Mid 1800s Samoan warrior with his machete sword         Long before Graham Greene wrote his classic novel "The Ugly American," Americans were already doing an outstanding job of being ugly, condescending, and threatening destruction if their demands were not met.      From the early 1820s on through the rest of the 1800s, growing numbers of European missionaries and settlers in the South Pacific increasingly demanded protection from their respective navies.  This was very similar to the pattern of settlers in the American West asking the US Army for protection against Native Americans.       The United States was a participant in at least a half dozen punitive expeditions against various island tribes before the American Civil War not counting the ad hoc bullying  by an American naval officer recounted below.      Today, Apia and its harbor are part of the Samoa,  under Commonwealth protecti...

Gotham's First Crime Boss Defends  Himself     " The Captain," as Isaiah Rynders (1804-1885) was known, was a violent man and a violent racist.  He earned the captain's title for briefly captaining a sloop (one sail) packet boat along the Hudson River before becoming a gambler and knife fighter. Some time in the late 1830s he appeared in New York City and worked his way up in politics as the enforcing arm of the Tammy Hall Democrats.        Rynders owned a string of saloons in the city and gathered around him men who were young, violent, and looking for money.  He was head of the crime gang Dead Rabbits, a  thoroughly  criminal enterprise, and president of The Empire Club," which generally did the  rough  enforcement  for Tammy Hall.      "The Captain"  Rynders was a leader in what was called "The Astor Opera House Riot in May,1849.  (Worthy of its own future blog entry.)  In the 185...

  The 5,000 Richest Girls in the US        I am occasionally asked, “how do you find  all the strange stuff in your blog?”      The answer is “I stumble onto it.”  Researching one thing leads to reading about something else just as fascinating or unknown as what I am originally looking for.      For example: I was looking for stories about the election of Nathaniel Banks, Jr. as Speaker of the US House of the 34 th  Congress February 2, 1856. Banks was elected after the House had voted 133 times! over a period stretching from December 1855 to February 2, 1856 Nathaniel Banks 1842      A short story in the Alexandria Virginia Gazette from February 4, 1856 briefly reports the election of a new Speaker of the House.  The paper has a longer article about deep disagreement between General Winfield Scott, head of the US Army, and then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis.       On t...

  The Oil Rush of 1859 Drake's first oil well      The discovery of oil in western Pennsylvania was as spectacular as the discovery of gold in California. The oil rush is not so well known since the Civil War overshadows it.    Even so, the frenzy long outlasted the gold rush and yielded more dollars.     By late 1864, drilling rights were being sold for $100,000.      By the end of January 1866, rights were sold at from $1million to $2 million.      Not only was oil good for making kerosene, advocates claimed, it was unsurpassed as a medical cure all.  The Oil Excitement — the Jeffersonian, PA December 8, 1859             The oil fever is raging in portions of Western Pennsylvania. An exchange published in the Crawford county, and especially in the vicinity of Oil Creek, the fever is epidemic. Everybody is more or less affected, and the attention of the pe...

  It’s 1859--Let’s Get Fracking!      The recent rush for underground energy called “fracking” and its attendant environmental consequences has happened before.      Demand for cheaper lighting, not the automobile, drove the first oil boom.       In 1859 when the first successful oil well started producing near Titusville, Pennsylvania, speculators rushed in to buy drilling rights on farms throughout the area. Small farmers were offered more money than they ever expected to see in their lifetime.     Many of the farmers found their land damaged or ruined by oil wells which spewed salt water and oil spills into surrounding streams and rivers.   Farmers downstream from the area suffered the effects too without ever receiving any money.      You might wonder why would petroleum be valuable in era before the automobile? Petroleum had little to no commercial value until a serial entrepreneur and invent...

  Magic Lanterns--Without Aladdin or Three Wishes March 17, 1854 Daily Evening Washington Star MAGIC LANTERN FOR SALE—A rare chance, by which any enterprising young man may make from thirty to one hundred dollars a night. We have on hand for sale, a superior second hand Magic Lantern, containing from 150 to 200 religious and other French Paintings. Also, a splendid chromotope, which will be sold a great bargain in if applied this week. DOWNS & HUTCHINSON Penn. Avenue, between 4 ½ and 6 th streets A standard magic lantern. The slides are hand painted onto a thin rectangular glass plate and then slipped between two clear glass plates to protect the painting from scratches.  The plates were then set into a thin wood holder with a little brass handle on one end. The slide would be fitted into the holder behind the focusing lens. In the box behind the slide was a light source--a candle, or alcohol lamp or lime light. A hole on the top and the two "doors on each side could be o...