The excitement was palpable as crowds gathered here September 12, 1839, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Battle of North Point. Officials laid the cornerstone for a memorial to the citizens-soldiers who defended Baltimore against British attack in 1814. Dr. Jacob Houck conveyed this site to Maryland “for…erecting a monument thereon.“ Known as Battle Acre, it was Baltimore County’s first public park. Advance Fire-from their position at a log house, the Baltimore Yagers riflemen fired on advancing British troops September 12, 1814. The house, which burned during the ensuing battle, was the approximate location of today’s Battle Acre Park.
“Twenty-five years have changed everything, except the undying… spirit which makes us feel that if our country is worth loving, it is worth defending.”
Captain Benjamin C. Howard, keynote speaker, September 12, 1839.
(Inscription next to the painting on the left)
The original Star-Spangled Banner was spread across the stage at the 1839 event.
(Inscription next to the painting on the right)
British troops (in red) engage the American defenders in the Battle of North Point.
(War of 1812) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
The Rev. John Preston Clarke (1831-1915), a free black man, and his Madagascar-born wife, Lucy Ann Renibe Winston, were raised in a Quaker community of free blacks in Montpelier. Ordained a minister in 1867, Clarke helped foster balck institutions through individual enterproise and spiritual leadership. He is associated with eight central Virginia Baptisit churches: Abner, Bethany, Ebenezer, Fifth Baptist, Greenwood, Mount Olive, St. James, and Shiloh, all of which remain active. Clarke and his wife are buried on land they owned and farmed west of AShland in an area known as Winston Estates.
Opened in 1906 to supply the Toronto market, this generating station was the first wholly Canadian-owned hydro-electric facility at Niagara Falls. Engineers adapted advanced European and American technologies to a difficult site in a bold and enterprising way. The station’s palatial powerhouse was designed by the eminent Toronto architect E. J. Lennox to complement the scenic setting. Symmetrical, colonnaded and faced in limestone, it is an early and unusual application of Beaux-Arts design to an industrial site in Canada. Purchased by Ontario Hydro in 1922, the station operated until 1974.
This is the location where the millrace turned due south, carrying water another 200 feet from this point into Chapman’s grist mill, built in 1822-25. The spring-fed water supply that flowed through the millrace came from two sources: Mission Lake to the northwest (now Lacy Park) and La Presa Dam to the northeast (now Sunny Slope Water Co. property). The open zanjas, or ditches, joined together on the west side of the mission quadrangle at Mission Drive. After turning the 13’ 6” diameter vertical wooden wheel which powered the mill, the expended water was led from the tailrace in open trenches to irrigate the mission garden, orange orchard, and 340 acres of rich soil that lay immediately south and east of the mill.
Mobilized at Abilene, Texas, 25 November 1940. Captured by the Japanese forces, 10 March, 1942. Liberated, 18 September 1945.
The 45th Infantry Division, comprised of National Guard units from Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, was one of the first four divisions ordered into Federal service by Congress’ joint resolution in 1940. Initially stationed at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, the 45th was relocated to Camp Barkeley in early 1941. The “Thunderbirds” found Abilene’s citizens welcoming, but Camp Barkeley was as yet little more than a tent city on undrained prairie. The new arrivals nicknamed their quarters “Camp Smokey Okie” and began rigorous training at once.
In 1786 John Burch, a United Empire loyalist, constructed a water-powered grist and sawmill on this site. He was the first to use the waters on the west bank of the Niagara River for industrial purposes. The mills were burned by the retreating American Army on July 26, 1814, after the Battle of Lundy’s Lane.
On August 6, 1918, this dumping scow broke loose from its towing tug about 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) upriver, with Gustav F. Lofberg and James N. Harris aboard. The men opened the bottom dumping doors and the scow grounded in the shallow rapids. They were rescued the next day by breeches buoy, on a line shot out from the roof of the adjacent powerhouse.
A philanthropic African American woman greatly improved Abilene’s minority neighborhoods. Eugenia Pickard was born in Georgia about 1877. She moved to Texas in the early 1900s and settled in Abilene. Here she owned several properties and made them available for no rent to poor families with children. She also provided places to play to African American children who had no public parks. When Pickard died in 1945, she left savings and property to the city of Abilene to be used for a new African American schoolhouse. The funds were insufficient, so instead the Eugenia Pickard Library was dedicated. Located within Abilene’s Carter G. Woodson High School, it served the surrounding community as an educational and social center.
