Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 118, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1903 — THE WEEKLY HISTORIAN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE WEEKLY HISTORIAN

one hundred teaks ago. Persons traveling between the Tennessee river and Natchez, Miss., were so harassed by Indians that President John Adams ordered the War Department to establish block houses along the route. Twenty stand of small arnw and fifty pieces of artillery were started for New Orleans, La., where the Spanish intendant Was making trouble. The British House of Commons appropriated £20,000 for the construction of a ship canal across Scotland. The King of England, through Lord Hawkesbury, ordered a blockade of Havre do Grace apd other ports of the Seine.

FEVENTY-FIVK tears ago. American free traders protested because the duties on 100 bales of wool imported at Boston amounted to $2,450, while the original coot in Smyrna was only $2,430. The Jewish race was estimated by tbs London Quarterly Review to number 6,000,000 persons. President John Quincy Adams’ efforts to preserve the government forests resulted in the seizure at St. Marks, Fla., of a ship loaded with live oak timber cut on government land. Gen. Chilly Mclntoeh reported the killing of twenty-seven buffaloes in Arkansas territory, out of a herd of over 600. FIFTY TEARS AGO. Table rock fell into the Niagara river. George Poindexter, second Governor of Mississippi, died. A religious liberty bill was adopted by the upper house of the Dutch parliament. FORTY TEARS AGO. Oil City (Pa.) newspapers reportedsmall boys of that village making $1 to $5 daily after each hard rain by dipping crude oil from ponds and creeks in the neighborhood. Fort Wagner, in Charleston harbor, was abandoned by the rebels just as Gen. Gillmore’s troops were preparing to assault the works. Two hundred Union soldiers of Gen. Gillmore’s command were killed, wounded or taken prisoners by the rebel garrison at Fort Sumter, which they had tried to surprise while asleep. The rebel brigade under Gen. Fraser was surrounded in Cumberland gap by Union troops under Burnside, Shackelford and De Courcey. Charleston, S. C., was placed at ths mercy of Union artillery through ths ' evacuation of Fort Wagner by the rebels and Its occupation by federala.

thirty years ago. Fifteen million dollars was paid by Great Britain to the United States, under the Geneva award, for damages to American shipping by the rebel cruisea Alabama. John Bigelow, who orlglrfhted the centennial celebration of 1878, protested against the Philadelphia exposition aa commemorating that event, because of > its commercial character. - Paris police refused to allow the display of the American flag by American citizens in celebration of the proclaiming of the French republic. Nelson Dingley, afterwards Congressman and Republican leader of the House, was elected Governor of Maine. A bad slump in the New York stock market was blamed to the shipment of funds for moving the crops and to Jay Gould. TWENTY YEARS AGO. Frank James was acquitted at Gallatin, Mo., of the Winston train robbery. Jay Gould forced Rufus Hatch and his friends to stop their litigation with the Western Union Telegraph Company by driving Louisville and Nashville Railroad stock, on whloh they were “long,” down to 40. Lord Chief Justice Coleridge of England was banqueted in Boston, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Gov. Benjamin Butler and Nathan Appleton being among the guests. The Northwestern States were visited by a heavy frost, the mercury falling to 40 degrees at Bloomington, 111., and corn being killed outright in many localities. Jay Gonld testified before the United States Senate committee on labor and capital, and wept as be described how, when a poor surveyor, he had gone hungry and bad knelt and prayed by ths roadside. ✓ John Jacob Astor deeded his entire fortune to his son, William Waldorf Aa»tor, then United States minister a.t Rome, retaining a pension of SIOO,OOO yearly for himself. The last spike in the Northern Pacific Railroad was driven near Helena, Moot., ninety-one years after President Thomas Jefferson had suggested a highway to the Northwest. TEN YEARS AGO. The Brazilian fleet blockaded the bar- , bor of Rio de Janeiro and demanded President Peixoto’s resignation. Senator Peffer Df Kansas introduced at Washington a bill appropriating SBOO,000 ia “aluminum coin” for the endowment of a “scientific college" in the District of Columbia. Gov. Horae* Holm of lows, in a campaign address, declared both the Den» cratie and Republican partto solemnly bound not to d&cnhtßifcte between gold and silver as money standard* * f.