Edwin Stanton
Edwin McMasters Stanton was an American lawyer and politician who served as Secretary of War under the Lincoln Administration during most of the American Civil War. Stanton's management helped organize the massive military resources of the North and guide the Union to victory. However, he was criticized by many Union generals for perceived over-cautiousness and micromanagement, he organized the manhunt for Lincoln's killer, John Wilkes Booth. After Lincoln's assassination, Stanton remained as the Secretary of War under the new U. S. President Andrew Johnson during the first years of Reconstruction, he opposed the lenient policies of Johnson towards the former Confederate States. Johnson's attempt to dismiss Stanton led to U. S. President Johnson being impeached by the Radical Republicans in the House of Representatives. Stanton returned to law after retiring as Secretary of War, in 1869 was nominated as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by Johnson's successor, Ulysses S. Grant. Before the American Revolution, Stanton's paternal ancestors, the Stantons and the Macys, both of whom were Quakers, moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina.
In 1774, Stanton's grandfather, Benjamin Stanton, married Abigail Macy. Benjamin died in 1800; that year, Benjamin's widow moved to the Northwest Territory, accompanied by much of her family. Soon, Ohio was admitted to the Union, Macy proved to be one of the early developers of the new state, she settled there. One of her sons, became a physician in Steubenville, married Lucy Norman, the daughter of a Virginia planter, their marriage was met with the ire of Ohio's Quaker community, as Lucy was a Methodist, not a Quaker. This forced David Stanton to abandon the Quaker sect; the first of David and Lucy Stanton's four children, Edwin McMasters, was born to them on December 19, 1814 in Steubenville, Ohio. Edwin's early formal education consisted of a private school and a seminary behind the Stantons' residence, called "Old Academy"; when he was ten, he was transferred to a school taught by a Presbyterian minister. It was at ten that Edwin experienced his first asthma attack, a malady that would haunt him for life, sometimes to the point of convulsion.
His asthma assured him that he would be unable to partake in physical activities, so he found interest in books and poetry. Edwin attended Sunday school regularly. At the age of thirteen, Stanton become a full member of the Methodist church. David Stanton's medical practice afforded his family a decent living; when David Stanton died in December 1827 at his residence and family were left destitute. Edwin's mother opened a store in the front room of their residence, selling the medical supplies her husband left her, along with books and groceries; the youthful Edwin was removed from school, worked at the store of a local bookseller. Stanton began his college studies at the Episcopal Church-affiliated Kenyon College in 1831. At Kenyon, Stanton was involved in the college's Philomathesian Literary Society. Stanton sat on several of the society's committees and partook in its exercises and debates. Stanton was forced to leave Kenyon just at the end of his third semester for lack of finances. At Kenyon, his support of President Andrew Jackson's actions during the 1832 Nullification Crisis, a hotly debated topic among the Philomathesians, led him into the Democratic Party.
Further, Stanton's conversion to Episcopalianism and his revulsion of the practice of slavery were solidified there. After Kenyon, Stanton worked as a bookseller in Columbus. Stanton had hoped to obtain enough money to complete his final year at Kenyon. However, a small salary at the bookstore dashed the notion, he soon returned to Steubenville to pursue studies in law. Stanton studied law under the tutelage of Daniel Collier in preparation for the bar, he was admitted to practice in 1835, began work at a prominent law firm in Cadiz, Ohio under Chauncey Dewey, a well-known attorney. The firm's trial work fell to him. At the age of eighteen, Stanton met Mary Ann Lamson at Trinity Episcopal Church in Columbus, they soon engaged. After buying a home in Cadiz, Stanton went to Columbus. Stanton and Lamson had wished to be married at Trinity Episcopal, but Stanton's illness rendered this idea moot. Instead, the ceremony was performed at the home of Trinity Episcopal's rector on December 31, 1836. Afterwards, Stanton went to Virginia where his mother and sisters were, escorted the women back to Cadiz, where they would live with him and his wife.
After his marriage, Stanton partnered with federal judge Benjamin Tappan. Stanton's sister married Tappan's son. In Cadiz, Stanton was situated prominently in the local community, he worked with the town's anti-slavery society, with a local newspaper, the Sentinel and editing articles there. In 1837, Stanton was elected the prosecutor of Harrison County, on the Democratic ticket. Further, Stanton's increasing wealth allowed him to purchase a large tract of land in Washington County, several tracts in Cadiz. Stanton's relationship with Benjamin Tappan expanded when Tappan was elected the United States Senator from Ohio in 1838. Tappan asked Stanton to oversee his law operations; when his time as county prosecutor was finished, Stanton moved back to the town with his wife. Stanton's work in politics expanded, he served as a delegate at the Democrats' 1840 national convention in Baltimore, was featured prominently in Martin Van Buren's campaign in the 1840 presidential election, which
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral and political crisis, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, modernized the U. S. economy. Born in Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the frontier in a poor family. Self-educated, he became Whig Party leader, state legislator and Congressman, he left government to resume his law practice, but angered by the success of Democrats in opening the prairie lands to slavery, reentered politics in 1854. He became a leader in the new Republican Party and gained national attention in 1858 for debating and losing to national Democratic leader Stephen A. Douglas in a Senate campaign, he ran for President in 1860, sweeping the North and winning. Southern pro-slavery elements took his win as proof that the North was rejecting the Constitutional rights of Southern states to practice slavery.
They began the process of seceding from the union. To secure its independence, the new Confederate States of America fired on Fort Sumter, one of the few U. S. forts in the South. Lincoln called up volunteers and militia to restore the Union; as the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican Party, Lincoln confronted Radical Republicans, who demanded harsher treatment of the South. Lincoln fought the factions by pitting them against each other, by distributing political patronage, by appealing to the American people, his Gettysburg Address became an iconic call for nationalism, equal rights and democracy. He suspended habeas corpus, he averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair. Lincoln supervised the war effort, including the selection of generals and the naval blockade that shut down the South's trade; as the war progressed, he maneuvered to end slavery, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Lincoln managed his own re-election campaign, he sought to reconcile his damaged nation by avoiding retribution against the secessionists.
A few days after the Battle of Appomattox Court House, he was shot by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, on April 14, 1865, died the following day. Abraham Lincoln is remembered as the United States' martyr hero, he is ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U. S. presidents. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, as the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky, he was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from Hingham, Norfolk, to its namesake Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638. Samuel's grandson and great-grandson began the family's westward migration, passing through New Jersey and Virginia. Lincoln's paternal grandfather and namesake, Captain Abraham Lincoln, moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Kentucky, in the 1780s. Captain Lincoln was killed in an Indian raid in 1786, his children, including eight-year-old Thomas, Abraham's father, witnessed the attack.
Thomas worked at odd jobs in Kentucky and in Tennessee, before settling with members of his family in Hardin County, Kentucky, in the early 1800s. Lincoln's mother, Nancy, is assumed to have been the daughter of Lucy Hanks, although no record documents this. Thomas and Nancy married on June 12, 1806, in Washington County, moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, they produced three children: Sarah, born on February 10, 1807. Thomas Lincoln leased farms in Kentucky. Thomas became embroiled in legal disputes, lost all but 200 acres of his land in court disputes over property titles. In 1816, the family moved to Indiana, where the survey process was more reliable and land titles were more secure. Indiana was a "free" territory, they settled in an "unbroken forest" in Hurricane Township, Perry County. In 1860, Lincoln noted that the family's move to Indiana was "partly on account of slavery", but due to land title difficulties. In Kentucky and Indiana, Thomas worked as a farmer and carpenter, he owned farms, town lots and livestock, paid taxes, sat on juries, appraised estates, served on country slave patrols, guarded prisoners.
Thomas and Nancy were members of a Separate Baptists church, which forbade alcohol and slavery. Overcoming financial challenges, Thomas obtained clear title to 80 acres of land in what became known as the Little Pigeon Creek Community. On October 5, 1818, Nancy Lincoln died of milk sickness, leaving 11-year-old Sarah in charge of a household that included her father, 9-year-old Abraham, Dennis Hanks, Nancy's 19-year-old orphaned cousin; those who knew Lincoln recalled that he was distraught over his sister's death on January 20, 1828, while giving birth to a stillborn son. On December 2, 1819, Thomas married Sarah "Sally" Bush Johnston, a widow from Elizabethtown, with three children of her own. Abraham became close to his stepmother, whom he referred t
Voyageurs
The voyageurs were French Canadians who engaged in the transporting of furs by canoe during the fur trade years. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places and times where transportation of materials was over long distances; this major and challenging task of the fur trading business was done by canoe and by French Canadians. The term in its fur trade context applied, at a lesser extent, to other fur trading activities. Being a voyageur included being a part of a licensed, organized effort, one of the distinctions that set them apart from the coureurs des bois. Additionally, they were set apart from engagés, who were much smaller merchants and general laborers. Immigrants, engagés were men who were obliged to go anywhere and do anything their masters told them as long as their indentureship was still in place; until their contract expired, engagés were at the full servitude of their master, most a voyageur. Less than fifty percent of engagés whose contracts ended chose to remain in New France.
The voyageurs were regarded as legendary in French Canada. They were heroes celebrated in music. For reasons of promised celebrity status and wealth, this position was coveted. James H. Baker was once told by an unnamed retired voyageur: I could carry, paddle and sing with any man I saw. I have been twenty-four years a canoe man, forty-one years in service. I have saved the lives of ten voyageurs, have had six running dogs. I spent all of my money in pleasure. Were I young again, I would spend my life the same way over. There is no life so happy as a voyageur's life! Despite the fame surrounding the voyageur, their life was one of toil and not nearly as glorious as folk tales make it out to be. For example, they had to be able to carry two 90-pound bundles of fur over portage; some carried up to four or five, there is a report of a voyageur carrying seven for half of a mile. Hernias were common and caused death. Most voyageurs would start working when they were twenty-two and they would continue working until they were in their sixties.
They never made enough money to consider an early retirement from what was a physically grueling lifestyle. Europeans traded alongside the coast of North America with Native Americans; the early fur trade with Native Americans, which developed alongside the coasts of North America, was not limited to the beaver. Beavers were not valued and people preferred "fancy fur" or "fur, used with or on the pelt; the fur trade was viewed as secondary to fishing during this era. The earliest North American fur trading did not include long distance transportation of the furs after they were obtained by trade with the First Nations. Soon, coureurs des bois achieved business advantages by travelling deeper into the wilderness and trading there. By 1681, the King of France decided to control the traders by publishing an edict that banned fur and pelt trading in New France; as the trading process moved deeper into the wilderness, transportation of the furs became a larger part of the fur trading business process.
The authorities began a process of issuing permits. Those travellers associated with the canoe transportation part of the licensed endeavour became known as voyageurs, a term which means "traveler" in French; the fur trade was thus controlled by a small number of Montreal merchants. New France began a policy of expansion in an attempt to dominate the trade. French influence extended west and south. Forts and trading posts were built with the help of traders. Treaties were negotiated with native groups, fur trading became profitable and organized; the system became complex, the voyageurs, many of whom had been independent traders became hired laborers. By the late 1600s, a trade route through and beyond the Great lakes had been opened; the Hudson's Bay Company opened in 1670. The North West Company opened in 1784, exploring as far north as Lake Athabasca; the American Fur Company and operated by John Jacob Astor was founded in 1808. This company, by 1830, grew to control the American fur industry. In the late 1700s, demand in Europe grew for marten, lynx and beaver furs, expanding the trade, adding thousands to the ranks of voyageurs.
From the beginning of the fur trade in the 1680s until the late 1870s, the voyageurs were the blue-collar workers of the Montreal fur trade. At their height in the 1810s, they numbered as many as three thousand. For the most part, voyageurs were the crews hired to man the canoes that carried trade goods and supplies to trading locations where they were exchanged for furs, "rendezvous posts", they transported the furs back to Lachine near Montreal, also to points on the route to Hudson Bay. Some voyageurs stayed in the back country over the winter and transported the trade goods from the posts to farther-away French outposts; these men were known as the hivernants. They helped negotiate trade in native villages. In the spring they would carry furs from these remote outposts back to the rendezvous posts. Voyageurs served as guides for explorers; the majority of these canoe men we
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the U. S. Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification; the USPTO is "unique among federal agencies because it operates on fees collected by its users, not on taxpayer dollars". Its "operating structure is like a business in that it receives requests for services—applications for patents and trademark registrations—and charges fees projected to cover the cost of performing the services provide"; the USPTO is based in Alexandria, after a 2005 move from the Crystal City area of neighboring Arlington, Virginia. The offices under Patents and the Chief Information Officer that remained just outside the southern end of Crystal City completed moving to Randolph Square, a brand-new building in Shirlington Village, on April 27, 2009; the current Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO is Andrei Iancu.
He began his role as Director on February 8, 2018. Iancu was nominated by President Trump in August 2017, unanimously confirmed by the U. S. Senate. Prior to joining the USPTO, he was the Managing Partner at Irell & Manella LLP, where his practice focused on intellectual property litigation; the USPTO cooperates with the European Patent Office and the Japan Patent Office as one of the Trilateral Patent Offices. The USPTO is a Receiving Office, an International Searching Authority and an International Preliminary Examination Authority for international patent applications filed in accordance with the Patent Cooperation Treaty; the USPTO maintains a permanent, interdisciplinary historical record of all U. S. patent applications in order to fulfill objectives outlined in the United States Constitution. The legal basis for the United States patent system is Article 1, Section 8, wherein the powers of Congress are defined, it states, in part: The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
The PTO's mission is to promote "industrial and technological progress in the United States and strengthen the national economy" by: Administering the laws relating to patents and trademarks. The USPTO is headquartered at the Alexandria Campus, consisting of 11 buildings in a city-like development surrounded by ground floor retail and high rise residential buildings between the Metro stations of King Street station and Eisenhower Avenue station where the actual Alexandria Campus is located between Duke Street to Eisenhower Avenue, between John Carlyle Street to Elizabeth Lane in Alexandria, Virginia. An additional building in Arlington, was opened in 2009; the USPTO was expected by 2014 to open its first satellite offices in Detroit, Dallas and Silicon Valley to reduce backlog and reflect regional industrial strengths. The first satellite office opened in Detroit on July 13, 2012. In 2013, due to the budget sequestration, the satellite office for Silicon Valley, home to one of the nation's top patent-producing cities, was put on hold.
However and infrastructure updates continued after the sequestration, the Silicon Valley location opened in the San Jose City Hall in 2015. As of September 30, 2009, the end of the U. S. government's fiscal year, the PTO had 9,716 employees, nearly all of whom are based at its five-building headquarters complex in Alexandria. Of those, 6,242 were patent examiners and 388 were trademark examining attorneys. While the agency has noticeably grown in recent years, the rate of growth was far slower in fiscal 2009 than in the recent past. Patent examiners make up the bulk of the employees at USPTO, they hold degrees in various scientific disciplines, but do not hold law degrees. Unlike patent examiners, trademark examiners must be licensed attorneys. All examiners work under a strict, "count"-based production system. For every application, "counts" are earned by composing and mailing a first office action on the merits, upon disposal of an application; the Commissioner for Patents oversees three main bodies, headed by former Deputy Commissioner for Patent Operations Peggy Focarino, the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy Andrew Hirshfeld as Acting Deputy, the Commissioner for Patent Resources and Planning, vacant.
The Patent Operations of the office is divided into nine different technology centers that deal with various arts. Prior to 2012, decisions of patent examiners may be appealed to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, an administrative law body of the USPTO. Decisions of the BPAI could further be appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, or a civil suit may be brought against the Commissioner of Patents in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia; the United States Supreme Court may decide on a patent case. Under the America Invents Act, the BPAI was converted to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board or "PTAB". Simila
Portage
Portage or portaging is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are carried between bodies of water is called a portage. Early French explorers in New France and French Louisiana encountered many cascades; the Native Americans carried their canoes over land to avoid river obstacles. Over time, important portages were sometimes provided with canals with locks, portage railways. Primitive portaging involves carrying the vessel and its contents across the portage in multiple trips. Small canoes can be portaged by carrying them inverted over one's shoulders and the center strut may be designed in the style of a yoke to facilitate this. Voyageurs employed tump lines on their heads to carry loads on their backs. Portages can be many kilometers in length, such as the 19-kilometre Methye Portage and the 8.5-mile Grand Portage covering hilly or difficult terrain. Some portages involve little elevation change, such as the short Mavis Grind in Shetland, which crosses an isthmus.
This section deals with the heavy freight canoes used by the Canadian Voyageurs. Portage trails began as animal tracks and were improved by tramping or blazing. In a few places iron-plated wooden rails were laid to take a handcart. Used routes sometimes evolved into roads when sledges, rollers or oxen were used, as at Methye Portage. Sometimes railways or canals were built; when going downstream through rapids an experienced voyageur called the guide would inspect the rapids and choose between the heavy work of a portage and the life-threatening risk of running the rapids. If the second course were chosen, the boat would be controlled by the avant standing in front with a long paddle and the gouvernail standing in the back with a 2.7-metre steering paddle. The avant had a better view and was in charge but the gouvernail had more control over the boat; the other canoemen provided power under the instructions of the avant. Going upstream was more difficult, as there were many places where the current was too swift to paddle.
Where the river bottom was shallow and firm, voyageurs would stand in the canoe and push it upstream with 3-metre poles. If the shoreline was reasonably clear the canoe could be'tracked' or'lined', that is, the canoemen would pull the canoe on a rope while one man stayed on board to keep it away from the shore. In worse conditions, the'demi-chargé' technique was used. Half the cargo was unloaded, the canoe forced upstream and returned downstream to pick up the remaining half of the cargo. In still worse currents, the entire cargo was unloaded and carried overland while the canoe was forced upstream. In the worst case a full portage was necessary; the canoe was carried overland by two or four men The cargo was divided into standard 41-kilogram packs or pièces with each man responsible for about six. One portage or canoe pack would be carried by one on the back. To allow regular rests the voyageur would drop his pack at a pose about every 1 kilometre and go back for the next load; the time for a portage was estimated at one hour per half mile.
The Diolkos was a paved trackway in Ancient Greece which enabled boats to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth between the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf. It was constructed to transport high ranking Despots to conduct business in the justice system; the 6 km to 8.5 km long roadway was a rudimentary form of railway, operated from around 600 BC until the middle of the 1st century AD. The scale on which the Diolkos combined the two principles of the railway and the overland transport of ships was unique in antiquity. There is scant literary evidence for two more ship trackways referred to as diolkoi in antiquity, both located in Roman Egypt: The physician Oribasius records two passages from his 1st century AD colleague Xenocrates, in which the latter casually refers to a diolkos close to the harbor of Alexandria, which may have been located at the southern tip of the island of Pharos. Another diolkos is mentioned by Ptolemy in his book on geography as connecting a false mouth of a silted up Nile branch with the Mediterranean Sea.
The land link between Adige river and Garda lake in Northern Italy, hardly used by the smallest watercraft, was at least once used by the Venetian Republic for the transport of a military fleet in 1439. The land link is now somewhat harder because of the disappearance of Loppio lake. In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, Viking merchant-adventurers exploited a network of waterways in Eastern Europe, with portages connecting the four most important rivers of the region: Volga, Western Dvina and Don; the portages of what is now Russia were vital for the Varangian commerce with the Orient and Byzantium. At the most important portages there were trade outposts inhabited by a mixture of Norse merchants and native population; the Khazars built the fortress of Sarkel to guard a key portage between the Don. After Varangian and Khazar power in Eastern Europe waned, Slavic merchants continued to use the portages along the Volga trade route and the Dnieper trade route; the names of the towns Volokolamsk and Vyshny Volochek may be translated as "the portage on the Lama River" and "the little upper portage", res
Maritime transport
Maritime transport, fluvial transport, or more waterborne transport is the transport of people or goods via waterways. Freight transport by sea has been used throughout recorded history; the advent of aviation has diminished the importance of sea travel for passengers, though it is still popular for short trips and pleasure cruises. Transport by water is cheaper than transport by air, despite fluctuating exchange rates and a fee placed on top of freighting charges for carrier companies known as the currency adjustment factor. Maritime transport can be realized over any distance by boat, sailboat or barge, over oceans and lakes, through canals or along rivers. Shipping may be for military purposes. While extensive inland shipping is less critical today, the major waterways of the world including many canals are still important and are integral parts of worldwide economies. Any material can be moved by water. Still, water transport is cost effective with regular schedulable cargoes, such as trans-oceanic shipping of consumer products – and for heavy loads or bulk cargos, such as coal, ores or grains.
Arguably, the industrial revolution took place best where cheap water transport by canal, navigations, or shipping by all types of watercraft on natural waterways supported cost effective bulk transport. Containerization revolutionized maritime transport starting in the 1970s. "General cargo" includes goods packaged in boxes, cases and barrels. When a cargo is carried in more than one mode, it is co-modal. A nation's shipping fleet consists of the ships operated by civilian crews to transport passengers or cargo from one place to another. Merchant shipping includes water transport over the river and canal systems connecting inland destinations and small. For example, during the early modern era, cities in the Hanseatic League began taming Northern Europe's rivers and harbors. And, for instance, the Saint Lawrence Seaway connects the port cities on the Great Lakes in Canada and the United States with the Atlantic Ocean shipping routes. Ores and grains can travel along the rivers of the American midwest to Pittsburgh, or Birmingham.
Professional mariners are merchant seaman, merchant sailor, merchant mariner, or seaman, sailor, or mariners. The terms "seaman" or "sailor" may refer to a member of a country's navy. According to the 2005 CIA World Factbook, the total number of merchant ships of at least 1,000 gross register tons in the world was 30,936. In 2010, it was 38,988, an increase of 26%; as of December 2018, a quarter of all merchant mariners were born in the Philippines. Statistics for individual countries are available at the list of merchant navy capacity by country. A ship's complement can be divided into four categories: the deck department, the engine department, the steward's department, other. Officer positions in the deck department include but not limited to: Master and his Chief and Third officers; the official classifications for unlicensed members of the deck department are Able Seaman and Ordinary Seaman. A common deck crew for a ship includes: Chief Officer/Chief Mate Second Officer /Second Mate Third Officer / Third Mate Boatswain Able Seamen Ordinary SeamenA deck cadet is a person, carrying out mandatory sea time to achieve their officer of the watch certificate.
Their time on board is spent learning the operations and tasks of everyday life on a merchant vessel. A ship's engine department consists of the members of a ship's crew that operate and maintain the propulsion and other systems on board the vessel. Engine staff deal with the "Hotel" facilities on board, notably the sewage, air conditioning and water systems, they deal with bulk fuel transfers, require training in firefighting and first aid, as well as in dealing with the ship's boats and other nautical tasks- with cargo loading/discharging gear and safety systems, though the specific cargo discharge function remains the responsibility of deck officers and deck workers. On LPG and LNG tankers however, a cargo engineer works with the deck department during cargo operations, as well as being a watchkeeping engineer. A common engine crew for a ship includes: Chief engineer Second engineer / first assistant engineer Third engineer / second assistant engineer Fourth engineer / third assistant engineer Fifth engineer / junior engineer Oiler Greaser Entry-level rating Many American ships carry a motorman.
Other possible positions include machinist, refrigeration engineer, tankerman. Engine cadets are engineer trainees who are completing sea time necessary before they can obtain a watchkeeping license. A typical Steward's department for a cargo ship would be composed of a Chief Steward, a Chief Cook, a Steward's Assistant. All three positions are filled by unlicensed personnel; the chief steward directs and assigns personnel performing such functions as preparing and serving meals. On large passenger vessels, the Catering Department is headed by the Chief Purser and managed by Assistant Pursers. Although they enjoy the benefits of having officer rank, they progress through the ranks to becom
Sangamon River
The Sangamon River is a principal tributary of the Illinois River 246 miles long, in central Illinois in the United States. It drains a rural agricultural area between Peoria and Springfield; the river is associated with the early career of Abraham Lincoln and played an important role in the early white settlement of Illinois, when the area around was known as the "Sangamon River Country". The section of the Sangamon River that flows through Robert Allerton Park near Monticello was named a National Natural Landmark in 1971; the river rises from several short headstreams in southern McLean County that arise from a glacial moraine southeast of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. Part of the moraine is publicly owned as the Moraine View State Recreation Area; the river's course forms a large arc through central Illinois, first flowing east into Champaign County, south through Mahomet west through Monticello and Decatur turning northwest to flow along the north side of Springfield. It receives Salt Creek at 40°7′33.24″N 89°49′30.36″W 25 miles north-northwest of Springfield.
It joins the Illinois River from the east just north of Beardstown. The Sangamon is impounded in Decatur to form Lake Decatur, constructed in 1920–1922 to provide a water supply for Decatur; this lake, formed by damming the main stem of the river, with no control over upstream land uses, has had major problems with siltation and agricultural pollution. The lake has excessive nitrate levels from agricultural runoff. Many times the city was forced to warn people not to allow babies to consume water in Decatur because of "blue baby syndrome", Methemoglobinemia. Decatur has now installed nitrate treatment to avoid this problem; the upper Sangamon, between Mahomet and Monticello, runs along the face of a terminal moraine within the Lake Michigan Glacial Lobe, which ranges in age from 28,000 to 12,000 BP. During the glacial Woodfordian Substage, ice of the Lake Michigan Glacial Lobe advanced leaving a terminal moraine parallel to the modern Sangamon River; the ice stagnated and melted behind this moraine, without the meltwater overtopping the terminal moraine.
Along this stretch, the eastern part of the watershed of the Sangamon therefore consists of short creeks, two to three miles in length, that drain the face of the moraine. This forms an asymmetric watershed typical of rivers formed along the face of a terminal moraine; the river was home to many different groups of Native Americans in the centuries before the arrival of Europeans. The name of the river comes from a Pottawatomie word Sain-guee-mon meaning "where there is plenty to eat." In the 18th century, groups of the Kickapoo settled along the river. In the middle 18th century, the region near the river was the scene of a conflict between the Illini and Fox as part of the larger French and Iroquois Wars. French traders were active in the region throughout the middle 18th century when it was part of the Illinois Country; the first U. S. settlers arrived in the region in the 1810s. In 1821, Elijah Iles built the first commercial building in Springfield. Groups of Cumberland Presbyterians settled the river valley beginning in 1825, giving the region a distinctive culture identified and described at the turn of the 20th century by Edgar Lee Masters.
Abraham Lincoln arrived with his family in the area in 1830 to settle a section of government land bisected by the river. The site, now Lincoln Trail Homestead State Memorial, was selected by Lincoln's father after the family had economic and land-title difficulties in Indiana; the 21-year-old Lincoln helped build a 16 foot by 16 foot cabin along the river. The following year in 1831, he canoed down the river to homestead on his own near New Salem in Menard County northwest of Springfield; that year he floated down the river with companions on a flatboat to the Illinois River, following the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Lincoln was impressed by the navigational difficulties on the river during the arrival of the first steamship, the Talisman, a 150-ton steamer, up the river to Springfield in March 1832; some sources state that Lincoln himself piloted the first steamship up the Sangamon to Springfield, accomplishing this feat with many men as large as Lincoln, with axes to chop through whatever trees impeded the journey.
More Lincoln acted as a guide and axeman. In years, he told of taking a steamship three miles into the prairie after losing his way on the Sangamon during a flood. During his first campaign for the Illinois General Assembly in 1832, he made navigational improvements on the river a centerpiece of his platform; the Potawatomi Trail of Death passed through here in 1838. Despite its environmental problems, the Sangamon River is a focus of recreation for the people of Central Illinois. Key parklands along the river, moving from upstream to downstream, include Shady Rest, Robert Allerton Park, the parks bordering Lake Decatur, Rock Springs Conservation Area, Lincoln Trail Homestead State Park, Springfield's Carpenter Park and Riverside Park, the Sangamon River State Fish and Wildlife Area, Lincoln's New Salem and the Sanganois State Fish and Wildlife Area; the river was mentioned in Sufjan Stevens's song "Decatur, Or, Round Of Applause For Your Stepmother!". Singer songwriter Ben Bedford references the Sangamon in several of his songs, one of, titled after it.
Abraham Lincoln and the Sangamon River Northern Illinois University: Sangamon History Illinois Genealogy Trails: Following Lincoln on the Sangamon John Knoepfle: Poems from the Sangamon Fox wars Prairie Rivers Network San
