1.
Charles Willson Peale
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Charles Willson Peale was an American painter, soldier, scientist, inventor, politician and naturalist. He is best remembered for his paintings of leading figures of the American Revolution. Peale was born in 1741 in Chester, Queen Annes County, Maryland and he had a younger brother, James Peale. Charles became an apprentice to a saddle maker when he was thirteen years old, upon reaching maturity, he opened his own saddle shop, however, when his Loyalist creditors discovered he had joined the Sons of Liberty, they conspired to bankrupt his business. He was also, not very good at saddle making and he then tried fixing clocks and working with metals, but both of these endeavors failed as well. Finding that he had a talent for painting, especially portraiture, Peale studied for a time under John Hesselius, John Beale Bordley and friends eventually raised enough money for him to travel to England to take instruction from Benjamin West. Peale studied with West for three years beginning in 1767, afterward returning to America and settling in Annapolis, Maryland, there, he taught painting to his younger brother, James Peale, who in time also became a noted artist. Peales enthusiasm for the nascent national government brought him to the capital, Philadelphia, in 1776 and his estate, which is on the campus of La Salle University in Philadelphia, can still be visited. He also raised troops for the War of Independence and eventually gained the rank of captain in the Pennsylvania militia by 1776, while in the field, he continued to paint, doing miniature portraits of various officers in the Continental Army. He produced enlarged versions of these in later years and he served in the Pennsylvania state assembly in 1779–1780, after which he returned to painting full-time. Peale was quite prolific as an artist, while he did portraits of scores of historic figures, he is probably best known for his portraits of George Washington. The first time Washington sat for a portrait was with Peale in 1772, in January 2005, a full-length portrait of Washington at Princeton from 1779 sold for $21.3 million, setting a record for the highest price paid for an American portrait. One of his most celebrated paintings is The Staircase Group, a portrait of his sons Raphaelle and Titian. It is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Peale had a great interest in natural history, and organized the first U. S. scientific expedition in 1801. These two major interests combined in his founding of what became the Philadelphia Museum, later known as Peales American Museum and it housed a diverse collection of botanical, biological, and archaeological specimens. Most notably, the museum contained a variety of birds which Peale himself acquired. In 1792, Peale initiated a correspondence with Thomas Hall, of the Finsbury Museum, City Road, Finsbury, eventually, an exchange system was established between the two, whereby Peale sent American birds to Hall in exchange for an equal number of British birds. This arrangement continued until the end of the century, the Peale Museum was the first to display a mastodon skeleton that Peale found in New York State
2.
Hopkinton, New Hampshire
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Hopkinton is a town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 5,589 at the 2010 census, the town was granted by Colonial Governor Jonathan Belcher in 1735 as Number 5 to settlers from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, who renamed it New Hopkinton. First settled in 1736, colonists were required to build homes, fence in their land, plant it with English grass, the community would be incorporated in 1765 by Governor Benning Wentworth. Built in 1789, the Congregational Church has a Revere bell, the legislature met in Hopkinton occasionally between 1798 and 1807. In 1808, the town competed for the position of state capitol. A substantial portion of the town in the north was named Contoocook Village for a tribe of the Pennacook Indians who once lived there, due to its position along the Contoocook River, it became a center for water-powered industry, particularly lumber and textiles. The Contoocook covered railroad bridge in the village is a remnant of the Boston & Maine Railroad and is the oldest covered bridge of its still standing in the United States. Next to the bridge is the Contoocook Railroad Depot, one of the railroad depots for the Concord. Since 1915, Hopkinton has been home to the Hopkinton State Fair, an event which attracts thousands of visitors each year during the Labor Day weekend. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 45.2 square miles, of which 43.4 square miles is land and 1.8 square miles is water. Hopkinton is drained by the Contoocook and Warner rivers, the highest point in town is Shaker Hill, on the border with Henniker, with an elevation of 923 feet above sea level. Hopkinton lies fully within the Merrimack River watershed, as of the census of 2010, there were 5,589 people,2,204 households, and 1,631 families residing in the town. The population density was 124.7 people per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 97. 7% White,0. 3% African American,0. 1% Native American,0. 6% Asian,0. 07% Pacific Islander,0. 1% from other races, and 1. 2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1% of the population,19. 6% of all households were made up of individuals living alone and 6. 3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.54 and the family size was 2.92. In the town, the population was out with 25. 3% under the age of 20,3. 3% from 20 to 24,20. 1% from 25 to 44,35. 2% from 45 to 64. The median age was 45.8 years, the median income for a household in the town was $84,911, and the median income for a family was $88,796
3.
Alton, Illinois
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Alton is a city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois, United States, about 15 miles north of St. Louis, Missouri. The population was 27,865 at the 2010 census and it is a part of the Metro-East region of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. It was the site of the last Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debate in October 1858, the former state penitentiary here was used during the war to hold up to 12,000 Confederate prisoners of war. Although Alton once was growing faster than its city of St. Louis. Many blocks of housing in Alton were built in the Victorian Queen Anne style, at the top of the hill in the commercial area, several stone churches and a fine city hall also represent the citys wealth during its good times based on river traffic and shipping. It was a center for a large agricultural area. Numerous residences on hills have sweeping views of the Mississippi River, the Alton area was home to Native Americans for thousands of years before the 19th-century founding by European Americans of the modern city. Historic accounts indicate occupation of this area by the Illiniwek or Illinois Confederacy at the time of European contact, earlier native settlement is demonstrated by archaeological artifacts and the famous prehistoric Piasa bird painted on a cliff face nearby. The image was first written about in 1673 by French missionary priest Father Jacques Marquette, Alton was developed as a river town in 1818 by Rufus Easton, who named it after his son. Easton ran a ferry service across the Mississippi River to the Missouri shore. Alton is located amid the confluence of three significant navigable rivers, the Illinois, the Mississippi, and the Missouri, Alton grew into a river trading town with an industrial character. The city rises steeply from the waterfront, where massive concrete grain silos and railroad tracks were constructed in the 19th and 20th centuries to aid in shipping the areas grains, brick commercial buildings are located throughout downtown. Once the site of brick factories, Alton has an unusually high number of streets still paved in brick. The lower levels of Alton are subject to floods, many of which have inundated the downtown area. The flood levels of different dates are marked on the grain silos, part of the Ardent Mills. The flood of 93 is the worst in the last 100 years and it became an important town for abolitionists, as Illinois was a free state across from the slave state of Missouri. Pro-slavery activists also lived there and slave catchers often raided the city, escaped slaves would cross the Mississippi to seek shelter in Alton, and proceed to safer places through stations of the Underground Railroad. During the years before the American Civil War, several homes were equipped with tunnels, on November 7,1837, the abolitionist printer Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy was murdered by a pro-slavery mob while he tried to protect his Alton-based press from being destroyed for the third time
4.
Illinois
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Illinois is a state in the midwestern region of the United States, achieving statehood in 1818. It is the 6th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, the word Illinois comes from a French rendering of a native Algonquin word. For decades, OHare International Airport has been ranked as one of the worlds busiest airports, Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics. With the War of 1812 Illinois growth slowed as both Native Americans and Canadian forces often raided the American Frontier, mineral finds and timber stands also had spurred immigration—by the 1810s, the Eastern U. S. Railroads arose and matured in the 1840s, and soon carried immigrants to new homes in Illinois, as well as being a resource to ship their commodity crops out to markets. Railroads freed most of the land of Illinois and other states from the tyranny of water transport. By 1900, the growth of jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted a new group of immigrants. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars, the Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in Chicago, who created the citys famous jazz and blues cultures. Three U. S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, additionally, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was the only U. S. president born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official slogan, Land of Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in the capital of Springfield. Illinois is the spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers name for the Illinois Native Americans. American scholars previously thought the name Illinois meant man or men in the Miami-Illinois language and this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language, as the word for man is ireniwa and plural men is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also said to mean tribe of superior men. The name Illinois derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa he speaks the regular way and this was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe·. The French borrowed these forms, changing the ending to spell it as -ois. The current spelling form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s, the Illinois name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms. American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation
5.
Dartmouth College
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Dartmouth College is a private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution, with a total student enrollment of about 6,400, Dartmouth is the smallest university in the Ivy League. Undergraduate admissions is highly competitive, with a rate of 10. 4% for the Class of 2021. Dartmouths 269-acre campus is in the rural Upper Valley region of New England, the university functions on a quarter system, operating year-round on four ten-week academic terms. Dartmouth is known for its focus, strong Greek culture. Its 34 varsity sports teams compete intercollegiately in the Ivy League conference of the NCAA Division I, Dartmouth is consistently included among the highest-ranked universities in the United States by several institutional rankings. According to a Forbes study, despite its small size. In a New York Times corporate study, Dartmouths graduates were shown to be among the most sought-after and valued in the world. Dartmouth has produced prominent alumni, including 170 members of the U. S. Senate. Cabinet officials,3 Nobel Prize laureates,2 U. S. Supreme Court justices, diplomats, scholars in academia, literary and media figures, professional athletes, and Olympic medalists. Dartmouth was founded by Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister from Columbia, Connecticut, wheelocks ostensible inspiration for such an establishment resulted from his relationship with Mohegan Indian Samson Occom. Occom became a minister after studying under Wheelock from 1743 to 1747. Wheelock founded Moors Indian Charity School in 1755, the Charity School proved somewhat successful, but additional funding was necessary to continue schools operations, and Wheelock sought the help of friends to raise money. Occom, accompanied by the Reverend Nathaniel Whitaker, traveled to England in 1766 to raise money from churches, with these funds, they established a trust to help Wheelock. The head of the trust was a Methodist named William Legge, in seeking to expand the school into a college, Wheelock relocated it to Hanover, in the Province of New Hampshire. The move from Connecticut followed a lengthy and sometimes frustrating effort to find resources, the reference to educating Native American youth was included to connect Dartmouth to the Charity School and enable use of the Charity Schools unspent trust funds. The College granted its first degrees in 1771, given the limited success of the Charity School, however, Wheelock intended his new college as one primarily for whites. An institution called Dartmouth University occupied the buildings and began operating in Hanover in 1817
6.
United States Army Corps of Engineers
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The United States Army Corps of Engineers, also sometimes shortened to CoE is a U. S. Although generally associated with dams, canals and flood protection in the United States, the Corps of Engineers provides outdoor recreation opportunities to the public, and provides 24% of U. S. hydropower capacity. The corps mission is to Deliver vital public and military engineering services, partnering in peace and war to strengthen our Nations security, energize the economy and their most visible missions include, Planning, designing, building, and operating locks and dams. Other civil engineering projects include flood control, beach nourishment, design and construction of flood protection systems through various federal mandates. Design and construction management of military facilities for the Army, Air Force, Army Reserve and Air Force Reserve and other Defense and Federal agencies. The history of United States Army Corps of Engineers can be traced back to 16 June 1775, colonel Richard Gridley became General George Washingtons first chief engineer, however, it was not until 1779 that Congress created a separate Corps of Engineers. One of its first tasks was to build fortifications near Boston at Bunker Hill, the first Corps of Engineers was mostly composed of French subjects who had been hired by General Washington from the service of Louis XVI. that the said Corps. Shall be stationed at West Point in the State of New York, until 1866, the superintendent of the United States Military Academy was always an officer of engineer. During the first half of the 19th century, West Point was the major and, for a while, the General Survey Act of 1824 authorized the use of Army engineers to survey road and canal routes. Separately authorized on 4 July 1838, the U. S and it was merged with the Corps of Engineers on 31 March 1863, at which point the Corps of Engineers also assumed the Lakes Survey District mission for the Great Lakes. In 1841, Congress created the Lake Survey, the survey, based in Detroit, Mich. was charged with conducting a hydrographical survey of the Northern and Northwestern Lakes and preparing and publishing nautical charts and other navigation aids. The Lake Survey published its first charts in 1852, in the mid-19th century, Corps of Engineers officers ran Lighthouse Districts in tandem with U. S. Naval officers. The Army Corps of Engineers played a significant role in the American Civil War, many of the men who would serve in the top leadership in this institution were West Point graduates who rose to military fame and power during the Civil War. Some of these men were Union Generals George McClellan, Henry Halleck, George Meade, and Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, Joseph Johnston, the versatility of officers in the Army Corps of Engineers contributed to the success of numerous missions throughout the Civil War. They were responsible for building pontoon and railroad bridges, forts and batteries, the destruction of supply lines. The Army Corps of Engineers served as a function in making the war effort logistically feasible. This method of building trenches was known as the zigzag pattern, from the beginning, many politicians wanted the Corps of Engineers to contribute to both military construction and works of a civil nature. During World War II the mission grew to more than 27,000 military, included were aircraft, tank assembly, and ammunition plants, camps for 5.3 million soldiers, depots, ports, and hospitals, as well as the Manhattan Project, and the Pentagon
7.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
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The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is one of the oldest railroads in the United States and the first common carrier railroad. At first this railroad was located entirely in the state of Maryland with a line from the port of Baltimore west to Sandy Hook. At this point to continue westward, it had to cross into Virginia over the Potomac River, adjacent to the confluence of the Potomac, from there it was extended to the Ohio River at Wheeling and a few years later also to Parkersburg, West Virginia. It is now part of the CSX Transportation network, and includes the oldest operational railroad bridge in the USA, the B&O also included the Leiper Railroad, the first permanent horse-drawn railroad in the U. S. In later years, B&O advertising carried the motto, Linking 13 Great States with the Nation, the B&O Warehouse at the Camden Yards rail junction in Baltimore now dominates the view over the right-field wall at the Baltimore Orioles current home, Oriole Park at Camden Yards. At the end of 1970 B&O operated 5552 miles of road and 10449 miles of track, not including the Staten Island Rapid Transit or the Reading and its subsidiaries. The fast-growing port city of Baltimore, Maryland faced economic stagnation unless it opened routes to the western states, as New York had done with the Erie Canal in 1820. In 1827, twenty-five merchants and bankers studied the best means of restoring that portion of the Western trade which has recently been diverted from it by the introduction of steam navigation and their answer was to build a railroad—one of the first commercial lines in the world. Two men — Philip E. Thomas and George Brown — were the pioneers of the railroad and they spent the year 1826 investigating railway enterprises in England, which were at that time being tested in a comprehensive fashion as commercial ventures. Their investigation completed, they held a meeting on February 12,1827, including about twenty-five citizens. Thomas was elected as the first president and Brown the treasurer, the capital of the proposed company was fixed at five million dollars, but the B&O was initially capitalized in 1827 with a three million dollar issue of stock. Virtually every citizen of Baltimore owned a share, as the offering was oversubscribed, construction began on July 4,1828, when Charles Carroll of Carrollton did the groundbreaking. The initial tracks were built with granite stringers topped by iron rails. The first section, from Baltimore west to Ellicotts Mills, opened on May 24,1830. Developers decided to follow the Patapsco River to a point near Parrs Ridge, a later compromise allowed the two companies to share the right of way. The State of Maryland granted the B&O a charter to build a line from Baltimore to Washington, D. C. in 1831, and the Washington Branch was opened in 1835. This line joined to the mainline at Relay, Maryland, crossing the Patapsco on the Thomas Viaduct. This line was funded by the state, and was operated separately until the 1870s
8.
Western and Atlantic Railroad
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The Western & Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia is a historic, government-owned railroad which operates in the southeastern United States from Atlanta, Georgia to Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was founded on December 21,1836, the city of Atlanta was founded as the terminus of the W&A, with the terminus marked with the Atlanta Zero Mile Post. The line is owned by the State of Georgia from Atlanta to CT Tower in Chattanooga. The W&A Subdivision is a railroad line leased by CSX Transportation in the U. S. states of Tennessee & Georgia, the line runs from Chattanooga, TN to Marietta, GA for a total of 119.1 miles. At its north end it continues south from the Chattanooga Subdivision of the Nashville Division and at its south end it continues south as the Atlanta Terminal Subdivision. This line, originally built to 5 ft gauge, is famous because of the Andrews Raid, in 1836, the Georgia General Assembly voted to build the Western & Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia to provide a link between the port of Savannah and the Midwest. The initial route of that project was to run from Chattanooga to a spot east of the Chattahoochee River. The plan was to link up with the Georgia Railroad from Augusta and the Macon and Western Railroad. An engineer was chosen to recommend the location where the Western & Atlantic line would terminate, once he surveyed various possible routes, he drove a stake into the ground near what is now Forsyth and Magnolia Streets. The zero milepost was later placed at that spot, in 1842, the zero milepost was moved to a spot immediately adjacent to the current day southern entrance to Underground Atlanta. The area developed into a settlement, known as Terminus, literally meaning end of the line, in 1843, the small settlement of Terminus was incorporated as the city of Marthasville. Two years later, by Act of the Georgia General Assembly the city was renamed Atlanta, through 1870, it was called the State Road, and was operated directly by the state under a superintendent appointed by and reporting to the governor of Georgia. This expired exactly 20 years later in 1890, when the Nashville, the railroad that was handed over to the NC&StL was in very poor condition. While most of the equipment was usable, almost all of the locomotives were condemnable. The value of the locomotives was disputed for some twenty years, a major change in the new lease in 1890 stipulated that all improvements made to the road by the lessee would become property of the state at the termination of the lease. CSXT signed the current lease on the W&A from the State of Georgia in May 1986, after being captured by the Union in mid-1864 and until the end of the war in 1865, the line was briefly operated by the United States Military Railroad. Trains departed from Atlanta at 8,50 a. m. and 7 p. m. not much has happened in between 1867 and now, track realingments in some areas resulted in height clearances and track improvements. On the morning of April 12,1862, the locomotive General was stopped at Big Shanty, Georgia so that the crew, during this time, James J. Andrews and his Union raiders, stole the General
9.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
10.
Topography
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Topography is the study of the shape and features of the surface of the Earth and other observable astronomical objects including planets, moons, and asteroids. The topography of an area could refer to the shapes and features themselves. This field of geoscience and planetary science is concerned with detail in general, including not only relief but also natural and artificial features. This meaning is common in the United States, where topographic maps with elevation contours have made topography synonymous with relief. The older sense of topography as the study of place still has currency in Europe, topography in a narrow sense involves the recording of relief or terrain, the three-dimensional quality of the surface, and the identification of specific landforms. This is also known as geomorphometry, in modern usage, this involves generation of elevation data in digital form. It is often considered to include the representation of the landform on a map by a variety of techniques, including contour lines, hypsometric tints. The term topography originated in ancient Greece and continued in ancient Rome, the word comes from the Greek τόπος and -γραφία. In classical literature this refers to writing about a place or places, in Britain and in Europe in general, the word topography is still sometimes used in its original sense. Detailed military surveys in Britain were called Ordnance Surveys, and this term was used into the 20th century as generic for topographic surveys, the earliest scientific surveys in France were called the Cassini maps after the family who produced them over four generations. The term topographic surveys appears to be American in origin, the earliest detailed surveys in the United States were made by the “Topographical Bureau of the Army, ” formed during the War of 1812, which became the Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1838. In the 20th century, the term started to be used to describe surface description in other fields where mapping in a broader sense is used. An objective of topography is to determine the position of any feature or more generally any point in terms of both a horizontal coordinate system such as latitude, longitude, and altitude, identifying features, and recognizing typical landform patterns are also part of the field. There are a variety of approaches to studying topography, which method to use depend on the scale and size of the area under study, its accessibility, and the quality of existing surveys. Work on one of the first topographic maps was begun in France by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, in areas where there has been an extensive direct survey and mapping program, the compiled data forms the basis of basic digital elevation datasets such as USGS DEM data. This data must often be cleaned to eliminate discrepancies between surveys, but it forms a valuable set of information for large-scale analysis. The original American topographic surveys involved not only recording of relief, remote sensing is a general term for geodata collection at a distance from the subject area. Besides their role in photogrammetry, aerial and satellite imagery can be used to identify and delineate terrain features, certainly they have become more and more a part of geovisualization, whether maps or GIS systems
11.
Steam locomotive
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A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its pulling power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning combustible material—usually coal, wood, the steam moves reciprocating pistons which are mechanically connected to the locomotives main wheels. Both fuel and water supplies are carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in wagons pulled behind, the first steam locomotive, made by Richard Trevithick, first operated on 21 February 1804, three years after the road locomotive he made in 1801. The first practical steam locomotive was built in 1812-13 by John Blenkinsop, Steam locomotives were first developed in Great Britain during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. From the early 1900s they were superseded by electric and diesel locomotives, with full conversions to electric. The majority of locomotives were retired from regular service by the 1980s, though several continue to run on tourist. The earliest railways employed horses to draw carts along railway tracks, in 1784, William Murdoch, a Scottish inventor, built a small-scale prototype of a steam road locomotive. An early working model of a rail locomotive was designed and constructed by steamboat pioneer John Fitch in the US during 1794. His steam locomotive used interior bladed wheels guided by rails or tracks, the model still exists at the Ohio Historical Society Museum in Columbus. The authenticity and date of this locomotive is disputed by some experts, accompanied by Andrew Vivian, it ran with mixed success. The design incorporated a number of important innovations that included using high-pressure steam which reduced the weight of the engine, Trevithick visited the Newcastle area in 1804 and had a ready audience of colliery owners and engineers. The visit was so successful that the railways in north-east England became the leading centre for experimentation. Trevithick continued his own steam propulsion experiments through another trio of locomotives, Four years later, the successful twin-cylinder locomotive Salamanca by Matthew Murray for the edge railed rack and pinion Middleton Railway debuted in 1812. Another well known early locomotive was Puffing Billy built 1813–14 by engineer William Hedley and it was intended to work on the Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne. This locomotive is the oldest preserved, and is on display in the Science Museum. George Stephenson built Locomotion No.1 for the Stockton and Darlington Railway, north-east England, in 1829, his son Robert built in Newcastle The Rocket which was entered in and won the Rainhill Trials. This success led to the company emerging as the pre-eminent builder of locomotives used on railways in the UK, US. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened a year later making exclusive use of power for passenger
12.
Great Plains
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The region is known for supporting extensive cattle ranching and dry farming. The Canadian portion of the Plains is known as the Prairies, some geographers include some territory of northern Mexico in the Plains, but many stop at the Rio Grande. The term Great Plains is used in the United States to describe a sub-section of the even more vast Interior Plains physiographic division and it also has currency as a region of human geography, referring to the Plains Indians or the Plains States. There is no region referred to as the Great Plains in The Atlas of Canada, in terms of human geography, the term prairie is more commonly used in Canada, and the region is known as the Prairie Provinces or simply the Prairies. The region is about 500 mi east to west and 2,000 mi north to south, much of the region was home to American bison herds until they were hunted to near extinction during the mid/late 19th century. It has an area of approximately 500,000 sq mi, current thinking regarding the geographic boundaries of the Great Plains is shown by this map at the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The term Great Plains, for the region west of about the 96th or 98th meridian, nevin Fennemans 1916 study, Physiographic Subdivision of the United States, brought the term Great Plains into more widespread usage. Before that the region was almost invariably called the High Plains, today the term High Plains is used for a subregion of the Great Plains. The Great Plains are the westernmost portion of the vast North American Interior Plains, during the Cretaceous Period, the Great Plains were covered by a shallow inland sea called the Western Interior Seaway. However, during the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene, the seaway had begun to recede, leaving thick marine deposits. During the Cenozoic era, specifically about 25 million years ago during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, existing forest biomes declined and grasslands became much more widespread. The grasslands provided a new niche for mammals, including many ungulates and glires, traditionally, the spread of grasslands and the development of grazers have been strongly linked. The vast majority of animals became extinct in North America at the end of the Pleistocene. In general, the Great Plains have a variety of weather through the year, with very cold and harsh winters and very hot. Wind speeds are very high, especially in winter. Grasslands are among the least protected biomes, humans have converted much of the prairies for agricultural purposes or to create pastures. The Great Plains have dust storms mostly every year or so, the 100th meridian roughly corresponds with the line that divides the Great Plains into an area that receive 20 in or more of rainfall per year and an area that receives less than 20 in. The region is subjected to extended periods of drought, high winds in the region may then generate devastating dust storms
13.
Great American Desert
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The term Great American Desert was used in the 19th century to describe the western part of the Great Plains east of the Rocky Mountains in North America to about the 100th meridian. In colonial times, the desert was often used to describe treeless or uninhabited lands whether they were arid or not. By the 19th century, the term had begun to take on its modern meaning and it was long thought that treeless lands were not good for agriculture, thus the term desert also had the connotation of unfit for farming. While the High Plains are not a desert in the modern sense, the region is mostly semi-arid grassland and steppe. Today much of the region supports agriculture through the use of water irrigation. But in the 19th century, the relative lack of water and wood made it seem unfit for farming. When the region was obtained by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Jefferson wrote of the immense, zebulon Pike wrote these vast plains of the western hemisphere, may become in time equally celebrated as the sandy deserts of Africa. His map included a comment in the region, not a stick of timber, in 1823, Major Stephen Long, a government surveyor and leader of the next official exploration expedition, produced a map labeling the area the Great American Desert. While many other travelers reported similar conditions and conclusions, there were problems in the interpretation, by the 19th century, the word had begun to assume its modern sense, evoking images of sandy wastelands. Yet descriptions of the American High Plains almost always included comments about Innumerable Herds of Buffaloes, the regions relative lack of water and wood affected the development of the United States. Settlers heading westward often attempted to pass through the region as quickly as possible en route to what was considered to be better land farther west and these early settlers gave telling names to the various streams of the region, such as Sweetwater Creek or Poison Creek. Because it was not considered desirable, the area one of the last strongholds of independent American Indians. Railroad interests seeking rights-of-way through the region benefited from the popular belief that the land was commercially valueless. By the mid-19th century, people had begun settling in the region despite its poor reputation, experts of the era proposed theories that maintained the earlier reports had been accurate and the climate had changed. Some even credited the settlers themselves as having caused the change by planting crops, the slogan rain follows the plow was created to describe this belief. Dust Bowl High Plains Llano Estacado Wind power in the United States
14.
Corps of Topographical Engineers
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It included such officers as George Meade, John C. It was merged with the United States Army Corps of Engineers on 31 March 1863, in the mid-19th century, Corps of Engineers officers ran Lighthouse Districts in tandem with U. S. Naval officers. In 1841, Congress created the Lake Survey, the Survey, based in Detroit, Mich. was charged with conducting a hydrographical survey of the Northern and Northwestern Lakes and preparing and publishing nautical charts and other navigation aids. The Lake Survey published its first charts in 1852, William Goetzmann has written, From the year 1838 down to the Civil War, there existed a small but highly significant branch of the Army called the Corps of Topographical Engineers. The Engineers were concerned with recording all of the phenomena as accurately as possible. As Army officers they represented the direct concern of the government the settling of the West. In short, they functioned as a department of works for the West - and indeed for the whole nation, since the operations of the Corps extended to every state. The work of the Corps in the West had still broader significance, the Topographical Engineers were sophisticated men of their time who worked closely with the foremost scholars in American and European centers of learning. Scientists and artists of all nationalities accompanied their expeditions as partners and co-workers, the Army Topographer considered himself by schooling and profession as one of a company of savants. By virtue of his West Point training and status he was an engineer, something above the field officer. As a Topographical Engineer he on occasion might address the American Association for the Advancement of Science and he probably subscribed to Sillimans American Journal of Science and he was a pillar of the Smithsonian Institution. In all, there were six major expeditions into the Louisiana Purchase, a second expedition in 1804 included astronomer and naturalist John Dunbar and prominent Philadelphia chemist William Hunter. This expedition attempted to follow the Red River to its source in Texas, then controlled by Spain, the group of 24 traveled 615 miles up the Red River before being turned back by Spanish authorities. In 1805–1806, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike was ordered by General James Wilkinson, Governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory, in 1806–1807, President Jefferson ordered Lieutenant Pike, on another expedition, to find the headwaters of the Arkansas River and Red River. This is better known as the Pike Expedition, Spanish forces arrested Pike and confiscated his papers, but assigned a translator and cartographer to translate Pikes documents. In 1817 Major Stephen H. Long explored the upper Mississippi River, selecting sites for Fort Smith on the Arkansas River and Fort St. Anthony at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi. In 1819, President James Monroe and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun ordered General Henry Atkinson to lead what became known as the Yellowstone Expedition, one objective was to eliminate British influence among the Native American tribes in the region. Nearly 1,000 soldiers were transported by five steamboats up the Missouri River to the Mandan villages at the mouth of the Yellowstone and this was the first known use of steam propulsion in the west
15.
Mississippi River
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The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, then settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link. Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is also noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, however, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river
16.
Saint Anthony Falls
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Saint Anthony Falls or the Falls of Saint Anthony, located northeast of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the only natural major waterfall on the Upper Mississippi River. The natural falls were replaced by an overflow spillway after it partially collapsed in 1869. Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, a series of locks, from 1880 to about 1930, Minneapolis was the Flour Milling Capital of the World. These locks were built as part of the Upper Mississippi River 9-Foot Navigation Project, the area around the falls is designated the St. Anthony Falls Historic District and features a 1. 8-mile self-guided walking trail with signs explaining the areas past. Before European exploration, the falls held cultural and political significance for native tribes who frequented the area, the falls was an important and sacred site to the Mdewakanton Dakota and they called the Mississippi River, hahawakpa, river of the falls. Dakota associated the falls with legends and spirits, including Oanktehi, god of waters and evil, the rocky islet where the woman had pointed her canoe towards doom thus was named Spirit Island which was once a nesting ground for eagles that fed on fish below the falls. Dakota also camped on Nicollet Island upstream of the falls to fish, since the cataract had to be portaged, the area became one of the natural resting and trade points along the Mississippi between Dakota and Anishinaabe peoples. The Anishinaabe term was recorded as kakabikah, Hennepin named them the Chutes de Saint-Antoine or the Falls of Saint Anthony after his patron saint, Anthony of Padua. Later explorers to document the falls include Jonathan Carver and Zebulon Montgomery Pike, by the 1860s, however, industrial waste had filled the area and marred the falls majesty. The districts archaeological record is one of the historic sites in Minnesota. The National Register of Historic Places is facilitated by the National Park Service, a Heritage Trail plaque nearby says, For untold generations of Indian people the Mississippi River was an important canoe route. To pass around the falls, the Dakota and Ojibway used a portage trail. Starting at a landing below the now occupied by the steam plant. From here it followed the east bank along what is now Main Street to a point well above the falls, geologists say that the falls first appeared roughly 10,000 years ago several miles downstream at the confluence of the glacial River Warren. Estimates are that the falls were about 180 feet high when the River Warren Falls receded past the confluence of the Mississippi River, over the succeeding 10,000 years, the falls moved upstream to its present location. The water churning at the bottom of the falls ate away at the soft sandstone, from its origins near Fort Snelling, St. Anthony Falls relocated upstream at a rate of about 4 feet per year until it reached its present location in the early 19th century. Tributaries such as Minnehaha Creek begot their own waterfalls as the Mississippi River valley was cut into the landscape, when Father Louis Hennepin documented the falls he estimated the falls height to be 50 or 60 feet. Later explorers described it as being in the range of 16 to 20 feet high, the discrepancy may have been due to scope, as the current total drop in river level over the series of dams is 76 ft
17.
Minnesota River
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The Minnesota River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately 332 miles long, in the U. S. state of Minnesota. It drains a watershed of nearly 17,000 square miles,14,751 square miles in Minnesota and about 2,000 sq mi in South Dakota and Iowa. It rises in southwestern Minnesota, in Big Stone Lake on the Minnesota–South Dakota border just south of the Laurentian Divide at the Traverse Gap portage and it flows southeast to Mankato, then turns northeast. It joins the Mississippi south of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the valley is one of several distinct regions of Minnesota. An illustration of the meaning of words was shown by dropping a little milk into water. For over a prior to the organization of the Minnesota Territory in 1849. Minnesota River is shown on the 1757 edition of Mitchell Map as Ouadebameniſsouté or R. St. Peter, the valley that the Minnesota River flows in is up to five miles wide and 250 feet deep. It was carved into the landscape by the massive glacial River Warren between 11,700 and 9,400 years ago at the end of the last ice age in North America, pierre-Charles Le Sueur was the first European to visit the river. The Minnesota Territory, and later the state, were named for the river, the river valley is notable as the origin and center of the canning industry in Minnesota. In 1903 Carson Nesbit Cosgrove, an entrepreneur in Le Sueur presided at the meeting of the Minnesota Valley Canning Company. By 1930, the Minnesota River valley had emerged as one of the countrys largest producers of sweet corn, green Giant had five canneries in Minnesota in addition to the original facility in Le Sueur. Cosgroves son, Edward, and grandson, Robert also served as heads of the company over the decades before the company was acquired by General Mills. Several docks for barges exist along the river, farm grains, including corn, are transported to the ports of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and then shipped down the Mississippi River. List of Minnesota rivers List of crossings of the Minnesota River Sansome, Minnesota Underfoot, A Field Guide to the States Outstanding Geologic Features. The Streams and Rivers of Minnesota, Minnesota, a river which crosses the state of Minnesota. Minnesota, or St. Peters, a river of Minnesota
18.
Fort Snelling
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Fort Snelling, originally known as Fort Saint Anthony, was a military fortification located at the confluence of Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers in Hennepin County, Minnesota. Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a National Park Service unit, Fort Snelling also refers to an unorganized territory in Hennepin County, Minnesota, containing the former fortification. The Census in 2000 enumerated a population of 442. The Minnesota Historical Society now runs the fort, located atop a bluff along the river, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources runs Fort Snelling State Park, protecting the land at the bottom of the bluff. Fort Snelling once encompassed both parcels, the fort is a National Historic Landmark and has been named a national treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Lieutenant Zebulon Pike in 1805 acquired Pikes Purchase for the United States, significant settlement began in the late 1810s. Following the War of 1812, the United States Department of War built a chain of forts and these forts primarily protected the northwestern territories from Canadian and British encroachment. The Army founded Fort Saint Anthony in 1819, colonel Josiah Snelling commanded the 5th Infantry Regiment. Its soldiers constructed the original Fort Saint Anthony from 1820 to 1824, during construction, most soldiers lived at Camp Coldwater, which provided drinking water to the fort throughout the 19th century. The post surgeon began recording meteorological observations at Fort Saint Anthony in January 1820, upon its completion in 1825, the Army renamed the fort as Fort Snelling in honor of its commander and architect. At Fort Snelling, the garrison attempted to keep the peace between the Dakota people. Colonel Snelling suffered from dysentery, and bouts of the illness made him susceptible to anger. Recalled to Washington, he left Fort Snelling in September 1827, colonel Snelling died in summer 1828 from complications due to dysentery and a brain fever. John Marsh, a native of Danvers, Massachusetts, came to the fort during the early 1820s, at the fort, he set up the first school for children of the officers. He also developed a relationship with the local Sioux tribe. He had been studying medicine at Harvard for two years before deciding to leave school without earning a degree and he used this opportunity to read medicine under the tutelage of the post physician, Dr. Purcell. The physician died before Marsh completed the course, so he still had no medical degree. In 1830 Fort Snelling was the birthplace of John Taylor Wood, John Emerson purchased the slave Dred Scott in Saint Louis, Missouri, but he later worked and lived at Fort Snelling during much of the 1830s, having brought Dred and his wife Harriet Scott with him
19.
Upper Mississippi Valley
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The Upper Mississippi River is the portion of the Mississippi River upstream of Cairo, Illinois, United States. From the headwaters at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, the flows approximately 2000 kilometers to Cairo. The collapse of ice dams holding back Glacial Lake Duluth and Glacial Lake Grantsburg carved out the Dalles of the St. Croix River, the Upper Mississippi River valley likely originated as an ice-marginal stream during what had been referred to as the “Nebraskan” glaciation. Current terminology would place this as Pre-Illinoian Stage, the Driftless Area is a portion of North America left unglaciated at that ice ages height, hence not smoothed out or covered over by previous geological processes. Considering the history of Glacial Lake Missoula, something like this is believed to have happened, the Upper Mississippi from below St. Anthony Falls downstream to St. Paul, Minnesota is a gorge with high limestone bluffs carved by the waterfall. Upstream of the waterfall the land slopes gently to rivers edge, downstream of downtown St. Paul the river enters its wide preglacial valley. The states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, along with the government, have preserved certain areas of the land along this reach of the river. There are three National Park Service sites along the Upper Mississippi River, the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area is the National Park Service site dedicated to protecting and interpreting the Mississippi River itself. The other two National Park Service sites along the river are, Effigy Mounds National Monument and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, unlike the Lower Mississippi, much of the upper river is a series of pools created by a system of 29 locks and dams. The structures were authorized by Congress in the 1930s, and most were completed by 1940, a primary reason for damming the river is to facilitate barge transportation. The dams regulate water levels for the Upper River and play a part in regulating levels on the Lower Mississippi. On the upper reaches near the Minnesota-Wisconsin border, the floodplain is between 1.5 and 5 kilometers wide. South of St. Louis, Missouri, the floodplain is approximately 80 kilometers wide. Major tributaries to the Upper Mississippi River include the Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, St. Croix, Black, the Upper Mississippi provides habitat for more than 125 fish species and 30 species of freshwater mussels. Three national wildlife refuges along the river cover a total of 465 square kilometers, the largest of them, the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, is over 420 kilometers long, reaching from the Alma, Wisconsin area down to Rock Island, Illinois. The refuge consists of blufflands, marshes, bottomland forest, islands, channels, backwater lakes and it is part of the Mississippi Flyway. Although the river is cleaner than it was in recent decades. The five states bordering the Upper Mississippi River are working together to water quality issues
20.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
21.
John Norvell
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John Norvell was a newspaper editor and one of the first U. S. Norvell was born in Danville, Kentucky, then still a part of Virginia and he was the son of Lt. Lipscomb Norvell, an officer of the Virginia Line in the American Revolutionary War and Mary Hendrick. Lipscomb Norvell was taken prisoner by the British when they captured Charleston, South Carolina in 1781, Lipscomb is buried in the Nashville City Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee. Lipscomb descended from Captain Hugh Norvell, one of the trustees of the City of Williamsburg in the 17th century. Interestingly, Mary Norvell, Lipscombs daughter, married James Walker, in 1807, Norvell wrote to U. S. Accept venerable patriot, my warmest wishes for your happiness, yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper, truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. He who reads nothing will still learn the facts. Despite Jeffersons highly skeptical appraisal, Norvell apparently took his words as a challenge to reform newspapers, Norvell did not publish this letter until after Jeffersons death in 1826, the original letter is now lost, but was in his sons possession as late as 1880. Norvell edited the Baltimore Whig 1813-14 and he also studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1814, and began a private practice in Baltimore, Maryland. He enlisted as a private in the War of 1812, serving in the Battle of Bladensburg, norvells adventures during the War of 1812 were chronicled in the Some Account of the Life of Spencer Houghton Cone, A Baptist Preacher in America. Norvell and his brother in law Spencer Cone were partners in Baltimore, after the battle, they returned to Washington to rescue their wives, who had been left there. In Washington a scene of terror greeted Norvell and Cone, catherine Cone Norvell was 8 months pregnant and could only travel by wagon. They attempted to out of the city, but Cones feet were badly blistered. Norvell found a pony in a field and caught him. Cone mounted him and they were again on their way. Stopping at the White House, they asked one of the servants for a drink, thus refreshed, they crossed the Potomac and proceeded out of the city for three miles
22.
Yellowstone expedition
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This article is about the 1819 Yellowstone Expedition. For the expedition of Lewis and Clark, see Lewis and Clark Expedition#Journey, starting from St Louis, Missouri, the expedition aimed to establish a series of forts along the Missouri River on the way upstream to the Yellowstone. These forts would increase American presence in the fur trade and would also counteract British influence on the northern plains. The first fort was to be at the Council Bluff, the previously used for an 1804 council between the Lewis and Clark Expedition and members of the Oto and Missouria Native American tribes. William Clark had recommended the high bluff overlooking the Missouri River to the US government as a location to build a fort. In 1818, Calhoun awarded the expeditions transportation and supply contract to James Johnson, partner and younger brother of Kentucky Congressman Richard Mentor Johnson, who would later become U. S. An editorial of the Missouri Gazzette of St Louis said on April 21,1819 that there is no measure which has been adopted by the present administration that has received such universal commendation. The expedition was led by Colonel Henry Atkinson, commander of the Sixth Infantry, then stationed at Plattsburgh, in the fall of 1818, he received orders to rendezvous his troops to the south and encamp with the crack Rifle Regiment by the Missouri River near St. Louis. The 6th Infantry hastily traveled the 2,700 miles by land, the expedition was also chartered to perform science and engineering functions, in conjunction with which a U. S. Long immediately planned the construction of a steamboat to transport the task force of scientists as far as possible on the venture. Another novel feature was a built into the stern to reduce the danger of damage from snags. It was launched in Pittsburgh in the winter of 1818-19, and was probably the first stern-wheel paddle steamer ever built, the boat had a 75-by-13-foot hull with the weight of the machinery carefully distributed to permit increased maneuverability in shallow channels. To protect the vessel from Indian attack, Long installed a bulletproof pilothouse, mounted a cannon on the bow, placed howitzers along the side, and armed the crew with rifles and sabres. Nicknamed Longs Dragon because it was decorated as a serpent in order to detract or scare any hostile natives, it was anything. Its hull drew only 19 inches of water compared to the five or six feet of most steamboats of that era, but its basic design became the prototype for western river steam vessels. The boat is 75 feet long,13 feet beam and draws 19 inches of water, the steam passes off through the mouth of a larger figure-head. This was the first steamboat to travel up the Missouri River into the Louisiana Purchase territory, the 6th US Infantry and 1st Rifle Regiments made up the expeditions military portion. They departed from St. Louis, Missouri in May 1819, Major Long led the scientific party of Army Engineers on Western Engineer, leaving in June
23.
Missouri River
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The Missouri River is the longest river in North America. Rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana, the Missouri flows east and south for 2,341 miles before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The river takes drainage from a populated, semi-arid watershed of more than half a million square miles. When combined with the lower Mississippi River, it forms the fourth longest river system. For over 12,000 years, people have depended on the Missouri River and its tributaries as a source of sustenance and transportation. More than ten major groups of Native Americans populated the watershed, most leading a nomadic lifestyle, the Missouri River was one of the main routes for the westward expansion of the United States during the 19th century. The growth of the fur trade in the early 1800s laid much of the groundwork as trappers explored the region, pioneers headed west en masse beginning in the 1830s, first by covered wagon, then by the growing numbers of steamboats entering service on the river. Former Native American lands in the watershed were taken over by settlers, leading to some of the most longstanding, during the 20th century, the Missouri River basin was extensively developed for irrigation, flood control and the generation of hydroelectric power. Fifteen dams impound the main stem of the river, with more on tributaries. Meanders have been cut and the river channelized to improve navigation, from the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Wyoming, three streams rise to form the headwaters of the Missouri River. The longest begins near Browers Spring,9,100 feet above sea level, on the southeastern slopes of Mount Jefferson in the Centennial Mountains. Flowing west then north, it runs first in Hell Roaring Creek, then west into the Red Rock, swings northeast to become the Beaverhead and these two streams then flow north and northwest into Montana. The Missouri River officially starts at the confluence of the Jefferson and Madison in Missouri Headwaters State Park near Three Forks, Montana, the Missouri then passes through Canyon Ferry Lake, a reservoir west of the Big Belt Mountains. Issuing from the mountains near Cascade, the flows northeast to the city of Great Falls, where it drops over the Great Falls of the Missouri. Farther on, the passes through the Fort Peck Dam, and immediately downstream. At the confluence, the Yellowstone is actually the larger river, the Missouri then meanders east past Williston and into Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir formed by Garrison Dam. Below the dam the Missouri receives the Knife River from the west and flows south to Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota and it slows into the Lake Oahe reservoir just before the Cannonball River confluence. While it continues south, eventually reaching Oahe Dam in South Dakota, the Missouri makes a bend to the southeast as it winds through the Great Plains, receiving the Niobrara River and many smaller tributaries from the southwest
24.
Western United States
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The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West, the Far West, or simply the West, traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because European settlement in the U. S. expanded westward after its founding, prior to about 1800, the crest of the Appalachian Mountains was seen as the western frontier. Since then, the frontier moved westward and eventually lands west of the Mississippi River came to be referred to as the West. The West contains several major biomes, the Western U. S. is the largest region of the country, covering more than half the land area of the United States. Given this expansive and diverse geography it is no wonder the region is difficult to specifically define, a majority of the historian respondents placed the eastern boundary of the West east of the Census definition out on the eastern edge of the Great Plains or on the Mississippi River. The survey respondents as a whole showed just how little agreement there was on the boundaries of the West, within a region as large and diverse as the Western United States, smaller areas with more closely shared demographics and geography have developed as subregions. Meanwhile, the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington can be considered part of the Northwest or Pacific Northwest, West Texas in the Chihuahuan Desert may be considered as part of the Western U. S. Fort Worth has long laid claim to be Where the West Begins, the West is still one of the most sparsely settled areas in the United States with 49.5 inhabitants per square mile. Only Texas with 78.0 inhabitants/sq mi, Washington with 86.0 inhabitants/sq mi. and California with 213.4 inhabitants/sq mi. exceed the national average of 77.98 inhabitants/sq mi. The entire Western region has also strongly influenced by European, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Native Americans. African and European Americans, however, continue to wield a stronger political influence because of the rates of citizenship and voting among Asians. The West also contains much of the Native American population in the U. S. particularly in the reservations in the Mountain. The Western United States has a sex ratio than any other region in the United States. Because the tide of development had not yet reached most of the West when conservation became an issue, agencies of the federal government own. National parks are reserved for activities such as fishing, camping, hiking, and boating, but other government lands also allow commercial activities like ranching, logging. The largest city in the region is Los Angeles, located on the West Coast, Other West Coast cities include San Diego, San Bernardino, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Bakersfield, Sacramento, Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland. Prominent cities in the Mountain States include Denver, Colorado Springs, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Boise, El Paso, and Cheyenne. Along the Pacific Ocean coast lie the Coast Ranges, which and they collect a large part of the airborne moisture moving in from the ocean
25.
Louisiana Purchase
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The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the Louisiana territory by the United States from France in 1803. The U. S. paid fifty million francs and a cancellation of debts worth eighteen million francs for a total of sixty-eight million francs, the Louisiana territory included land from fifteen present U. S. states and two Canadian provinces. Its non-native population was around 60,000 inhabitants, of whom half were African slaves, the Kingdom of France controlled the Louisiana territory from 1699 until it was ceded to Spain in 1762. Napoleon in 1800, hoping to re-establish an empire in North America, however, Frances failure to put down the revolt in Saint-Domingue, coupled with the prospect of renewed warfare with the United Kingdom, prompted Napoleon to sell Louisiana to the United States. The Americans originally sought to purchase only the city of New Orleans and its adjacent coastal lands. The Louisiana Purchase occurred during the term of the third President of the United States, before the purchase was finalized, the decision faced Federalist Party opposition, they argued that it was unconstitutional to acquire any territory. Constitution did not contain provisions for acquiring territory, but he asserted that his constitutional power to negotiate treaties was sufficient. Throughout the second half of the 18th century, Louisiana was a pawn on the chessboard of European politics and it was controlled by the French, who had a few small settlements along the Mississippi and other main rivers. Following French defeat in the Seven Years War, Spain gained control of the territory west of the Mississippi, the United States controlled the area east of the Mississippi and north of New Orleans. The main issue for the Americans was free transit of the Mississippi to the sea, as the lands were being gradually settled by a few American migrants, many Americans, including Jefferson, assumed that the territory would be acquired piece by piece. The risk of power taking it from a weakened Spain made a profound reconsideration of this policy necessary. New Orleans was already important for shipping goods to and from the areas of the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains. Pinckneys Treaty, signed with Spain on October 27,1795, gave American merchants right of deposit in New Orleans, Americans used this right to transport products such as flour, tobacco, pork, bacon, lard, feathers, cider, butter, and cheese. The treaty also recognized American rights to navigate the entire Mississippi, in 1798 Spain revoked this treaty, prohibiting American use of New Orleans, and greatly upsetting the Americans. In 1801, Spanish Governor Don Juan Manuel de Salcedo took over from the Marquess of Casa Calvo, Napoleon Bonaparte had gained Louisiana for French ownership from Spain in 1800 under the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, but the treaty was kept secret. Louisiana remained nominally under Spanish control, until a transfer of power to France on November 30,1803, another ceremony was held in St. Louis a few months later, in part because during winter conditions the news of the New Orleans formalities did not reach Upper Louisiana. The March 9–10,1804, event is remembered as Three Flags Day, James Monroe and Robert R. Livingston had traveled to Paris to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans in January 1803. Their instructions were to negotiate or purchase control of New Orleans and its environs, the Louisiana Purchase was by far the largest territorial gain in U. S. history
26.
Platte River
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The Platte River /plæt/ is a major river in the state of Nebraska and is about 310 mi long. Measured to its farthest source via its tributary the North Platte River, the Platte River is a tributary of the Missouri River, which itself is a tributary of the Mississippi River which flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The Platte over most of its length is a muddy, broad, shallow, meandering stream with a swampy bottom and these characteristics made it too difficult for canoe travel, and it was never used as a major navigation route by European-American trappers or explorers. This expression is very close to the French words rivière plate, in central north Colorado is the North Park valley, ringed by mountains of 12,000 feet height, this is where the North Platte River originates. The nearest Colorado town is Walden, the county seat, the rugged Rocky Mountains Continental Divide surrounding Jackson County have at least twelve peaks over 11,000 feet in height. From Jackson County, the North Platte flows north about 200 miles out of the Routt National Forest and North Park near what is now Walden to Casper, Wyoming. Shortly after passing Casper, the North Platte turns to the east-southeast and flows about 350 miles to the city of North Platte, Nebraska. In Colorado and Wyoming, the North Platte is narrower and much swifter flowing than it is in Nebraska, the North Platte River has been dammed about eight times for water storage and irrigation purposes in Wyoming and Nebraska as it flows to its confluence with the South Platte River. The upper reaches of the river in the Rockies in Colorado and Wyoming are popular for rafting and lure and fly fishing for rainbow, brown, cutthroat trout. In western Nebraska, the banks and riverbed of the North Platte provide a green oasis amid an otherwise semi-arid region of North America, today, by the time the North Platte reaches Paxton, Nebraska it is much smaller due to the extensive water taken from it for irrigation. Historically, the North Platte River was up to a mile wide in places, as evidenced by the old streambed. The South Platte drains a part of the Front Range mountains east of the continental divide. The part of the river labeled the South Platte is formed in Park County, Colorado, located southwest of Denver, in the South Park grassland basin and mountains east of the continental divide. It is formed by the confluence of the South Fork South Platte River and Middle Fork South Platte River, approximately 15 miles southeast of Fairplay, Colorado. From Greeley, the South Platte turns east and flows about 200 miles to its confluence with the North Platte River near the city of North Platte, Nebraska. The South Platte River has been dammed about 20 times for storage, drinking water. The total number of dams in the South Platte drainage may exceed 1,000 as nearly all major streams have at least one dam on them, the South Platte River serves as the principal source of water for arid eastern Colorado. The South Platte River valley provided a major emigration path to Denver, the wagon trails followed the south side of the Platte/North Platte River
27.
Arkansas River
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The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the US states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and it then flows east into the Midwest via Kansas, and finally into the South through Oklahoma and Arkansas. At 1,469 miles, it is the sixth-longest river in the United States, the second-longest tributary in the Mississippi–Missouri system, and its origin is in the Rocky Mountains in Lake County, Colorado, near Leadville. In 1859, placer gold discovered in the Leadville area brought thousands seeking to strike it rich, the Arkansas Rivers mouth is at Napoleon, Arkansas, and its drainage basin covers nearly 170,000 sq mi. In terms of volume, the river is smaller than the Missouri and Ohio Rivers. The Arkansas from its headwaters to the 100th meridian west formed part of the US-Mexico border from the Adams–Onís Treaty until the Texas Annexation or Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Arkansas has three distinct sections in its long path through central North America. At its headwaters, the Arkansas runs as a steep fast-flowing mountain river through the Rockies in its narrow valley and this section supports extensive whitewater rafting, including The Numbers, Browns Canyon, and the Royal Gorge. At Cañon City, Colorado, the Arkansas River valley widens and flattens markedly, just west of Pueblo, Colorado, the river enters the Great Plains. Through the rest of Colorado, Kansas, and much of Oklahoma, it is a typical Great Plains riverway, with wide, shallow banks subject to seasonal flooding, tributaries include the Cimarron River and the Salt Fork Arkansas River. In eastern Oklahoma the river begins to widen further into a more contained consistent channel, the river valley then expands as it encounters much flatter land beginning just west of Little Rock, Arkansas. It continues eastward across the plains and forests of eastern Arkansas until it flows into the Mississippi River. Important cities along the Arkansas River include Pueblo, Colorado, Garden City, Kansas, Wichita, Kansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Little Rock, Arkansas. The I-40 bridge disaster of May 2002 took place on I-40s crossing of Kerr Reservoir on the Arkansas River near Webbers Falls, Oklahoma. The problems over the possession and use of Arkansas River water by Colorado, while Congress approved the Arkansas River Compact in 1949, the compact did not stop further disputes by the two states over water rights to the river. The Kansas-Oklahoma Arkansas River Basin Compact was created in 1965 to promote mutual consideration and it led to the Kansas-Oklahoma Arkansas River Commission, which was charged with administering the compact and reducing pollution. The compact was approved and implemented by states in 1970, and has been in force since then. Through Oklahoma and Arkansas, dams artificially deepen and widen the river to build it into a navigable body of water. Many nations of Native Americans lived near, or along, the 1, the first Europeans to see the river were members of the Spanish Coronado expedition on June 29,1541
28.
Red River of the South
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The Red River, or sometimes the Red River of the South, is a major tributary of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers in the southern United States of America. The river was named for the country of its watershed. It is one of several rivers with that name. The Mexicans and Indians on the borders of Mexico are in the habit of calling any river, the Red River formed part of the US-Mexico border from the Adams-Onís Treaty until the Texas Annexation and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Red River is the second-largest river basin in the southern Great Plains and it rises in two branches in the Texas Panhandle and flows east, where it acts as the border between the states of Texas and Oklahoma. It forms a border between Texas and Arkansas before entering Arkansas, turning south near Fulton, Arkansas and flowing into Louisiana. The total length of the river is 1,360 miles, the Red River rises near the edge of the northwestern dip slope of the Llano Estacado mesa in two forks in northern Texas and southwestern Oklahoma. The North Fork Red River meets the southern and largest fork near the Texas-Oklahoma border, the southern fork, which is about 120 miles long, is generally called the Prairie Dog Town Fork. It is formed in Randall County, Texas, near the county seat of Canyon, by the confluence of intermittent Palo Duro Creek and Tierra Blanca Creek. The Red River turns and flows southeast through Palo Duro Canyon in Palo Duro Canyon State Park at an elevation of 3,440 feet, then past Newlin, Texas, past that point, it is generally considered the main stem of the Red River. Near Denison, the exits the eastern end of Lake Texoma. The lake is fed by the Washita River from the north. After the river out of the southeastern end of the lake, it runs generally east towards Arkansas. Soon after, the river crosses south into Louisiana and its waters eventually discharge into the Atchafalaya River and flow eastward or southward into the Gulf of Mexico. In 1946, the Red River flood spilled over into Pineville because of insufficient levee height, however, the taller and stronger levee held in Alexandria. Willie E. Kees, Jr. the young newly elected mayor of Pineville, the Red Rivers watershed covers 65,590 square miles and is the southernmost major right tributary of the Mississippi, and the southernmost major river system in the Great Plains. Its drainage basin is mostly in the states of Texas and Oklahoma and its basin is characterized by flat, fertile agricultural land, with only a few major cities. The drainage basin of the Red River is very arid and receives little precipitation, as a result, much of the river above the Texas-Oklahoma border is intermittent, and until the river is past its great bend south in Arkansas, the flow varies widely
29.
Red River of the North
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The Red River is a North American river. It empties into Lake Winnipeg, whose waters join the Nelson River, the Red is about 885 kilometres long, of which about 635 kilometres are in the United States and about 255 kilometres are in Canada. The river falls 70 metres on its trip to Lake Winnipeg, in the United States, the Red River is sometimes called the Red River of the North. This distinguishes it from the so-called Red River of the South, long a highway for trade, the Red has been designated as a Canadian Heritage River. The watershed of the Red River was part of Ruperts Land, the Red was a key trade route for the company, and contributed to the settlement of British North America. The river was used by fur traders, including the French and the Métis people. Following that, they took over French territory in Canada, settlers of the Red River Colony established farming along the river, and their primary settlement developed as Winnipeg, Manitoba. What became known as the Red River Trails, nineteenth-century oxcart trails developed originally by the Métis, supported the fur trade and they contributed to further development of the region on both sides of the international border. The Red River begins at the confluence of the Bois de Sioux and Otter Tail rivers, on the border of Wahpeton, North Dakota and Breckenridge, Minnesota. Downstream, it is bordered by the cities of Fargo, North Dakota– Moorhead, Minnesota. It continues north to the province of Manitoba in Canada, manitobas capital, Winnipeg, is at the Reds confluence with the Assiniboine River, at a point called The Forks. Together with the Assiniboine, the Red River fully encloses the basin of Devils Lake. The Red flows further north before draining into Lake Winnipeg through the Nelson River, the mouth of the Red River forms a freshwater river delta called the Netley-Libau Marsh. The Netley Marsh is west of the Red and the Libau Marsh is east, forming a 26, southern Manitoba has a comparatively long frost-free season, between 120 and 140 days in the Red River Valley. The Red River flows across the lake bed of the ancient glacial Lake Agassiz. As this continental glacier decayed, its meltwaters formed the lake, over thousands of years, sediments precipitated to the bottom of the lakebed. These lacustrine soils are the parent soils of todays Red River Valley, the river is very young, it developed only after Lake Agassiz drained, about 9,500 years ago. The word valley is a misnomer, while the Red River drains the region, it did not create a valley wider than a few hundred feet
30.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
31.
Rail transport
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Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks. It is also referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a flat surface. Tracks usually consist of rails, installed on ties and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels. Other variations are possible, such as slab track, where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than road vehicles, so passenger. The operation is carried out by a company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilities. Power is provided by locomotives which either draw electric power from a railway system or produce their own power. Most tracks are accompanied by a signalling system, Railways are a safe land transport system when compared to other forms of transport. The oldest, man-hauled railways date back to the 6th century BC, with Periander, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Rail transport blossomed after the British development of the steam locomotive as a viable source of power in the 19th centuries. With steam engines, one could construct mainline railways, which were a key component of the Industrial Revolution, also, railways reduced the costs of shipping, and allowed for fewer lost goods, compared with water transport, which faced occasional sinking of ships. The change from canals to railways allowed for markets in which prices varied very little from city to city. In the 1880s, electrified trains were introduced, and also the first tramways, starting during the 1940s, the non-electrified railways in most countries had their steam locomotives replaced by diesel-electric locomotives, with the process being almost complete by 2000. During the 1960s, electrified high-speed railway systems were introduced in Japan, other forms of guided ground transport outside the traditional railway definitions, such as monorail or maglev, have been tried but have seen limited use. The history of the growth, decline and restoration to use of transport can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre Diolkos wagonway, trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos operated for over 600 years, Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany
32.
Norris Locomotive Works
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The Norris Locomotive Works was a steam locomotive manufacturing company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that produced nearly one thousand railroad engines between 1832 and 1866. The company was started in 1832 as the American Steam Carriage Company by William Norris and Major Stephen H. Long, the two men had experimented with steam engine building for years and, as early as 1829, designed a locomotive to burn anthracite coal. Norris and Long also built an engine called the Black Hawk, which performed with success on the Boston and Providence Railroad. Major Long later left the firm and William Norris was joined by his brother Septimus, the two brothers reformed the enterprise into the Norris Locomotive Works. Named George Washington, the 14,400 pound engine hauled a load of 19,200 pounds up the grade at 15 miles per hour. This engine, the first in the world to ascend a hill by its own power, so remarkable was this accomplishment that reports published in engineering journals emphatically doubted its occurrence. A second, more formal trial with a greater load proved the engines capabilities on July 19,1836. Norris 4-2-0s were exported to England for the Lickey Incline about 1842, Norris built the Lafayette for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad the following year based on plans of the George Washington. The Lafayette established the configuration that American steam locomotives would follow until the end of the steam era, in 1847, the Norris Works built the first ten-wheel locomotive in America, the Chesapeake. Operated by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, this was also the worlds first 4-6-0 locomotive and it weighed 22 tons and had 14½ by 22 inch cylinders and driving wheels 46 inches in diameter. Initially a wood-burning locomotive, the Chesapeake was converted to burn coal in 1862. Some authorities claim that Septimus Norris came up with the design, there were nine Norris brothers altogether, six of them had been involved in locomotive building at some point. The firm later became Richard Norris and Son, other locomotive factories, operated independently by various Norris brothers later opened in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Schenectady, New York. The Norris Locomotive Works sold many locomotives overseas, as noted above and this company was the first American exporter of locomotives—and perhaps of large mechanical devices generally. As early as 1840, thirty percent of the production until then had been for foreign markets. Norris machines operated in England, France, the states of the German Confederation, Belgium, Italy, Canada, Cuba and these engines influenced contemporary and subsequent locomotive design in many of these countries. William Norris had several large-scale operating models constructed as presentation pieces to rulers of several nations, such sovereigns included Tsar Nicholas of Russia and King Louis-Philippe of France, who was so pleased with his model that he gave Norris a gold medal and a handsome gold box. A quarter-sized 4-4-0 locomotive and tender were built for Commodore Matthew C. Perry to deliver as a gift on his expedition to Japan in 1854
33.
Penobscot Bay
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Penobscot Bay is an inlet of the Gulf of Maine and Atlantic Ocean in south central Maine. The bay originates from the mouth of Maines Penobscot River, downriver from Belfast, Penobscot Bay has many working waterfronts including Rockland, Rockport, and Stonington, and Belfast upriver. Penobscot Bay is between Muscongus Bay and Blue Hill Bay, just west of Acadia National Park,11,000 years ago, at the beginning of the Holocene epoch, the Gulf of Maines sea level fell as low as 180 feet below its present height. Penobscot Bay was then a continuation of Penobscot River that meandered through a broad lowland extending past present day Matinicus Island. A part of the Wabanaki Confederacy, the Penobscot Indian Nations present reservation includes Indian Island, north of Orono, Maine, Ancient remains of their campsites dating back millennia have been found on the bays shores and islands. There are many islands in this bay, and on them, Penobscot Bay has been the receiving waters for sewage waste and industrial waste discharges from bay and river towns since the 19th century. Discharge treatment was primarily dilution until the mid 20th century when the government began requiring communities and businesses of all states to meet water pollution control standards. In February 1967, the Water Pollution Control Administration published its findings as Report on Pollution - Navigable Waters of the Penobscot River and Upper Penobscot Bay. The investigation found that the sewage from towns, and effluents of thirteen businesses. Early Commercial Lobstering, 1840s to 1870s, Penobscot Bay was one of the first Maine lobster grounds exploited on a significant commercial scale. A United States Fish Commission report The Lobster Fishery of Maine in the 1899 Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, the quantity of lobsters carried by him that year was 40,000. Lobsters were so abundant at the Muscle Ridges, at this period, in the course of ten days each man would obtain between 1,200 and 1,500 marketable lobsters. In Captain Oakes opinion, the Muscle Ridges have furnished the most extensive lobster fishery of the Maine coast and he ran to this locality until 1874. He could load 5,000 lobsters at a time, and this traffic continued for six or seven years. In 1879, Captain Davis bought from 15 men In the same locality, at Matinicus Island the fishing began in 1868. In 1852 the people on Deer Island began the fishery, the establishment of a cannery at Oceanville, about 1860, also caused a considerable development of the fishery. The fishery was started at Isle an Haute about 1855, groups with chief focus on Penobscot Bay or parts thereof. *The Ancient Penobscot, or Panawanskek. as transcribed from The HISTORICAL MAGAZINE and Notes and Queries concerning The Antiquities, History, pp. 85–92 Joshua Treat, The Pioneer Settler on Penobscot River
34.
Belfast, Maine
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Belfast is a city in Waldo County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 6,668, located at the mouth of the Passagassawakeag River estuary on Penobscot Bay, Belfast is the county seat of Waldo County. The seaport has a wealth of architecture in several historic districts. The area was territory of the Penobscot tribe of Abenaki Indians. In 1630, it part of the Muscongus Patent, which granted rights for English trading posts with the Indians. About 1720, General Samuel Waldo of Boston bought the Muscongus Patent, which had evolved into outright ownership of the land, Waldo died in 1759, and his heirs would sell the plantation of Passagassawakeag to 35 Scots-Irish proprietors from Londonderry, New Hampshire. Renamed Belfast after Belfast, Northern Ireland, it was first settled in 1770, the village was mostly abandoned during the Revolution while British forces occupied Bagaduce. The British military burned Belfast in 1779, then held it for five days in September 1814 during the War of 1812, following the war, the seaport rebuilt and thrived. It was a port of entry, and designated county seat of Waldo County in 1827, Belfast was incorporated in 1853 as a city, the 8th in Maine. It developed into a center, producing hundreds of three, four and five masted schooners. Materials for wooden boat construction were shipped down the Penobscot River from Bangor, the lumber capital of North America during the later 19th century. For the first 55 years the line was operated under lease by the MEC as its Belfast Branch but its operation reverted to the B&ML on January 1,1926, when the lease was terminated by the larger road. Regular passenger service ended in 1960, and all operations in Belfast of any kind ceased in 2005, in 2011 the grounds of the former B&ML main yard and adjacent Stinson Seafood factory became the site of the Front Street Shipyard. The railroads 1946 vintage engine house was torn down and its site is now occupied by the shipyards 26,500 sq ft, five story boat building, shoe manufacture became an important business. After World War II, however, the Belfast economy was driven by its industry, including 2 of the states larger processors, Maplewood. Waldo County farms supplied the factories with up to 200,000 birds a day, the annual Broiler Festival became a popular summer event, attracting both local people and tourists. But the poultry business collapsed in the mid-1970s during a recession, devastating the city. In the early 1980s, the defunct chicken-feed silos at the foot of Main Street, there was an exodus of people seeking employment prospects elsewhere through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s
35.
Georgia (U.S. state)
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Georgia is a state in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1733, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies, named after King George II of Great Britain, Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2,1788. It declared its secession from the Union on January 19,1861 and it was the last state to be restored to the Union, on July 15,1870. Georgia is the 24th largest and the 8th most populous of the 50 United States, from 2007 to 2008,14 of Georgias counties ranked among the nations 100 fastest-growing, second only to Texas. Georgia is known as the Peach State and the Empire State of the South, Atlanta is the states capital, its most populous city and has been named a global city. Georgia is bordered to the south by Florida, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean and South Carolina, to the west by Alabama, the states northern part is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, part of the Appalachian Mountains system. Georgias highest point is Brasstown Bald at 4,784 feet above sea level, Georgia is the largest state entirely east of the Mississippi River in land area. Before settlement by Europeans, Georgia was inhabited by the mound building cultures, the British colony of Georgia was founded by James Oglethorpe on February 12,1733. The colony was administered by the Trustees for the Establishment of the Colony of Georgia in America under a charter issued by King George II. The Trustees implemented a plan for the colonys settlement, known as the Oglethorpe Plan. In 1742 the colony was invaded by the Spanish during the War of Jenkins Ear, in 1752, after the government failed to renew subsidies that had helped support the colony, the Trustees turned over control to the crown. Georgia became a colony, with a governor appointed by the king. The Province of Georgia was one of the Thirteen Colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution by signing the 1776 Declaration of Independence, the State of Georgias first constitution was ratified in February 1777. Georgia was the 10th state to ratify the Articles of Confederation on July 24,1778, in 1829, gold was discovered in the North Georgia mountains, which led to the Georgia Gold Rush and an established federal mint in Dahlonega, which continued its operation until 1861. The subsequent influx of white settlers put pressure on the government to land from the Cherokee Nation. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law, sending many eastern Native American nations to reservations in present-day Oklahoma, including all of Georgias tribes. Despite the Supreme Courts ruling in Worcester v. Georgia that ruled U. S. states were not permitted to redraw the Indian boundaries, President Jackson and the state of Georgia ignored the ruling. In 1838, his successor, Martin Van Buren, dispatched troops to gather the Cherokee
36.
St. Louis
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St. Louis is an independent city and major U. S. port in the state of Missouri, built along the western bank of the Mississippi River, on the border with Illinois. Prior to European settlement, the area was a regional center of Native American Mississippian culture. The city of St. Louis was founded in 1764 by French fur traders Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau, in 1764, following Frances defeat in the Seven Years War, the area was ceded to Spain and retroceded back to France in 1800. In 1803, the United States acquired the territory as part of the Louisiana Purchase, during the 19th century, St. Louis developed as a major port on the Mississippi River. In the 1870 Census, St. Louis was ranked as the 4th-largest city in the United States and it separated from St. Louis County in 1877, becoming an independent city and limiting its own political boundaries. In 1904, it hosted the Louisiana Purchase Exposition and the Summer Olympics, the economy of metro St. Louis relies on service, manufacturing, trade, transportation of goods, and tourism. This city has become known for its growing medical, pharmaceutical. St. Louis has 2 professional sports teams, the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball, the city is commonly identified with the 630-foot tall Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis. The area that would become St. Louis was a center of the Native American Mississippian culture and their major regional center was at Cahokia Mounds, active from 900 AD to 1500 AD. Due to numerous major earthworks within St. Louis boundaries, the city was nicknamed as the Mound City and these mounds were mostly demolished during the citys development. Historic Native American tribes in the area included the Siouan-speaking Osage people, whose territory extended west, European exploration of the area was first recorded in 1673, when French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled through the Mississippi River valley. Five years later, La Salle claimed the region for France as part of La Louisiane. The earliest European settlements in the area were built in Illinois Country on the east side of the Mississippi River during the 1690s and early 1700s at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, migrants from the French villages on the opposite side of the Mississippi River founded Ste. In early 1764, after France lost the 7 Years War, Pierre Laclède, the early French families built the citys economy on the fur trade with the Osage, as well as with more distant tribes along the Missouri River. The Chouteau brothers gained a monopoly from Spain on the fur trade with Santa Fe, French colonists used African slaves as domestic servants and workers in the city. In 1780 during the American Revolutionary War, St. Louis was attacked by British forces, mostly Native American allies, the founding of St. Louis began in 1763. Pierre Laclede led an expedition to set up a fur-trading post farther up the Mississippi River, before then, Laclede had been a very successful merchant. For this reason, he and his trading partner Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent were offered monopolies for six years of the fur trading in that area
37.
William Clark
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William Clark was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he grew up in prestatehood Kentucky before later settling in what became the state of Missouri, Clark was a planter and slaveholder. Before the expedition, he served in a militia and the United States Army, afterward, he served in a militia and as governor of the Missouri Territory. From 1822 until his death in 1838, he served as Superintendent of Indian Affairs, William Clark was born in Caroline County, Virginia, on August 1,1770, the ninth of ten children of John and Ann Rogers Clark. His parents were natives of King and Queen County, and were of English, the Clarks were common planters in Virginia, owners of modest estates and a few slaves, and members of the Anglican Church. Clark did not have any education, like many of his contemporaries. The spelling of American English was not standardized in Clarks youth, Clarks five older brothers fought in Virginia units during the American Revolutionary War, but William was too young. His oldest brother, Jonathan Clark, served as a colonel during the war and his second-oldest brother, George Rogers Clark, rose to the rank of general, spending most of the war in Kentucky fighting against British-allied American Indians. After the war, the two oldest Clark brothers made arrangements for their parents and family to relocate to Kentucky. William, his parents, his three sisters, and the Clark familys slaves arrived in Kentucky in March 1785, having first traveled overland to Redstone Landing in present-day Brownsville and they completed the journey down the Ohio River by flatboat. The Clark family settled at Mulberry Hill, a plantation along Beargrass Creek near Louisville and this was William Clarks primary home until 1803. In Kentucky, his older brother George Rogers Clark taught William wilderness survival skills, kentuckians fought the Northwest Indian War against American Indians, who were trying to preserve their territory north of the Ohio River. In 1789, 19-year-old William Clark joined a militia force under Major John Hardin. Clark kept a journal of the expedition, beginning a lifelong practice. Hardin was advancing against the Wea Indians, who had been raiding settlements in Kentucky, in error, the undisciplined Kentucky militia attacked a peaceful Shawnee hunting camp, where they killed a total of eight men, women, and children. In 1790, Clark was commissioned by General Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory, as a captain in the Clarksville, Indiana militia. One older source says he was sent on a mission to the Creek and Cherokee and he may have visited New Orleans at that time. His travels prevented him participating in General Josiah Harmars disastrous campaign into the Northwest Territory that year
38.
Missouri Fur Company
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The Missouri Fur Company was one of the earliest fur trading companies in St. Louis, Missouri. Dissolved and reorganized several times, it operated under names from 1809 until its final dissolution in 1830. It was created by a group of fur traders and merchants from St. Louis and Kaskaskia, Illinois, including Manuel Lisa and members of the Chouteau family. When Manuel Lisa returned to St. Louis from his first expedition to the upper Missouri River in August 1808, on February 24,1809, Lisa and other prominent fur traders from the St. The company acquired the equipment and posts of its members private fur companies, among the equipment and supplies to be traded with Native Americans for furs were guns, ammunition, and whiskey. The company defined its field of operations as the entire Missouri River valley upriver from the Platte River. Pierre Menard and Andrew Henry led the first expedition of the company, leaving St. Louis about June 1809 to escort a Mandan chief back to his home, the expedition comprised at least 150 men and carried supplies for at least five new trading posts. The group built the new posts along the Missouri River in the fall of 1809, the expedition traveled as far as Fort Lisa on the Yellowstone River at the mouth of the Bighorn, where they wintered over. As the expedition was trapping large numbers of beaver, its members expected to return to St. Louis with a supply of furs that would yield a good profit. However, they had built the post at the Three Forks on Blackfeet territory without their permission, additionally, the Blackfeet disliked Lisas having previously traded with the Crow Nation, whom they considered enemies. On April 12,1810, a party of Blackfeet warriors attacked the traders, killing five and capturing horses, guns, ammunition, traps and furs. They attacked the party again on April 23,1810, at which point several traders decided to return to St. Louis with Pierre Menard, while Andrew Henry was left in command of the remaining trappers. During the return journey of the Menard group, in early May 1810, George Drouillard, formerly an interpreter for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was killed in an ambush. At one point the trappers under Henrys command at the Three Forks post were attacked by more than 200 Blackfeet warriors, and they were forced to abandon the post in late 1810. Henry and the trappers bivouacked across the Continental Divide at a trading post on the north fork of the Snake River. When hunting at the new post did not yield enough food, in the spring of 1811, the group dissolved when some members headed south toward Spanish territory and others headed east toward the Missouri River valley and St. Louis. The first trade and trapping expedition of the Missouri Fur Company failed to supply the company with furs, while the Henry-Menard Expedition had trouble in the upper Missouri region, Auguste Pierre Chouteau launched his own expedition to the Mandan. He lost numerous furs and a trading post among the Mandan when a fire destroyed the post, the losses of the fire led Chouteau to return to St. Louis in late 1810, where low prices for beaver furs compounded the economic failure for his expedition
39.
Council Bluffs, Iowa
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Council Bluffs is a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. It is located on the east bank of the Missouri River, across from what is now the larger city of Omaha. Council Bluffs was known until 1852 as Kanesville — the historic starting point of the Mormon Trail, Council Bluffs population was 62,230 at the 2010 census. Council Bluffs is more than an older than Omaha. The latter, founded in 1854 by Council Bluffs businessmen and speculators following the Kansas-Nebraska Act, has grown to be a larger city. The first Council Bluff name was actually on the Nebraska side of the river at Fort Atkinson about 20 miles northwest of the current Council Bluffs and it was named by Lewis and Clark for a bluff where they met with the Otoe tribe on August 2,1804. Sauganashs English name was Billy Caldwell and the came to be called Caldwells Camp. The group was called the Bluff Indians. The U. S. Dragoons built a fort nearby. In 1838–39, the missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet founded St. Josephs Mission to minister to the Potawatomi, De Smet was appalled by the violence and brutality caused by the whiskey trade, and tried to protect the tribe from unscrupulous traders. However, he had success in persuading tribal members to convert to Christianity. During this time, De Smet contributed to Joseph Nicollet’s work in mapping the upper midwest, De Smet produced the first European-recorded, detailed map of the Council Bluffs area, it detailed the Missouri River valley system, from below the Platte River to the Big Sioux River. As more native Americans were pushed into the Council Bluffs area by pressure of European-American settlement to the east, the US Army built Fort Croghan in 1842, to keep order and try to control liquor traffic on the Missouri River. However that fort was destroyed in a flood the same year, by 1846 the Pottawatomi were forced to move again to a new reservation at Osawatomie, Kansas. In 1844, the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party crossed the Missouri River here, beginning in 1846, there was a large influx of Latter-day Saints into the area, although in the winter of 1847–1848 most Latter-day Saints crossed to the Nebraska side of the Missouri River. Initially, the area was called Millers Hollow, after Henry W. Miller, Miller also was the foreman for the construction of the Kanesville Tabernacle. Built at or next to Caldwells Camp, Kanesville became the outfitting point for the Mormon Exodus to Utah. Edwin Carter, who would become a noted naturalist in Colorado and he helped supply Mormon wagon trains
40.
Iowa
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Iowa is a U. S. state in the Midwestern United States, bordered by the Mississippi River on the east and the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west. Surrounding states include Wisconsin and Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south, Nebraska and South Dakota to the west, in colonial times, Iowa was a part of French Louisiana and Spanish Louisiana, its state flag is patterned after the flag of France. After the Louisiana Purchase, people laid the foundation for an economy in the heart of the Corn Belt. Iowa is the 26th most extensive in area and the 30th most populous of the 50 United States. Its capital and largest city by population is Des Moines, Iowa has been listed as one of the safest states in which to live. Its nickname is the Hawkeye State, Iowa derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many Native American tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa is bordered by the Mississippi River on the east, the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west, Iowa is the only state whose east and west borders are formed entirely by rivers. Iowa has 99 counties, but 100 county seats because Lee County has two, the state capital, Des Moines, is in Polk County. Iowas bedrock geology generally increases in age from west to east, in northwest Iowa, Cretaceous bedrock can be 74 million years old, in eastern Iowa Cambrian bedrock dates to c.500 million years ago. Iowa is generally not flat, most of the consists of rolling hills. Iowa can be divided into eight landforms based on glaciation, soils, topography, Loess hills lie along the western border of the state, some of which are several hundred feet thick. Northeast Iowa along the Mississippi River is part of the Driftless Zone, consisting of steep hills, several natural lakes exist, most notably Spirit Lake, West Okoboji Lake, and East Okoboji Lake in northwest Iowa. To the east lies Clear Lake, man-made lakes include Lake Odessa, Saylorville Lake, Lake Red Rock, Coralville Lake, Lake MacBride, and Rathbun Lake. The states northwest area has remnants of the once common wetlands. Iowas natural vegetation is tallgrass prairie and savanna in areas, with dense forest and wetlands in flood plains and protected river valleys. Most of Iowa is used for agriculture, crops cover 60% of the state, grasslands cover 30%, as of 2005 Iowa ranked 49th of U. S. states in public land holdings. Endangered or threatened plants include western prairie fringed orchid, eastern prairie fringed orchid, Meads milkweed, prairie bush clover, the explosion in the number of high-density livestock facilities in Iowa has led to increased rural water contamination and a decline in air quality. Iowa has a continental climate throughout the state
41.
James Monroe
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James Monroe was an American statesman who served from 1817 to 1825 as the fifth President of the United States. Monroe was the last president among the Founding Fathers of the United States as well as the Virginian dynasty, born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, Monroe was of the planter class and fought in the American Revolutionary War. He was wounded in the Battle of Trenton with a ball to his shoulder. After studying law under Thomas Jefferson from 1780 to 1783, he served as a delegate in the Continental Congress. He took a part in the new government, and in 1790 he was elected to the Senate of the first United States Congress. He gained experience as an executive as the Governor of Virginia and rose to prominence as a diplomat in France. During the War of 1812, Monroe served in roles as Secretary of State. As president, he sought to ease tensions, embarking on a tour of the country that was well received. As nationalism surged, partisan fury subsided, and the Era of Good Feelings ensued, until the Panic of 1819 struck, and a dispute over the admission of Missouri embroiled the country in 1820. Monroe supported the founding of colonies in Africa for freed slaves that would form the nation of Liberia, whose capital. His presidency concluded the first period of American presidential history before the beginning of Jacksonian democracy, following his retirement in 1825, Monroe was plagued by financial difficulties. He died in New York City on July 4,1831 and he has been ranked in the aggregate by scholars as the 16th most successful president. James Monroe was born on April 28,1758, in his parents house located in a area of Westmoreland County. The marked site is one mile from the community known today as Monroe Hall. The James Monroe Family Home Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and his father Spence Monroe was a moderately prosperous planter who also practiced carpentry. His mother Elizabeth Jones married Spence Monroe in 1752 and they had several children and his paternal great-grandfather Patrick Andrew Monroe emigrated to America from Scotland in the mid-17th century. In 1650 he patented a large tract of land in Washington Parish, Westmoreland County, also among James Monroes ancestors were French Huguenot immigrants, who came to Virginia in 1700. First tutored at home by his mother Elizabeth, between the ages of 11 and 16, the young Monroe studied at Campbelltown Academy, a run by Reverend Archibald Campbell of Washington Parish
42.
John Quincy Adams
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John Quincy Adams was an American statesman who served as a diplomat, United States Senator, member of the House of Representatives, and was the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican and he was the son of President John Adams and Abigail Adams and thus contributed to the formation of the Adams political family. Adams shaped U. S. foreign policy using his ardently nationalist commitment to U. S. republican values, as a diplomat, Adams played an important role in negotiating key treaties, most notably the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. As Secretary of State, he negotiated with Britain over the United States northern border with Canada, negotiated with Spain the annexation of Florida, historians generally concur that he was one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries of state in American history. Adams was elected president in a close and controversial four-way contest in 1824, as president he sought to modernize the American economy and promote education. Adams enacted a part of his agenda and paid off much of the national debt, however he was stymied time and again by a Congress controlled by opponents, and his lack of patronage networks helped politicians sabotage him. He lost his 1828 bid for re-election to Andrew Jackson, after leaving office, he was elected as U. S. Representative from Massachusetts in 1830, serving for the last 17 years of his life with greater acclaim than he had achieved as president, animated by his growing revulsion against slavery, Adams became a leading opponent of the Slave Power. Adams predicted the Unions dissolution over slavery, and in such a case, historians have in the aggregate ranked Adams as the 21st most successful president. John Quincy Adams was born on July 11,1767, to John Adams and he was named for his mothers maternal grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, after whom Quincy, Massachusetts, is named. Young Adams was educated by private tutors – his cousin James Thaxter and his fathers law clerk and he soon began to exhibit his literary skills in 1779, when he initiated a diary which he kept until just before he died in 1848. The diary comprised an unprecedented fifty volumes, representing one of the most extensive, much of Adams youth was spent accompanying his father overseas. He accompanied his father on diplomatic missions to France from 1778 until 1779, Adams acquired an education at institutions such as Leiden University. He matriculated in Leiden on January 10,1781, for nearly three years, beginning at the age of 14, he accompanied Francis Dana as a secretary on a mission to Saint Petersburg, Russia, to obtain recognition of the new United States. He spent time in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark and, in 1804, during these years overseas, Adams became fluent in French and Dutch and became familiar with German and other European languages. Though Adams enjoyed Europe, he and his family decided he needed to return to the United States to complete his education and he entered Harvard College, graduated in 1787 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and was elected by Phi Beta Kappa. Adams, mainly with the influence of his father, had excelled in studies and reached fluency in Latin. Upon entering Harvard he had already translated Virgil, Horace, Plutarch, after graduating from Harvard, he studied law with Theophilus Parsons in Newburyport, Massachusetts from 1787 to 1789
43.
Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
44.
Titian Peale
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Titian Ramsay Peale was an American artist, naturalist, and explorer. He was a scientific illustrator whose paintings and drawings of wildlife were known for their beauty. Peale was born on November 17,1885 in Philadelphia, the youngest son of noted artist and naturalist and he was first exposed to the study of natural history while assisting his father on his many excursions in search of specimens for the Peale Museum. The family moved to Germantown, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, although some of his butterfly and moth illustrations were ultimately published, the majority remained unpublished until recently. His drawings were published in Thomas Says American Entomology as early as 1816, Peale took part in the 1817 expedition of the Academy of Natural Sciences to Florida and Georgia, together with Thomas Say, George Ord and William Maclure. He was assistant to Say on the expedition to the Rocky Mountains led by Stephen Harriman Long in 1819, the collection submitted to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia from this expedition included 122 drawings by Peale. He acquired a wild turkey for the museums collections, Peale provided illustrations for Says American Entomology and Charles Lucien Bonapartes American Ornithology. He also undertook an expedition to Florida on behalf of Bonaparte. In 1831, Peale published a pamphlet known as Circular of the Philadelphia Museum, the Peale museum continued to gain a worldwide reputation. He developed a method for storing butterflies in sealed cases with glass fronts. As a result, parts of his collection have been preserved until the present day and his meticulous collection of over 100 separate butterfly species was often praised for the brilliance and vibrancy of the insects colors. As chief naturalist, he collected and preserved specimens of natural history. Peales post-expedition report, Mammalia and Ornithology, was suppressed due to objections by Wilkes, Cassin was hired to produce a corrected volume, which was published in 1858. During the expedition, Wilkes named Peale Passage after Titian Peale, on May 1,1843, financial pressures forced Peale to sell the bankrupt museum at a sheriffs sale to Isaac Brown Parker. Peale went on to work for the U. S, patent Office and to become a pioneer American photographer. C. In 1923, Peale Island, one of the three islands surrounding the lagoon at Wake Atoll was named for Peale by Alexander Wetmore, lead scientist of the Tanager Expedition, calhoun, J. V. & D. M. Wright. Remarks on the recent publication of Titian R. Peales lost manuscript, journal of Research on the Lepidoptera. Titian Ramsay Peale And His Journals of The Wilkes Expedition, 1799-1885, mr. Peales Museum, Charles Willson Peale and the First Popular Museum of Natural Science and Art
45.
Thomas Say
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Thomas Say was an American entomologist, conchologist, and herpetologist. Say has been called the father of American descriptive entomology and American conchology and he served as librarian for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, curator at the American Philosophical Society, and professor of natural history at the University of Pennsylvania. Born in Philadelphia into a prominent Quaker family, Thomas Say was the great-grandson of John Bartram, and his father, Dr. Benjamin Say, was brother-in-law to another Bartram son, Moses Bartram. The Say family had a house, The Cliffs at Grays Ferry, adjoining the Bartram family farms in Kingessing township, as a boy, Say often visited the family garden, Bartrams Garden, where he frequently took butterfly and beetle specimens to his great-uncle William. A self-taught naturalist, Say helped found the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1812, in 1816, he met Charles Alexandre Lesueur, a French naturalist, malacologist, and ichthyologist who soon became a member of the Academy and served as its curator until 1824. At the Academy, Say began his work on what he would publish as American Entomology, to collect insects, he made numerous expeditions to frontier areas, risking American Indian attacks and hazards of traveling in wild countryside. In 1819–20, Major Stephen Harriman Long led an exploration to the Rocky Mountains, in 1823, Say served as chief zoologist in Longs expedition to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. He traveled on the Boatload of Knowledge to the New Harmony Settlement in Indiana, Say was accompanied by Maclure, Lesueur, Troost, and Francis Neef, an innovative pedagogue. There he later met Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz, another naturalist, on January 4,1827, Say secretly married Lucy Way Sistare, whom he had met as one of the passengers to New Harmony, near the settlement. She was an artist and illustrator of specimens, as in the book American Conchology, during their years in New Harmony, Say and Lesueur experienced considerable difficulties. Say was a modest and unassuming man, who lived frugally like a hermit and he abandoned commercial activities and devoted himself to his studies, making difficulties for his family. Say died, apparently from typhoid fever, in New Harmony on 10 October 1834, Say described more than 1,000 new species of beetles, more than 400 species of insects of other orders, and seven well-known species of snakes. The Original Boatload of Knowledge Down the Ohio River, William Maclures and Robert Owens Transfer of Science and Education to the Midwest, complete Writings of Thomas Say on the Entomology of North America. The Entomological Collection of Thomas Say, ziebler, Grace M. Thomas Say, Early American Naturalist
