
Posthumous promotion.
In March 1863, at the request of President Abraham Lincoln, the United States Senate posthumously advanced Stevens to the rank of Major General. According to George Cullum's "Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the United States Military Academy" "at the very hour of his death, the President and Secretary of War were considering the advisability of placing Stevens in command of the Army in which he was serving".
Memorials.
A marker at Ox Hill Battlefield Park, site of the Battle of Chantilly, commemorates the approximate place where Stevens fell while leading his men.
In Washington, Stevens County is named in his honor, as is Lake Stevens. Several Washington public schools, including Seattle's Isaac I. Stevens Elementary School, Port Angeles' Stevens Middle School, and Pasco's Isaac Stevens Middle School, are also named in his honor, as is the Washington State University dormitory Stevens Hall. The Washington chapter of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War is known as Isaac Stevens Camp No. 1.
In addition, Stevensville, Montana, Stevens County, Minnesota, and Idaho's Stevens Peak, Upper Stevens Lake, and Lower Stevens Lake are named in tribute to Stevens.
The United States Army previously maintained two military posts named after Stevens: Fort Stevens in Washington, D.C., and Fort Stevens in Oregon.
Biographies.
Hazard Stevens wrote a biography of his father, "The Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens" (1900). Kent Richards' biography, "Isaac I. Stevens: Young Man in a Hurry" (1979), remains in print as of 2016.
Hall of fame.
In 1962, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.


Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway

The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, established in 1833 and sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, primarily along the south shore of Lake Erie (in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio) and across northern Indiana. The line's trackage is still used as a major rail transportation corridor and hosts Amtrak passenger trains, with the ownership in 1998 split at Cleveland between CSX to the east, and Norfolk Southern in the west.
History.
Early history: 1835–1869.
On April 22, 1833, the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad was chartered in the Territory of Michigan to run from the former Port Lawrence, Michigan (now Toledo, Ohio), near Lake Erie, northwest to Adrian on the River Raisin. The Toledo War soon gave about one-third of the route to the state of Ohio. Trains commenced operating, pulled by horses, on November 2, 1836; the horses were replaced by a newly arrived steam locomotive, "Adrian" No. 1, in August 1837.
The Buffalo and Mississippi Railroad was chartered in Indiana on February 6, 1835, to run from Buffalo, New York, to the Mississippi River. The name was changed February 6, 1837, to the Northern Indiana Railroad, which would run from the eastern border of Indiana west to Michigan City on Lake Michigan. Some grading between Michigan City and La Porte was done in 1838, but money ran out.
Around 1838, the state of Michigan started to build the Southern Railroad, running from Monroe on Lake Erie west to New Buffalo on Lake Michigan. The first section, from Monroe west to Petersburg, opened in 1839. Extensions opened in 1840 to Adrian and 1843 to Hillsdale. On May 9, 1846, the partially completed line was sold to the Michigan Southern Rail Road, which changed the planned western terminal to Chicago using the charter of the Northern Indiana Railroad. The grading that had been done was not used, as the grade was too steep, and instead the original Buffalo and Mississippi Railroad charter was used west of La Porte, IN. The Michigan Southern leased the Erie and Kalamazoo on August 1, 1849, giving it a branch to Toledo, OH and a connection to planned railroads east from Toledo.
Due to lobbying by the Michigan Central Railroad, a competitor of the Michigan Southern, the latter's charter prevented it from going within two miles of the Indiana state line east of Constantine. However the most practical route went closer than two miles west of White Pigeon. To allow for this, Judge Stanfield of South Bend, IN bought the right-of-way from White Pigeon to the state line, and leased it to the railroad company for about 10 years until the charter was modified to allow the company to own it.
The Northern Indiana and Chicago Railroad was chartered on November 30, 1850. Its initial tracks, from the Michigan Southern at the state line running west-southwest to Elkhart, IN then west through Osceola and Mishawaka to South Bend, IN, opened on October 4, 1851. The full line west to Chicago opened on February 20, 1852, (running to the predecessor of Englewood station, together with the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad). A more direct line was soon planned from Elkhart east to Toledo, and the Northern Indiana Railroad was chartered in Ohio on March 3, 1851. On July 8, 1853, the Ohio and Indiana companies merged, and on February 7, 1855, the Northern Indiana and Chicago Railroad and the Buffalo and Mississippi Railroad were merged into the Northern Indiana Railroad. On April 25, 1855, that company in turn merged with the Michigan Southern Rail Road to form the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad. In 1858 the new alignment (Northern Indiana Air Line) from Elkhart, IN east to Air Line Junction in Toledo, OH was completed. The company now owned a main line from Chicago to Toledo, with an alternate route through southern Michigan east of Elkhart, and a branch off that alternate to Monroe, MI. Also included was the Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Railroad, leased July 1, 1856, and providing a branch from Toledo past Monroe to Detroit.
The Franklin Canal Company was chartered May 21, 1844, and built a railroad from Erie, PA southwest to the Ohio border. The Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad was incorporated February 18, 1848, to build northeast from Cleveland, OH to join the Canal Company's railroad at the state line, and the full line from Erie to Cleveland opened November 20, 1852. The Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula bought the Franklin Canal Company on June 20, 1854.
The Buffalo and State Line Railroad was incorporated October 13, 1849, and opened January 1, 1852, from Dunkirk, NY west to Pennsylvania. The rest of the line from Dunkirk to Buffalo opened on February 22. The Erie and North East Railroad was chartered April 12, 1842, to build the part from the state line west to Erie, PA, and opened on January 19, 1852. On November 16, 1853, an agreement was made between the two railroads, which had been built at broad gauge, to relay the rails at to match the Franklin Canal Company's railroad (see below) on the other side of Erie, and for the Buffalo and State Line to operate the Erie and Northeast. This would result in through passengers no longer having to change trains at Erie, and on December 7, 1853, the Erie Gauge War began between the railroads and the townspeople. On February 1, 1854, the relaying was finished and the first train passed through Erie. On May 15, 1867, the two companies between Buffalo and Erie merged to form the Buffalo and Erie Railroad.
The Junction Railroad was chartered March 2, 1846, to build from Cleveland west to Toledo. The Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland Railroad was chartered March 7, 1850, to build from Toledo east to Grafton on the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad. The latter company opened on January 24, 1853, finally forming a continuous Buffalo-Chicago line. On September 1 the two companies merged to form the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad, with the Junction Railroad becoming the Northern Division and the Toledo, Norwalk and Cleveland the Southern Division. The Northern Division opened from Cleveland west to Sandusky on October 24, 1853, and the rest of the way to Toledo on April 24, 1855. The Northern Division was abandoned west of Sandusky due to lack of business, but the track was relaid in 1872, merging with the Southern Division at Millbury, east of Toledo. In 1866 the Southern Division east of Oberlin was abandoned and a new line was built to Elyria on the Northern Division, ending the use of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad.
In October 1867, the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad leased the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad. The CP&A changed its name to the Lake Shore Railway on March 31, 1868, and on February 11, 1869, the Lake Shore absorbed the Cleveland and Toledo. On April 6 the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad and Lake Shore merged to form the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, which absorbed the Buffalo and Erie Railroad on June 22, giving one company the whole route from Buffalo to Chicago. The main route passed through Dunkirk, NY, Erie, PA, Ashtabula, OH, Cleveland, OH, Toledo, OH, Waterloo, IN and South Bend, IN. An alternate route (the Sandusky Division) in Ohio ran north of the main line between Elyria and Millbury (not all track was laid until 1872). From Toledo to Elkhart, the Old Road ran to the north, through southern Michigan, and the through route was called the Air Line Division or Northern Indiana Air Line. Along with various branches that had been acquired (see below), the Monroe Branch ran east from Adrian, MI to Monroe, where it intersected the leased Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Railroad. At some point the original line to Toledo was abandoned west of the branch to Jackson, MI (Palmyra and Jacksonburgh Railroad), with the new connection at Lenawee Junction, the crossing between that branch and the line to Monroe.
Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway: 1869–1914.
Around 1877, Cornelius Vanderbilt and his New York Central and Hudson River Railroad gained a majority of stock of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. The line provided an ideal extension of the New York Central main line from Buffalo west to Chicago, along with the route across southern Ontario (Canada Southern Railway and Michigan Central Railroad). On December 22, 1914, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad merged with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway to form a new New York Central Railroad.
While the original main line was to the south of Sandusky Bay between Toledo and Elyria, the northern alignment (the Sandusky Division) eventually became the main line.
New York Central Railroad: 1914–1968.
On December 22, 1914, New York Central and Hudson River Railroad merged with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway to form the New York Central Railroad (NYC) which is the main line running south between Toledo and Elyria, eventually passing by north through the Sandusky Division.
Post-NYC: 1968–present.
In 1968, the New York Central merged into Penn Central, and in 1976, it became part of Conrail. In 1976, the Southern Division from Elyria to Millbury was abandoned, with parts of the former right of way now in use as a recreational trail, the North Coast Inland Trail. Under Conrail, the Lake Shore main line was part of the New York City–Chicago Chicago Line.
In 1998, Conrail was split between CSX and Norfolk Southern. The Chicago Line east of Cleveland, Ohio went to CSX, and was split into several subdivisions: the Lake Shore Subdivision from Buffalo, New York to Erie, Pennsylvania, the Erie West Subdivision from Erie to east of Cleveland, Ohio, and the Cleveland Terminal Subdivision into downtown Cleveland. From the former Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad junction in Cleveland west to Chicago, the line is now Norfolk Southern's Chicago Line.
Amtrak's New York City–Chicago "Lake Shore Limited" runs along the full route from Buffalo west. The "Capitol Limited" joins in Cleveland at the "Amtrak Connection" from the former PRR C&P line, just east of the present Cleveland Station (MP 181), on its way from Washington, D.C. to Chicago. Passenger trains along the route originally terminated at LaSalle Street Station, but now run to Union Station, switching to the parallel former Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway (Pennsylvania Railroad) at a crossover in Whiting, Indiana () to get there.
Branches.
A major branch of the LS&MS extended from Northeaster Ohio to the coal and oil fields of northwestern Pennsylvania terminating near Brookville, PA. Originally the line extended to the oil fields and refineries on the Allegheny River at Franklin and Oil City.
The line was later extended from Polk Junction, West of Franklin, to Rose, just west of Brookville, PA. Also added was a connector South from Franklin to the Allegheny River crossing on the new extension. This line included perhaps the most impressive engineering structures on the LS&MS (as well as the later NYC) with several large trestles, bridges and tunnels near Brookville, including a bridge-tunnel-bridge-tunnel-fill combination near Piney, and two magnificent trestles West of Brookville near Corsica. The New York Central used trackage rights over the Pennsylvania Railroad and B&O to connect from Rose to NYC lines at Clearfield, PA.
There were several mines on this line near Brookville, as well as a connection to the Lake Erie, Franklin and Clarion (LEF&C) at Sutton, and connections to the Pennsylvania Railroad and, via the Pennsy, to the Pittsburgh & Shawmut at Brookville.
Once coal traffic dried up in the late 1990s, this line was severed and cut back to the mine at Piney. Many of the larger trestles were taken out in the late 2000s, reportedly on orders of the PUC, although the bridge across the Clarion River survived, as of 2015.


List of African-American newspapers in Washington (state)

This is a list of African-American newspapers that have been published in the state of Washington. It includes both current and historical newspapers. The first such newspaper in Washington was the "Seattle Standard", established in 1890. Notable current newspapers in Washington include "The Facts" and the "Seattle Medium".


Battle of Ocheesee

The Battle of Ocheesee took place on the Apalachicola River, in northwest Spanish Florida, beginning in December of 1817. The shooting part of the battle lasted almost a week,
but the engagement lasted "weeks" and was "the longest sustained engagement of the Seminole Wars". The name comes from the bluffs that overlook the river, from which one party of marksmen waged their attack. Today the land is in Torreya State Park.
On December 15, 1817, Red Stick Creek Indians fired from both sides of the river simultaneously on ships carrying supplies upriver to Fort Gaines, Fort Scott, and Fort Hughes, the latter of which was simultaneously attacked. The convey was halted because the sailors could not show themselves to continue navigation. With the convoy halted, the troops at Fort Scott were at risk of starvation, on half-rations for "a long time". Fort Hughes was abandoned. In effect, Fort Scott and Fort Gaines were under siege.
The underlying issue was ownership of land south of the Flint River, which the other faction of the Creeks (who had just had a civil war) had ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Fort Jackson. The Red Sticks were not a party to the treaty (they were not even notified), and claimed that those Creeks had no right to give away their land. Behind it was the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812, which guaranteed return to the Creeks of the lands taken from them by the United States. The treaty was, in this regard, unenforceable, since the British were scarcely going to send out troops to guarantee Indian rights.
There is not a definite day for the conclusion of the battle. The vessels were still pinned down in the same place when General Andrew Jackson took additional troops from Fort Scott into Spanish Florida on March 11, 1818, reaching Prospect Bluff on March 16, 1818. During this time, the Indians having withdrawn, the supply convoy was set free. To prevent future such problems, Jackson had Fort Gadsden built within the walls of the former British, then Negro Fort. This was a U.S. fort built in Spanish Florida.