Fort Loudon

July 19, 2014, 7:50 am

≫ Next: Welcome to Fort Loudoun State Historic Area

Tennessee, Monroe County, Vonore

One mile east is a replica of this fort, built 1756-57 by South Carolina provincial troops to check the French and strengthen the English influence in the Mississippi Valley. It was besieged by the Cherokee and surrendered August 7, 1760.

(Forts, Castles • Settlements & Settlers • War, French and Indian) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Welcome to Fort Loudoun State Historic Area

July 19, 2014, 7:53 am

≫ Next: Fort Loudoun

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Tennessee, Monroe County, Vonore

Fort Loudoun played a significant role in helping Great Britain secure the trans-Appalachian region from France during the Seven Years War, or as it is known in America, the French and Indian War. As the first planned British fort in the "Overhill" country, Fort Loudoun, for a while helped ally the powerful Cherokee Nation to the English cause and block further French penetration of the area from the west.

(Colonial Era • Forts, Castles • War, French and Indian) Includes location, directions, 7 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Fort Loudoun

July 19, 2014, 7:54 am

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Tennessee, Monroe County, Vonore

Fort Loudoun has been designated a Registered National Historic Landmark under the provisions of the Historic Sites Act of August 21, 1935. This site possesses exceptional value in commemorating or illustrating the history of the United States.

(Forts, Castles • Settlements & Settlers • War, French and Indian) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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War Memorial

July 19, 2014, 8:31 am

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British Columbia, Capital Regional District, Sidney

Dedicated in proud memory
of the ultimate sacrifice
given for their countrymen
by all of Canada's Armed Forces

by the first recipient of the
Star of Military Valour
Sergeant Patrick Tower, S.M.V., C.D.

June 30, 2007

(Patriots & Patriotism • War, Afghanistan • War, Korean • War, World II) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Anishinabe Akhi

July 19, 2014, 1:03 pm

≫ Next: Dixie Hall

≪ Previous: War Memorial

Wisconsin, Eau Claire County, Eau Claire

    The 1849 Ojibwe delegation to Washington, D.C. carried this pictograph depicting Ojibwe clans with their eyes and hearts connected to the chain of wild rice lakes south of Lake Superior. Drawing by Seth Eastman from Henry Schoolcraft's The Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol 1 (1851). State Historical Society of Wisconsin collection.

    Many native people made their homes in the Chippewa Valley during the 17th and 18th centuries. Dakota (Sioux), Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Fox, Sauk, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Huron, Tionontati, Menominee and Ojibwe (Chippewa) families used the river system as a water highway for trade and subsistence, harvesting fish, wild rice and other needed resources. During the period 1740 - 1840, the Ojibwe and Dakota dominated the region and contended for the larger share of the fur trade. Competition led to bloodshed. To prevent further warfare and to pave the way for land sales, Americans called a treaty council at Prairie du Chien in 1825. The treaty established the southern boundry of Ojibwe lands, a "half day's march below the Falls of the Chippewa River".

    By the 1830s, lumbermen and land speculators were lobbying Congress for access to the Northwest Territory. The United States acquired the Chippewa Valley by treaty in 1837. Ojibwe leaders reserved the right to hunt, fish and gather on the land as they had done for generations. Despite the agreement, government officials tried to "remove" Ojibwe families west of the Mississippi. In 1849 and again in 1852, Ojibwe representatives traveled to Washington to protest the removal efforts. President Millard Fillmore confirmed Ojibwe rights in 1852. Two years later a treaty established permanent Ojibwe reservations at Red Cliff, Bad River, Lac Courte Oreilles and Lac du Flambeau. Left out of the treaty, Mole Lake and St. Croix Ojibwe did not receive reservations until the 1930s.

Sponsored By:
University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire

(Industry & Commerce • Native Americans • Waterways & Vessels) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Dixie Hall

July 19, 2014, 1:05 pm

≫ Next: Zachary-Tolbert House

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North Carolina, Macon County, Franklin

Here stood Dixie Hall, the home of prosperous local merchant Julius T. Siler. A landowner and slaveholder. Siler joined the Confederate army along with about 3,000 other Macon County men and served as the captain of Company E, 6th North Carolina Cavalry. One of the last formal surrenders of the Confederated forces east of the Mississippi River took place near the house on May 12, 1865.

According to Lt. Col. William W. Stringfield of Thomas’s Legion, this part of North Carolina was the “most inaccessible portion of the Confederacy.” There was no telegraph system here, the mountains formed major impediments to transportation, and the nearest railroad was six miles east of Morganton. The Confederates here were among the last in the East to learn of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House, Va., on April 9, and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s surrender near Durham on April 26. Military clashes continued in this area, and parts of Thomas’s Legion and Col. William C. Bartlett’s 2nd North Carolina Mounted Infantry engaged Federal troops in Waynesville on May 6-7.

Union Col. George W. Kirk, who had raised the 3rd North Carolina, then advanced on Franklin. There, Capt. Stephen Whitaker commanded the “last body of organized army troops remaining east of the Mississippi, of all those whom the Confederacy sent into battle.” When Whitaker learned of the other capitulations, he surrendered his men here to Kirk, who paroled the Confederates and sent them home. After Kirk’s men occupied and looted Dixie Hall, young Alice Siler spat on Kirk’s flag from the upstairs porch.

(captions)
(lower left) Surrender at Dixie Hall, painting by Larry Calhoun Courtesy James J. Kirk II Collection
(upper center) Color postcard of Dixie Hall Courtesy Barbara McRae
(lower center) Col. George W. Kirk Courtesy Jane Gibson Nardy; Capt. Stephen Whitaker Courtesy Bruce Whitaker
(lower right) Partial list of Whitaker’s command, paroled by Kirk Courtesy NC Office of Archives and History

(War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Zachary-Tolbert House

July 19, 2014, 1:18 pm

≫ Next: War Memorial

≪ Previous: Dixie Hall

North Carolina, Jackson County, Cashiers

The Zachary family of Cashiers symbolizes the divided loyalties of western North Carolinians. The builder of this house, Mordecai Zachery, had strong ties to the Confederacy, as did others in the area. Confederate Gen. Wade Hampton sent his family to his hunting lodge, located across the road for safety during the war. It burned to the ground in 1932. Zachary’s brother and near neighbor Alexander remained a Unionist. Too old to serve, Alexander Zachary gave aid and sympathy to Federal soldiers who escaped from Confederate prisons in South Carolina and made their way through the mountains to Union lines.

William H. Thomas, the noted politician, promoter of western North Carolina, and white Cherokee chief, was among the travelers on the Tuckasegee-Keowee Turnpike who stopped at Mordecai Zachary’s house. When the war began, Thomas enlisted white and Cherokee men for his Confederate unit, Thomas’s Legion. Zachary served in the Legion, according to his tombstone inscription.

Alexander Zachary’s sons served both sides during the war. Christopher Columbus Zachary enlisted in Co. F, 29th North Carolina Infantry, in the Confederate army. He rose to the rank of sergeant but later deserted and returned to western North Carolina. He then “rode with the Bushwhackers”—Union Col. George W. Kirk’s 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry—that attacked Confederate units in the mountains. Another son, fourteen-year-old Thompson R. Zachary, guided a group of escaped Union officers through Cashiers Valley to the Federal lines in Knoxville, Tennessee, where they were photographed. Alexander Zachary remained in Cashiers after the war.

In 1873, Mordecai Zachary sold this house to former South Carolina congressman Armistead Burt, a leader in the secession movement before the war. Zachary moved to a farm near Cherokee in Swain County, next to Thomas’s property.

(sidebar)
Mordecai Zachary constructed the Zachary-Tolbert House in the popular Greek Revival style about 1850. Zachary also built the original furniture, much of which remains in the house. Besides raising a family here with his wife, Elvira Keener, Zachary also boarded travelers on the Tuckasegee-Keowee Turnpike. The Tolbert family purchased the dwelling in 1909. Since 1998, the Cashiers Historical Society has owned and interpreted the house, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

(captions)
(lower left) “Union Refugees in East Tennessee,” with T.R. Zachary in back row on right, from Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial History of the Civil War.
(upper center) William H. Thomas Courtesy North Carolina Office of Archives and History
(lower right) Union bushwhackers attacking Confederate cavalrymen, engraving by Junius Henry Browne, 1865.

(War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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War Memorial

July 19, 2014, 1:45 pm

≫ Next: Grandpa and Me

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British Columbia, Capital Regional District, Sidney

In memory of the men
of this district
who gave their lives
in the Great War
1914 - 1918
——— • ———
W.I. Apps • James Arden • H.H. Bedford • V. Cleaves • G.J. Coward • G.C. Cruse • Dean Arnold • H.A. Dennis • C.R. Gillan
H. Grainger • T. Holliday • T. Ibrotson • F.C. John • W.S.J. Lalt
John McNally • L.H. Norris • P. Robertson • C.F. Stutchbury
C. Toogood • F. Toogood • F. Wilkinson
Their Name Liveth For Evermore
————————————
In memory of the men
of this district
who gave their lives
in the War
1939 - 1945
——— • ———
J.V.C. Buckle • J.F. Bean • E. Carter • J.B.C. Chapman • W. Deveson • R. Frame • F. Goldie • A.N. Gott • V.H. Graham • W.J. Gunn • E.H. Harcourt • L. Heal • A. Hunter • S. Jackson • P.H.B. Littlewood • M. Littlewood • J.T. Livingstone • R. Maynard • C. Nelson • C. Pearson • A.J. Pinhorn • V.L. Reid • W. Simpson • E. Skinner • J. Slater • H.G. Smith • S. Stanley • E.G. Sturrock • C. Thompson • R. Thompson • B. Underwood
We Will Remember Them
————————————
Canadian Merchant Navy
Marine Marchande Canadienne
1914-18 • 1939-45 • 1950-53
The Life Line of the World
Pour la Survie du Monde Libre
————————————
Korea

(Patriots & Patriotism • War, Korean • War, World I • War, World II) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Grandpa and Me

July 19, 2014, 3:04 pm

≫ Next: Allison-Deaver House

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Washington, Skagit County, Mount Vernon

From Dick Fallis, Historian, Skagit County Pioneer Association

Jasper Gates was born April 9, 1840, in Adair County, Missouri. He grew to manhood at the family farm there, married Clarinda Kimble in 1860, served in the Union Army during the Civil War, after which he moved with his growing family to find peace and fulfillment in the newly developing, open country of the Pacific Northwest.

With his wife, children, wifowed [sic] mother-in-law and other members of the Kimble Family, they traveled by railway to California, met with other Northwest-bound pioneers in San Francisco, and booked group passage by ship to Whidbey Island. They sojurned [sic] with relatives at Ebey's Landing, where the women and children remained while the men ventured by small boats and canoes to the mainland and up the Skagit River, past some new settlements, and up to where they were stopped by massive rafts of tangled roots, trees and debris that jammed the river from bank to bank, solidly packed. That was in 1869 and most of the men in that pioneer party chose claims for their family homesteads right at or just below the big jam. Jasper Gates, however, followed an Indian portage trail up and around the jam and selected for his family homestead claim a stretch of land along the bend of the river between two jams, the site that would become the commanding City of Mount Vernon, once the prohibiting jams were removed by hard, determined labor and the river opened to navigation.

Families came on up in 1870, which was the beginning of real community action. Jasper Gates made friends with the local Indians by offering to plant potatoes which he would share with the Natives for other goods. Jasper's wife, Clarinda, brought sheep for producing wool which she used in making clothes for her family, and on learning that the local Indians had a tradition of weaving, offered to share wool with the women. She also learned the local Indian language and of other native customs, and helped establish mutually helpful relationships.

The Gates' Family Homestead was centered at what is now known as First and Gates Street, and at this location the family greeted all persons coming into the area, provided hospitality and help in getting started in the new land. Jasper sold ten acres of his homestead land to Clothier and English at a nominal cost for purposes of getting the lower jam completely cleared to personally see that the mail got through. The grand American Flag that proudly flew over the new City of Mount Vernon in 1877, was stitched together on the sewing machine of Clarinda Gates.

Jasper, Clarinda and their family worked closely with the developing town, encouraging families to settle there and help establish needed services, schools, churches, medical facilities, hotels and restaurants, parks and public facilities. Space was made available on the central river-front for erection of the Skagit Sawmill and Manufacturing Company, and Mount Vernon was named the County Seat in 1884. A newspaper was started in that same year and Jasper Gates soon took it over for G.E. Hartson, his son-in-law, and moved the publishing plant into its own building on Main Street, and equipped it to become a major force in the further building up of Mount Vernon and Skagit County.

He is duly honored as "The Father of Mount Vernon."
————————————
What it is.
(artist's statement about the Jasper Gates Statue)

An artist with any sense will allow the artwork to speak for itself. Being too dumb to take my own advice, I offer these thoughts about the granite sculpture known as the Jasper Gates statue, and which I have named Grandpa and Me.

A public artwork, especially a memorial sculpture, relates to its subject as an illustration might appear in a book. It doesn't tell the whole story, but it serves as a symbol to remind the viewer of the person or event depicted, and then the viewer can fill in the gaps from memory, or be inspired to learn about the subject if it is not known. The sculpture is a visual and tactile aid, an icon that stands in for the people or story it refers to. It can be, in the proper hands, an accurate portrait of someone. This statue is not that. I am not good at portraits, probably because I haven't trained myself to focus on the particular details of individual appearance. I look for, and try to convey, the universal qualities, the things we share.

I believe this is a proper function of a public artwork, to connect each of us to the subject, to imagine each child and his or her grandparent in this situation, or beyond that, to relate any of the members of any family, in familiar actions that we all could share an experience or memory of. This sculpture has helped me relive fond memories of my grandpa, and appreciate similar moments with my own grandchildren.

We are looking at the special relationship of age to youth, of experience, and maybe wisdom, interacting with exuberance and innocence, moments shared in which the child and the elder both gain something. And again, beyond these two particular people, we can let the time expand to relate ourselves to our distant ancestors, across many generations in the past, and to wonder what we wittingly or not are passing on to our descendants, generations in the future.

If we chose to consider the material of the statue, we can even imagine that we and the rock are both born of the common matter and energy of the cosmos, and that the granite is the elder, and our whole animal race is the child, and perhaps there is something we can learn from that.

But this statue is about Jasper Gates and his grandson John Knox, both of whom I now feel that I know a little better. As the massive form suggests, Jasper can be seen as a mountain of a man, hard and enduring in his task of building a new life for his family, while maintaining a close and caring relationship with John in the daily chores of living. We honor them both for founding this town in this place, for working hard and treating their neighbors with respect, for establishing a community which embraces us all. Their dedication to their family, and their foresight, generosity, and integrity, have set us all fine examples to follow. I hope we are up to the challenge.

Thank you gentlemen. It has been a great pleasure to meet you.

Tracy Powell, Oct 1, 2005

(Industry & Commerce • Man-Made Features • Patriots & Patriotism • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 6 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Allison-Deaver House

July 19, 2014, 3:34 pm

≫ Next: The Olympic Mountains

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North Carolina, Transylvania County, Pisgah Forest

This was the home of William Deaver and his wife, Margaret Patton Deaver. It was the scene of a tragic shooting in February 1865, a consequence of the tumult that the Civil War created among North Carolinians.

When the war began, a few Transylvania County men enlisted in the Union army, but most joined the Confederate forces. Deaver’s son James Patton Deaver (1843-1889) enlisted for a year in June 15, 1861, in the 25th North Carolina Infantry. Mustered in as a sergeant, Deaver was promoted to lieutenant in 1862, before being discharged. He was commissioned a captain in the 14th Battalion North Carolina Troops on April 14, 1864, and provided homeland defense and procured military supplies.

Deaver, like other Confederate commanders in the area, was ordered to arrest armed Confederate deserted and Union partisans who were hiding in the mountains, forming gangs called “bushwhackers,” and plundering civilians. On the evening of February 24, 1865, when Deaver was home on leave but at a neighbor’s house, such a gang surrounded the Deaver home and called, “Captain Deaver!” Seventy-year-old William Deaver, once a Buncombe County militia captain, stepped through the doorway into the gloom and said, “I am Captain Deaver. Who is it?” The outlaws fired, killing him and then escaped despite the efforts of James Deaver to track them down.

After the war, James Deaver moved to Georgia to escape his father’s fate but soon returned to Transylvania County. He served two terms as a state representative and one as a state senator. Deaver died of a heart attack at age forty-five.

(sidebar)
Benjamin Allison constructed part of this house, one of the oldest frame dwellings west of the Blue Ridge, about 1815. Allison sold the dwelling to William Deaver in 1830 and moved farther west to Webster. Deaver built an addition and remodeled the house in the popular Greek Revival style. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

(captions)
(upper center) Capt. James Deaver Courtesy James P. Deaver IV; James Deaver, postwar photograph Courtesy Transylvania County Historical Society
(upper right) Allison-Deaver House, 1961 before restoration Courtesy Transylvania County Historical Society

(War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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The Olympic Mountains

July 19, 2014, 3:37 pm

≫ Next: Historic Crossroads of America / The Lincoln Highway

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Washington, Snohomish County, Edmonds

The Olympic Mountains began life 35 million years ago as part of the ancient sea floor that thrust against the North American plate. Inexorable geologic forces fractured and folded these layers of rock and lifted them high into the air. Erosion and glaciers carved the valleys and peaks visible today. Rising directly out of the Pacific Ocean on the west, the mountains rise to their highest point, 7,969 foot tall Mount Olympus, 61 miles from this marker. The Olympics are bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the north, and Hood Canal and Puget Sound to the east.

The range catches moisture-laden Pacific storms, causing about twelve feet of rain to fall each year on the west-facing valleys, sustaining the temperate rain forest. At higher elevations this precipitation falls as snow adding to glaciers that relentlessly carve the landscape. The east side of the mountains lie in a "rain shadow", with only 25 inches of annual rainfall and much dryer conditions.

(Environment) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Historic Crossroads of America / The Lincoln Highway

July 19, 2014, 4:55 pm

≫ Next: Silas McDowell

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Indiana, Marshall County, Plymouth

(Side One)
Historic Crossroads of America

Marshall County has been called the Crossroads of America. The Lincoln Highway (the Lincoln’s second alignment constructed in the mid-1920s), the Michigan Road (Indiana’s first state commissioned road established in 1829), later a portion was designated as the Dixie Highway that ran from Sault Ste Marie, Michigan to Miami Beach, Florida, the Grand Army of the Republic Highway (U.S. 6) and the Yellowstone Trail were all routed through Marshall County.

The second alignment (1928) of the Lincoln Highway across Indiana was fully decided except for the path it would take through the city of Plymouth. Ultimately the state told Marshall County officials if they could not decide, the route would be decided for them. Several meetings followed until the night before the deadline and in a packed chambers at the high school, two sides presented their cases for their preferred path. The City and downtown business-owners lobbied for a downtown route, while others preferred Jefferson Street. If the Jefferson Street route was chose, a new bridge would be needed over the Yellow River. If the downtown route was chose, the highway would run across the then new Garro Street Bridge. Ultimately the group promoting Jefferson Street won out because the construction of a new bridge was a less expensive route. The new Jefferson Street/Lincoln Highway Bridge was constructed between 1927 and 1928 for the sole purpose of the new alignment of the Lincoln Highway.

Time Line of the Lincoln Highway

1913     Lincoln Highway Association was formed by Carl G. Fisher of Indianapolis & a coast-to-coast route was announced.
1914     The first seedling mile was completed just west of Malta, Illinois.
1919     A U.S. military convoy travels the Lincoln Highway with Lt. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
1922-23     The Ideal Section was built between Schererville and Dyer, Indiana, as a model for the nation’s roads.
1926-28     The Lincoln Highway was shortened across Indiana establishing the route from Fort Wayne to Valparaiso through Plymouth.
1928     Concrete markers were placed coast-to-coast by the Boy Scouts of America to honor Abraham Lincoln.
1966     The 1928 Lincoln Highway (then designated U.S. 30) is bypassed through Marshall County for current four-lane U.S. 30.
1992      The Lincoln Highway Association was reestablished to preserve and promote the heritage of the road.

(Side Two)
The Lincoln Highway

Once called the Main Street across America, the idea for the Lincoln Highway began on September 10, 1912, when a group of industrialists led by Carl. G. Fisher of Indianapolis Motor Speedway fame, envisioned a continuous improved highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The road would be open to lawful traffic without toll charges and was to be a living memorial to President Abraham Lincoln. When the route was announced in 1913 the road stretched 3,389 miles and stitched together existing roadbeds. New road sections were built to demonstrate state-of-the-art concrete road construction methods. Local residents were asked to join the Lincoln Highway Association to show their support for this patriotic and private road building effort.

That highway still exists, and for many it holds an allure in much the same way that it did in its heyday during the 1920s and 1930s. Along the way tourists discovered towns such as New Carlisle, Rolling Prairie, Deep River, Valparaiso or Plymouth. Each town and city along the route has a unique story and culture making travel more interesting than that found on modern interstates. Although not a highway in contemporary terms, the Lincoln Highway crosses 13 states and stretches nearly 3,400 miles from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park, San Francisco.

This kiosk was funded in part by a grant from the Marshall County Community Foundation, Lincoln Highway Association and the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association.

For more information on the Lincoln Highway visit www.IndianaLincolnHighway.org or visit the Historic Crossroads Center of the Marshall County Museum located at 123 North Michigan Street, Plymouth.

(Roads & Vehicles) Includes location, directions, 9 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Silas McDowell

July 19, 2014, 6:09 pm

≫ Next: André Michaux

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North Carolina, Macon County, Franklin

Botanical and historical writer; horticulturist. Originated concept of a temperate "thermal belt." Home stood 1/5 mi. W.

(Horticulture & Forestry) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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André Michaux

July 19, 2014, 6:22 pm

≫ Next: Thomas's Resting Place

≪ Previous: Silas McDowell

North Carolina, Macon County, Highlands

French botanist. First visit to North Carolina to study flora was June, 1787, when he traversed the Highlands Plateau.

(Horticulture & Forestry) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Thomas's Resting Place

July 19, 2014, 6:40 pm

≫ Next: Waynesville Engagement

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North Carolina, Haywood County, Waynesville

Col. William Holland Thomas (February 5, 1805-May 10, 1893) is among the Confederate officers and soldiers buried here in Greenhill Cemetery. His grave is located about thirty yards in front of you on the right.

Thomas, who began trading with the Cherokee when he was sixteen, was the first and only white man to serve as a Cherokee chief and an influential figure in antebellum western North Carolina. He represented the Cherokee in the state capital and in Washington, D.C., to help establish the Qualla Boundary (the reservation for the Eastern Band of Cherokee). He organized Thomas’s Legion of Cherokee Indians and Mountaineers in Knoxville, Tennessee, for the Confederacy on September 27, 1862. The people of this area were sometimes referred to as highlanders, and local residents called Thomas’s unit the “Highland Rangers.” Thomas eventually recruited more than 2,000 officers and men, including two companies composed of 400 Cherokee. The unit fought in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia and largely prevented the Federal occupation of western North Carolina. Part of the Legion served in the final engagement of the war in North Carolina at Waynesville on May 6-7. Thomas surrendered the Legion to Union Col. William C. Bartlett on May 9.

The officers in Thomas’s Legion from this area included Col. William Stringfield, Col. James Robert Love II, Lt. Col. William C. Walker, and Capt. John T. Levi. Stringfield is buried here in Greenhill Cemetery.

(sidebar)
Capt. Alden Howell (February 18, 1841-March 19, 1947), a Haywood County native, is buried in Greenhill Cemetery. At the time of his death, there were 110 living Confederate veterans, but Howell was the last remaining Confederate officer. He enlisted in 1861 and served four years in the 16th North Carolina Infantry, Company B, rising to the rank of captain. After the war, Howell became a prominent Waynesville banker and landowner. Time magazine published his obituary on March 31, 1947; “Died, Captain Alden G. Howell, 106, who rode to war 86 years ago, saw Stonewall Jackson shot, lived to be the last surviving Confederate officer, oldest Mason in the U.S; in Los Angeles.”

(captions)
(lower left) Cherokee veterans of Thomas’s Legion at the 1903 Confederate Reunion in New Orleans. Courtesy The Mountaineer
(upper center) William H. Thomas Courtesy North Carolina Office of Archives and History
(upper right) Alden Howell Courtesy Mary E. Underwood, Faith of Our Fathers-Living Still

(Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Native Americans • War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Waynesville Engagement

July 19, 2014, 6:52 pm

≫ Next: Eau Claire’s Connection to the Soo Line Railroad

≪ Previous: Thomas's Resting Place

North Carolina, Haywood County, Waynesville

Col. William C. Bartlett’s 2nd N.C. Mounted Infantry (U.S.) occupied Waynesville early in May 1865. The Federals raided the surrounding countryside, relieving civilians of their horses and provisions.

On May 6, a company of Confederate Col. William H. Thomas’s Legion under Lt. Robert T. Conley defeated a company of Bartlett’s mounted infantry at White Sulphur Springs. Conley led his men up the west side of Richland Creek and the Confederates, outnumbered four to one, surprised and routed about 200 of Bartlett’s men near here. The Confederates formed a battle line and fired a volley followed by a vigorous bayonet charge that scattered the Union soldiers. During the engagement, a Federal soldier variously identified as David or James Arwood (or Arrowood) was killed, one of the last men killed in battle east of the Mississippi River during the war. Conley picked up Arwood’s weapon and kept it, later stating, “I still have James Arwood’s gun as a relic.”

The rest of the Federals retired to Waynesville. After a night surrounded by Confederate forces, Bartlett met with their commander, Gen. James Martin, on May 7 at the Battle House to negotiate the surrender of the Union forces. It was this meeting that Martin learned that the Civil War was over—the two largest Confederate armies under Gens. Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston had already capitulated—and surrendered his command, including Thomas’s Legion, to Bartlett instead.

(captions)
(lower left) Bayonet charges, such as the one depicted here, usually ended most Civil War battles after the combatants exchanged a few rifle volleys. Courtesy Library of Congress
(upper center) Lt. Robert T. Conley; Gen. James G. Martin Courtesy North Carolina Office of Archives and History
(lower right) Last Shot Monument. In 1923, the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a monument to Conley and the “last shot” fired during the Civil War, about a quarter of a mile east of here on Sulphur Springs Road. There are other sites that make similar claims.

(War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Eau Claire’s Connection to the Soo Line Railroad

July 19, 2014, 8:00 pm

≫ Next: The George Spangler Farm Civil War Hospital Site

≪ Previous: Waynesville Engagement

Wisconsin, Eau Claire County, Eau Claire

    By 1889, the Wisconsin Central Railroad (which became the Soo Line Railroad in the early 1900’s) acquired the Chippewa Falls and Western Railway, giving them access to Eau Claire from Chippewa Falls. The railroad then built freight and passenger depots at this location in 1890. Since the main track was located on the north side of the Eau Claire River, the railroad needed to construct a bridge to access this site. This was accomplished in unique fashion with the construction of an S-shaped wooden bridge utilizing a Howe truss design with rail deck on the top chords. Accounts from the Eau Claire Press, dated Thursday, September 18, 1890 state, “… Five teams are being employed today hauling rock stone for the piers and abutments. About fifteen men are getting the bridge timbers ready and it is the intention of the company to lose no time in completing their new depot.”

    In 1910, Minneapolis Steel and Machinery Co. replaced the wooden bridge with the present structure. The “new” bridge utilizes the S-shaped configuration, but is a three span bridge utilizing a Warren truss design, with a capacity for two 177 ½ ton locomotives. The massive wooden timbers that supported the rails, which measure nearly 7 inches by 17 inches in size, are still visible.

    The Soo Line did their locomotive servicing here in their terminal yard until 1925, when the Soo Line’s roundhouse (located just to the east of the bridge) was destroyed by fire. After that, all locomotive servicing was done in Chippewa Falls, with two round trips to Eau Claire originating there each day. A turntable, nearly 60 feet in diameter, was located on this side of the river, just to the east of the bridge, which enabled locomotives to leave the yard and return to Chippewa Falls running forward. Passenger service between Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls ended around 1931. Freight service between the two cities continued until 1987 and the line was abandoned in 1991. A 1953 article in the Eau Claire Leader Telegram stated “… All industries and business establishments in Eau Claire are potential customers of the Soo Line. It makes no difference to the railroad if the factory, foundry, warehouse or plant reeks of rubber, hot iron, steel or aluminum, packing plant aroma, or the perfume of Fifth Avenue. Any product of any size, coming or going, will be given the service that the customer expects.”

    The S-bridge is the only remaining structure of railroad history at this site. It was determined to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places in 1998 and was converted into a bicycle-pedestrian bridge in 2002.

Sponsored by:
Eau Claire Historic Preservation Foundation

(Bridges & Viaducts • Railroads & Streetcars) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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The George Spangler Farm Civil War Hospital Site

July 19, 2014, 9:44 pm

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Pennsylvania, Adams County, Gettysburg

From Home to Hospital
About the George Spangler Farm
The George Spangler Farm Civil War Hospital Site is one of the most intact Civil War field hospitals used during the battle of Gettysburg. When George Spangler bought the farm in 1848, he had no idea that civil war would erupt thirteen years later and destroy his farmland and crops. For five weeks, from July to August 1863, his family’s homestead was occupied by the Union army’s Eleventh Corps who utilized the buildings and fields as a hospital for some 1,900 wounded Union and Confederate soldiers.

Throughout the years, the Spangler farm has witnessed many changes. Although you can now walk in the footsteps of the Spangler family and soldiers who were treated here, a great deal of work has been done to turn back the years and reveal the property as it was in 1863. The legacy of the George Spangler Farm has been secured through generous donations to the Gettysburg Foundation. The task now is to write the next chapter in the farm’s history and ensure its preservation for centuries to come. As you reflect on the stories of the many people who shaped the history of this place, please consider joining the effort to preserve and rehabilitate this historic site for future generations.

(War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 6 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Well, Look What We Found!

July 19, 2014, 10:13 pm

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≪ Previous: The George Spangler Farm Civil War Hospital Site

Pennsylvania, Adams County, Gettysburg

At the height of preservation work on the Spangler summer kitchen, this previously unknown well was discovered. After further investigation and interviews with previous caretakers of the property, it was revealed that the well was used for many years in farming operations. According to oral histories, after long, dry summers, this well usually ran dry; thus, the family eventually removed the well pump and covered it over. Could the Spanglers and hospital patients have been faced with these same conditions in July 1863?

(Natural Resources • War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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Judah and Resistance

July 20, 2014, 7:15 am

≫ Next: The Tennessee Overhill Experience-From Furs to Factories

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Maryland, Prince George's County, Oxon Hill

Resistance to slavery took many forms – some more extreme and more cruel than others. In November 1834, house slave Judah, a 14 year-old, girl confessed to fatally poisoning three of Dr. Bayne’s children and attempting to set fire to Salubria, his home. Remarkably for the times, she was tried in court. The courthouse records document that Judah had a jury trial in the county seat of Upper Marlboro by twelve White male landowners. She was found guilty and sentenced to be executed by hanging for this crime.

Was her act one of resistance? Press reports from the trial revealed no known motive. In the 200 years of slaveholding in Prince George’s County, enslaved Marylanders carried out thousands of acts of resistance. Besides fleeing North or enlisting in the military during wars, they managed work slowdowns, feigned illness, broke tools, and more seriously, burned property, stole, fought, murdered and conducted armed insurrections.

Those unsuccessful in finding freedom through defiance often faced severe consequences. In spite of deterrents, bondspeople learned that laughing and loving in the face of slavery and all its inhumanity was itself an act of resistance.

Above and far right:

$200 REWARD – Run away from the absconder, raiding in Prince George’s county, opposite Alexandria, Va., on Thursday last, Negro Boy "JIM", aged about 21 years, not very dark, low stature, muscular, and rather stout, very thick suit of hair, rather low forehead, and down-cast countenance. I think there is a dark mark or scar on the face.
I will give $100 if apprehended in Maryland, District of Columbia, or Virginia, and $200 if taken in a non-slave holding state, and secured so that I get him again.
feb 27—
John H. Bayne

center, left:
“Document Script” [Hand-written roster (illegible)]

Above and far right:
Reproduction of classified ads for fugitive slaves from the National Intelligencer.

drawing: upper middle,
“Slave women in kitchen” Courtesy of the Library of Congress

TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS REWARD
Ran away from the subscriber, on Sunday, the 8th of November, my negro man, "SAM", who calls himself Samuel Tyler. He is ordinary stature, about 5 feet 9 or 10 inches high, of rather a copper color, remarkably handsome, and genteel in his appearance. As this servant has had great privileges, he has no doubt accumulated considerable money, and will probably change his clothing. He has taken with him a handsome blue frock coat, one gray coatee with steel buttons, one drab-colored overcoat, one pair of blue pantaloons, and one new pair of light mixed cloth. He went off without provocation, and I have no doubt but he has gone immediately for some free State.

I will give $50 if taken in Prince George’s county, and in the District of Columbia; $100 if taken out of the county. Am in the State of Maryland, and the above reward if taken anywhere else.

JOHN H. BAYNE, Near Alexandria.
Nov. 11—eo6t

(African Americans • Antebellum South, US) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

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