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Québec Martello Towers

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Quebec, Capitale-Nationale (region), Québec
English:
Four Martello towers (three of which remains) were an integral part of the defences of Québec, the key to the control of the continental interior of North America. Works had been proposed in the Plains of Abraham since the early 1790s, but only after the Anglo-American crisis of 1807 did Governor Sir James Craig order construction of the towers. Built between 1808 and 1812, they were intended to prevent an attacker drawing close enough to lay siege to the walls of Québec. Their effectiveness was never tested in battle, and they became obsolete in the 1860s.

French:
Quatre tours Martello (il en reste trois) faisaient partie des fortifications de Québec, lieu stratégique pour le contrôle de l'intérieur de l'Amérique du Nord. On avait projeté de construire des ouvrages de défense sur la plaine d'Abraham dès le début des années 1790, mais le gouverneur sir James Craig ordonna l'édification des tours seulement après la crise anglo-américaine de 1807. Érigées entre 1808 et 1812, elles devaient empêcher l'agresseur de s’approcher suffisamment pour assiéger la ville. Leur efficacité ne fut jamais éprouvée militairement et, dès les années 1860, elles devinrent désuètes.

(Forts, Castles • War of 1812) Includes location, directions, 6 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Terrytown

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Louisiana, Jefferson Parish, Terrytown

1960 Paul Kapelow prefab
diamond-shaped develop~
ment with alphabetical
street plan named for
daughter Terry. Area's
"first completely winter~
summer air conditioned
neighborhood."

(Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

St. John's Episcopal Church

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Kansas, Clay County, near Wakefield

This was the original site
of the
St. Johns
Episcopal Church
Founded in 1874

Founding members are listed on
the stone cross in the cemetery

(Churches, Etc.) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Founders of St. John's Parish in 1874

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Kansas, Clay County, near Wakefield

Rev. W. H. Hickcox • Dr. Charles Hewitt • Frank Lewin • W. A. Willis • J. P. Marshall • H. S. Walters • E. F. Walters • B. Adams • T. C. Ruscoe • Charles Ingram • R. T. Batchalor • E. M. Davis • R. Fowles • A. B. Rothwell • James H. Young • T. N. Pettigrew • E. T. Buckell • Mrs. M. L. Pearson • Mrs. Charles Moultrie • Rev. Alfred Brown • I. W. Thomas • Edward Jones • F. D. Broughton • Philip Pocock

(Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Churches, Etc. • Man-Made Features • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

The War of 1812 Living History

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Maryland, Calvert County, St. Leonard
At Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum, living history is an important way to educate visitors about the museum’s important role in the War of 1812. Recognizing the importance of making history come to life, Richard Fischer, Jr. has been instrumental in expanding War of 1812 educational opportunities. His support helped to establish the annual War of 1812 reenactment, which allows visitors to step back in time and immerse themselves in the sights and sounds of this important period in Maryland’s history. Richard H. Fischer, Jr. has supported Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum programs for over a decade. Mr. Fischer was the first recipient of the Patterson Prize, the highest award given in recognition of his distinguished service throughout Southern Maryland.

(Inscription beside the photo on the center right)
Oliver Keely (right) joins Richard Fischer at the Lighthouse Inn in Solomons. Thousands of dollars have been raised for archaeology and educational programs at the Friends of JPPM’s annual benefit auction, which Mr. Fischer started.

(Inscription at the bottom right)
JPPM Executive Director Michael A. Smolek (right) and friends on JPPM President Patrick Furey (center) present outgoing Friends President Richard Fischer with an aerial photograph of JPPM. Fischer served as Friends President from 1997 to 2000.

(Inscription under the photo in the bottom left)
Live firing demonstrations give visitors a chance to immerse themselves in the sights, sounds and smells of the battle.

(Inscription under the photo in the lower center)
Reenactors portraying British troops prepare their weapons during a skirmish. Participants come from throughout the United States and Canada to participate in Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum’s War of 1812 Reenactment.

(Inscription under the photo in the upper right)
Troops in the American camp present the Star Spangled Banner as they sing the National Anthem.

(Inscription under the photo in the lower right)
Visitors can walk through American and British camps and talk to reenactors. Participants are happy to explain this often misunderstood period in American history.

(War of 1812) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Smith’s St. Leonard Site

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Maryland, Calvert County, St. Leonard
Between 1767 and 1773, two neighbors-Thomas Johnson (father of Maryland’s first state governor) and Walter Smith-twice went to court to settle a dispute about the boundary of Smith’s plantation of St. Leonard. Many local residents were called to testify, and a plat was drawn of the property. The depositions and the plat contain wonderful descriptions of the plantation’s buildings, fences, and fields, including old structures that were in ruins by the 1770s. Armed with this landscape information which often is not available to researchers, the JPPM Public Archaeology Program began to investigate the area that was the heart of the Smith plantation in the early 1700s.

In the mid-1600s, Richard Smith, Sr., Maryland’s first Attorney General, settled at St. Leonard. According to the plot, his home and the family cemetery were located next to the museum buildings that now stand behind you. Archaeologists believe that the Smith family lived in 3 different houses between the 1650s and the 1710s. In the colonial period, people often stayed in a house for only a few decades before moving to a new location on their farm. Because of this, people sometimes assume that any old house standing today dates to when a property was first settled, when in fact it may be much younger.

(Inscription under the image in the lower center)
View of the field in front of you, showing the locations of some of the buildings marked within the circle on the 1773 plat at the right.

Historical Evidence
“…ye Dwelling House wherein the Plaintiffs’ Grandfather lived; on ye Gable end of which is Set, in Brick ‘ye following Figures…1711.”
Detail from the 1773 plot, giving the year the plantation’s main house was built.

“Joshua Sedwick…standing in an Old Road Deposeth that when…he was not more than Ten or Twelve years of age a Gate stood there…”
Deposition of Joshua Sedwick, age 57, on February 11, 1773, showing that detailed landscape information provided by the court case.

Funding for this project was provided by the Maryland Humanities Council and the Friends of Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum.

(Colonial Era • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Clay Center Municipal Band Shell

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Kansas, Clay County, Clay Center

Constructed in 1934
with PWA funds
H.L. Stevens, City Engr.
Wesley J. Morse, Designer
Dedicated
May 30, 1934

Refurbished
in 1996 by
Craftmaster, Wichita, Ks.
With funds provided by
City of Clay Center
and Individual Donations
Rededicated
Sept. 28, 1996

(Charity & Public Work • Entertainment • Man-Made Features) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

U.S. Arsenal Explosion Memorial

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District of Columbia, Washington

Dedicated to the Memory of the Victims of the U.S. Arsenal Explosion on June 17, 1864

Ellen Roche
Julia McEwen
Bridget Dunn
W. E. Tippett
Margaret Horan
Johanna Connors
Susan Harris

Lizzie Brahler
Margaret Yonson
Bettie Branagan
Eliza Lacey
Emma Baird
Kate Brosnahan
Louisa Lloyd

Mellisa Adams
Emily Collins
Mary Burroughs
Annie Bache
Rebecca Hull
Allie McElfresh
Pinkey Scott

By
The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War
The Ladies & Men of the Ancient Order of Hibernians
June 17, 2014

(Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Disasters • War, US Civil) Includes location, directions, 11 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Governor Grant's Plantations

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Florida, Saint Johns County, near Ponte Vedra Beach
In 1768, James Grant (1720-1806), Governor of British East Florida from 1763 to 1773, established Grant's Villa Plantation at the juncture of the Guana and North Rivers. Enslaved Africans cleared the 1,450-acre tract of land, planted indigo seeds, and processed the plants into blue indigo dye. Indigo dye became East Florida's main export, and Grant's Villa was its most profitable plantation. By 1780, due to declining soil fertility and the disruption of transportation routes during the American Revolution, indigo cultivation was no longer profitable. Ordered to develop a new estate 12 miles north at the headwaters of Guana River, overseer William Brockie and the slaves completed Mount Pleasant Plantation in 1781. Just south of today's Mickler Road, between SR A1A and Neck Road, the slaves built two earthen dams which enclosed a 220-acre rice field. The dam on the south blocked the flow of salty tidal water. The barricade to the north created a fresh water reservoir. In 1784, following the return of East Florida to Spain, both plantations were abandoned and the enslaved Africans were transported to The Bahamas, from where they were sold to rice planters in South Carolina.

(African Americans • Colonial Era • Horticulture & Forestry • Landmarks • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 1 photo, GPS coordinates, map.

Custom House, circa 1720

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Virginia, York County, Yorktown
…collectors are hereby impowered to demand, secure, and receive all…the duties, customes and imposts…with full power to go on board any boat, ship or other vessel, or into any house…where he shall have just cause to suspect any fraud…collectors…shall…in Aprill and October…render a true and just account upon oath, and make payment…of money as they…shall receive and collect for the duties…" An Act for Ports &c., April 16, 1691, Virginia Legislative Assembly

In 1691, Virginia's colonial legislature passed "An Act for Ports," in an effort to better regulate trade for the collection of import and export fees and duties. The act called for the creation of several ports, including Yorktown, and the appointment of Collectors of Ports by the royal governor. During Yorktown's peak as a commercial port in the mid-1700s, Richard Ambler, and later his son, Jacquelin, served as a collector of ports.

In 1721, Richard Ambler built this large, brick storehouse and from here he and his son handled their collector duties. Ship captains recently arriving and merchants arranging for transport of goods would convene at Ambler's storehouse to complete the required paperwork and pay associated fees.

The outbreak of the American Revolution brought an end to many port activities, including the collection of customs. In 1776, Virginia militia troops were using the Custom House for barracks and two years later, Jacquelin Ambler sold the property.

In 1924, the Compte de Grasse Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution purchased the Custom House and restored it five years later. Today the Custom House still continues in use as a Chapter House and Museum.

(Colonial Era • War, US Revolutionary) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Medical Shop (Reconstructed)

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Virginia, York County, Yorktown
Dr. Corbin Griffin was a prominent Yorktown physician active in the American Revolutionary War, serving as a surgeon with Virginia forces. During the siege of Yorktown, he was imprisoned by the British on a ship anchored in the York River. During his confinement, his "cellar Down the watter Side" was pilfered by sailors from the British sloop Bonneta while other British troops took items from his medical shop.

"I must…request that your Lordship will inform me of the Reason of Dr. Griffin's confinement on Board of one of your Prison Ships." — Governor Thomas Nelson, Jr. to General Charles Lord Cornwallis, September 25, 1781

(Colonial Era • War, US Revolutionary) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

An Archer House

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Virginia, York County, Yorktown
Yorktown had a "great fire" in 1814. This destroyed all but the foundations of this house, thought to be one of Thomas Archer's "Houses under the Hill." The present restoration is the nineteeth century dwelling built on the older stone foundations.

(Colonial Era) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Competition 1869

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Utah, Box Elder County, near Corinne
Lacking precise instructions from Congress as to where to meet, and spurred by financial rewards for building grade, both railroad companies prepared railbed past each other for 250 miles. No parallel track was ever laid.

Promontory Summit was chosen as the point for the joining of the rails.

(Railroads & Streetcars) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

May 9, 1869

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Utah, Box Elder County, near Corinne
In this photo, taken one day before the transcontinental line was completed, a 30-foot gap in the railroad remained. A tent town quickly grew around the Last Spike Site, and two of the first businesses, the Restaurant and the Red Cloud Saloon can be seen in the background. Within days, numerous other tents would appear as the town of Promontory came into existence. Behind the crowd are some of the cars which carried Central Pacific Railroad dignitaries to the celebration.

(Railroads & Streetcars) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Broadcasting the Blues

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Mississippi, Harrison County, Gulfport

Front
Blues radio took off in the post-World War II era with the arrival of rhythm & blues programming. A new era for blues radio began in 2000 when Rip Daniels, a Gulfport native, launched the American Blues Network (ABN) at this site. Using satellite and Internet technology, ABN provided a mix of modern and vintage blues to listeners around the world.

Rear
Radio emerged as the primary medium for the dissemination of music, advertisements, and news to the African American community during the 1940s and ‘50s. In Mississippi, the earliest radio stations to broadcast black music, usually in the form of local groups singing gospel or traditional harmonies live in the studios, included WQBC in Vicksburg, WGRM in Greenwood, and WJPC in Greenville. In the 1940s, Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller) brought the blues to audiences throughout the Delta via his live broadcasts from KFFA in Helena, Arkansas, and later from WROX in Clarksdale, WAZF in Yazoo City, and other stations. Among the first African American radio announcers in Mississippi were Early Wright, Jerome Stampley, Bruce Payne, William Harvey, and Charles Evers.

In 1949 WDIA in Memphis became the first station in the country to go to an all-black format. By the early ‘50s a number of Mississippi radio stations were broadcasting the blues as a component of their wide-ranging program schedules, which were designed to reach entire local communities rather than specializing in certain genres or formats. The buying power of Mississippi’s large African American population spurred more blues and rhythm & blues air time, which was often sponsored by local businesses advertising groceries, furniture, or medicinal tonics. On September 17, 1954, WOKJ in Jackson became the first Mississippi station to institute full-time black-oriented programming.

Not until WORV went on the air in Hattiesburg on June 7, 1969, however, did Mississippi have an African American-owned station. When radio veteran and blues promoter Stan “Rip” Daniels launched WJZD radio in Gulfport on March 20, 1994, it became the first African American-owned FM station on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. According to the 2007 Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook, Mississippi had more stations (thirteen) regularly broadcasting under a blues format than any other state. In addition, specialized blues programs have been aired on various college, public, rock, oldies, and urban contemporary stations.

Daniels took the blues concept a step further on October 1, 2000, when the American Blues Network transmitted its first satellite signals from the WJZD studios. Adopting a primary format of “party blues and oldies,” the ABN secured affiliations with dozens of stations across the country and put its programs on the internet as well. Daniels’s concert promotions also ensured support of the blues and southern soul performers on the Gulf Coast “chitlin’ circuit.”

(African Americans • Arts, Letters, Music • Entertainment) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

September 8, 1942

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Utah, Box Elder County, near Corinne
After the opening of the Lucin Cutoff in 1904, the historic rail line north of the Great Salt Lake was of minimal importance. In 1942 the last spike was ceremonially “undriven” here before a crowd of Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, and state dignitaries. In a few months, the entire line between Corinne and Lucin was salvaged, with the steel directed to America’s war effort.

(Railroads & Streetcars) Includes location, directions, 2 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Jubilation Coast to Coast

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Utah, Box Elder County, near Corinne
For four years Americans closely followed the progress of the Pacific railroad in their newspapers, anxious to see it completed. By May 1869, intense attention was focused on this desolate corner of northern Utah. The entire country was eager for word that the last spike had been driven.

A telegraph signal sent from the tracks just 100 yards ahead triggered a truly transcontinental extravaganza. As the word went out over the wires, the nation went wild. In city after city, church bells rang, trains hooted, fire engines howled, gongs clanged, and cannons thundered. Citizen thronged the streets to watch parades. People sang The Star-Spangled Banner, prayed, and shouted themselves hoarse. Countless orators hailed this as a “great day” of national destiny.

(Railroads & Streetcars) Includes location, directions, 1 photo, GPS coordinates, map.

Graveline

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Mississippi, Jackson County, Gautier
In 1718 this area was settled by Jean-Baptiste Baudreau dit Graveline, born 1671 in Montreal. Arrived with d'lberville at Fort Maurepas aboard the Renommée Jan 8, 1700.
Prominent colonist~adventurer~merchant.

(Colonial Era • Forts, Castles • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

The Magnolia Route

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Mississippi, Harrison County, Gulfport
On April 20, 1925, the Magnolia Route opened with a forty-hour, 1,000 mile endurance drive from Gulfport to Chicago. This route was designed to bring more commerce and tourism to Mississippi.

(Industry & Commerce • Roads & Vehicles) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.

Brookgreen Pantation

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South Carolina, Georgetown County, near Pawleys Island
Title to the land that comprised Brookgreen plantation is traced to a patent for 48,000 acres granted to Robert Daniell in 1711. The property passed to the Allston family when William Allston bought it circa 1740. William Allston Jr. acquired it in 1764 and developed it as his home plantation. By 1799 title had passed to Joshua Ward, whose son, Joshua John Ward, was born here in 1800.

Joshua John Ward was active in the Winyah and All Saints Agricultural Society and was noted for his development of long-grain rice. He would become among the wealthiest planters in the nation. In 1850 Ward’s plantations, including Brookgreen, yielded 3,900,000 pounds of rice on land cultivated by 1,092 enslaved laborers. Ward and his descendants lived here until 1938.

(Agriculture • Antebellum South, US) Includes location, directions, 5 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
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