The Fox Sisters   In 1850, near Rochester, NY  13 year old and 15 year old sisters, Leah and Margaretta Fox started playing a joke on their mother, cracking their toes and dropping apples on the attic floor, convincing their mother and their neighbors ghosts were communicating with the girls.  Thus, started the modern era of the paranormal as the “rapping” craze swept the nation.      It did not take long before the girls were making money giving seances.  Their eldest sister took charge of them, and they never did tell their gullible parents the truth.  Though unmasked as "humbugs" early and repeatedly, the Fox sisters continued to hold seances.  They soon had competition. Dozens of imitators started giving seances, communicating with spirits "rapping" their answers back from the beyond. Young women in particular were “using society’s natural modesty” to conceal cracking their toes, or other gimmicks beneath long dre...

  What I Have Learned Writing This Blog      A little more than a year ago, while writing a magazine article on a different topic, I stumbled upon magazine and newspaper articles about the United States’ close call with war in a remote part of South America in 1858. Big news at the time; forgotten today.  “Dumpster diving” in the Library of Congress’ massive newspaper and periodical collection turned up all sorts of nuggets of forgotten history.  In fact, I could hardly open more than a few newspapers while looking for one obscure topic without finding several other mysteries.      There was just as much going on in the world between 1848 and 1868 as there was in the world between 1996 and 2016.  Yet, to the modern mind, there is practically nothing going on between 1848-1868 except the Civil War, and perhaps people might remember the 1849 Gold Rush and Commodore Perry opening Japan to trade.  I have learned how difficult it is...

  Charles P. Stone, Brigadier General, USV Inauguration Day Washington March 4, 1861 Protecting Lincoln           The Century magazine compiled a four volume history of the Civil War with an emphasis on having participants of a particular campaign or incident write about it.   The series was lavishly illustrated with new engravings as well as reprints of engravings the magazine had published before. The first of the four thick volumes starts with an account by Brig. Gen. Charles Pomeroy Stone, (September 30, 1824-Jan 24, 1887) the officer charged with protecting Lincoln and Buchanan on inauguration day as well as organizing the defense of the District of Columbia. Charles Pomeroy Stone was an 1844 graduate of West Point. He fought in several battles of the Mexican War and came out of the conflict promoted to captain.   Soon afterwards he resigned his commission because a captain’s pay would not support his wife and gro...

  Map of the State of Coahuila & Texas The Truth About Texas Davy Crokett circa 1834  after losing re-election to the US Congress "Y'all can go to Hell!  I'm going to Texas!"            Davy Crockett  on leaving his seat in the Tennessee legislature.  Spanish Mexico with vast stretches of thinly or completely uninhabited lands needed hardworking immigrants as much as the young USA. Spanish representatives touring the US to recruit settlers in 1820 met Moses Austin, in southeast Virginia.  Austin was agreeable and enthusiastic about moving to Mexico so Spain granted him a large stretch of land for him and his friends. Sadly, like Moses, this Moses never saw the promised land.  He died in June 1821 three months before Mexico declared independence in September of 1821.    His son, Stephen F. Austin, took over his father’s dream of a new settlement in Texas and soon received recognition of the Spanish...

  Cherokee Cure - An Unfailing cure for Gonorrhea -cures in 1 to 3 days and all the diseases of the Urinary Organs Medicine was still by guess and by God. No regulation of prescriptions or any drug combination existed. There was little science to even base a cure on. Louis Pasteur in France had not yet published any ideas that bacteria could cause disease, and when published in the 1860s, it was not universally known or accepted until almost 1900. A few modern medical procedures were known—vaccination against smallpox, eating fruits and vegetables to prevent scurvy. Beginning in 1850, chloroform as an anesthetic came into wide use. Imbalance in “humors” or “biles” was thought to be the agent of illness.   “Bleeding,” whether by cutting a vein or applying leeches, was often thought to be a cure. Yellow fever and malaria were believed to be caused by “foul miasmas” arising in the night air, particularly in low lying areas. One doctor even developed a completely logical ...