Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1903 — THE WEEKLY HISTORIAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE WEEKLY HISTORIAN

ooe Hundred Years Ago. The twentieth anniversary of the evacuation of New York by Sir Guy Carle’ton’s British army was celebrated in that city. Hundreds of adventurers are flocking to New Orleans as a result of President Jefferson’s message recounting the immense riches of the new Louisiana terri tory. English citizens were frightened by reports that 12,000 vessels were bnilding and 800,000 Frenchmen nnder arms ready for an Invasion of their island. Hayti secured its independence of France after three years of revolutionary war. Seventy-five Years Ago. The Postmaster General reported 28,956 persons employed in the United States postal service, with 17,534 horses, railroads being practically unknown. The first American tin was extracted by Prof. Hitchcock of Amherst College from ore found near Goshen, N\ Y. Galena, 111., surveyors reported that it would require a canal only one and onefourth miles long, with one lock, to connect Lake Michigan with the Mississippi river. Bolivar was asked to accept the imperial crown of Colombia becaust of the continued dlstnrbances there, executions for political crimes taking place daily at Bogota. The quantity of cotton manufactured In the United States yearly was estimated at 120,598 bales. Fifty Years Ago. Livingston and Shelby counties, Illinois, were swept by prairie fires. John Mitchell, an Irish exile who had escaped from Van Dieman’s land, arrived at New York from San Francisco and was given a public reception. President Franklin Bierce was criticised for allowing an English mode carpet costing $3,000 to be laid in the east room of the White House. Over 65,000 bußhels of grain were reported to have been shipped from Milwaukee, Wia., in thirty-six hours, of which 14,000 were for flour mills at Cleveland. The steamer Winfield Scott was sunk near San Francisco, 500 passengers and $1,100,000 in gold from the California mines being saved. Forty Years Ago. President Lincoln was attacked by a mild form of smallpox, business at the White House being transacted practically under quarantine. The siege of Knoxville, Tenn., was abandoned by the rebels under Gen. Longstreet, and preparations were made to retreat Gen. Longstreet’a rebel army was repulsed in a fierce assault on Fort Sanders, at Knoxville. Tenn., that city and Burnside's imprisoned Union troops being finally saved from capture. President Grant, in his annual message to Congress, reported that the navy was being put on a war footing because of threatened hostilities with Spain and that the Madrid government was fast losing its authority in Cuba because of the Intrigues of the slave holders there.

Thirty Years Ago. Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, former vice president of the Confederacy, in sn interview at Washington declared the “United States must get Cuba at all hasarda, with or without war” with Spain. Jay Cooke & Co. of Philadelphia, at that time the best known banking firm In the United States, and famous as the United States government's fiscal agent during the Civil War, was placed in a receiver’s hands. Secretary Robeson reported the United States navy inferior to that of any “respectable” naval power, there being only forty-eight ironclads, with 121 guns. Henry Ward Beecher, in a sermon, urged moral suasion and education as a core for Mormoniam, and the repeal of the anti-polygamy law, which, he declared, only made martyrs of the sect James G. Blaine was re-elected Speaker of the National House of Representative*, and Alexander H. Stephens, former vice president of tha Confederacy, was sworn in as Congressman from Georgia. Twenty Years Ago. The city of Khartum, Egypt, was thrown into a panic by reporta that El Mahdi's force was advancing upon it when only 2,000 men could be summoned for defense And only one month’s rations were on hand. ▲ force of 6,000 Bedouins and 2,000 gendarmes was dispatched to Suakim by the Khedive of Egypt to oppose El Mahdi’s advancing army. Ten Years Ago. John Mcßride, then president of the United Mine Workers of America, predicted the dissolution of the Knights of Labor, which had 70,000 members, only 40,000 of whom were "paid up.” 1 Rumors that a gigantic steel trust was ps be formed by the Rockefellers, to induds the Carnegie and Illinois concerns Rad control that industry in the United States, were denounced by Secretary Lovsjoy of the Carnegie company as "ShadM.” ” *