Fallston Almanac of American History

Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr

2009-07-09T05:07:00.002-04:00

(Wikipedia) - Thomas West, 3rd (or 12th) Baron De La Warr (July 9, 1577 – June 7, 1618) was the Englishman after whom the bay, river, American Indian tribe, and U.S. state, all later called "Delaware", were named.
... After the Powhattans murdered the colony's governor, Lord Ratcliffe, and attacked the colony in the first First Anglo-Powhatan War, Lord De La Warr headed the contingent of 150 men who landed in Jamestown, Virginia on June 10, 1610, just in time to persuade the original settlers not to give up and go home to England. Continued

Gilmor's raiders return to Jerusalem Mill this weekend

2009-07-09T05:01:00.003-04:00

"Jerusalem Mill Village announces its 5th Annual Civil War Weekend Encampment; commemorating CSA Major Harry W. Gilmor's 1864 raid across Baltimore and Harford Counties and on the General Store (now popularly known as McCourtney's), located here in the village. The raid was part of an overall campaign conducted by Major Gilmor against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Major Gilmor and 135 of his men, parts of the 1st and 2nd Maryland Cavalry, passed through Jerusalem Mill on their way to burn the railroad bridge at Magnolia Station, stopping long enough to "requisition" supplies and "liberate" horses from the store and the surrounding area." Continued

Via Bel Air News & Views

National Archives Gone Missing: Lincoln Civil War Telegraphs, Photos Of The Moon, And More

2009-07-08T04:50:00.001-04:00

(Huffington Post) - National Archives visitors know they'll find the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the main building's magnificent rotunda in Washington. But they won't find the patent file for the Wright Brothers' Flying Machine or the maps for the first atomic bomb missions anywhere in the Archives inventory.
Many historical items the Archives once possessed are missing, including: Continued

History Detectives Season VII Highlight Reel - PBS

2009-07-07T07:13:00.001-04:00

Satchel Paige

2009-07-07T05:11:00.002-04:00

(Wikipedia) - Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (July 7, 1906– June 8, 1982) was an American baseball player whose pitching in several different Negro Leagues and in Major League Baseball made him a legend in his own lifetime.
Paige was a right-handed pitcher and was the oldest rookie to play Major League Baseball. He played with the St. Louis Browns around the age of fifty and represented them in the Major League All-Star Game in both 1952 and 1953. His professional playing career lasted from the mid-1920s until 1965. In 1971, Paige was the first player to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame from the Negro Leagues. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

John Paul Jones

2009-07-06T02:54:00.002-04:00

(Wikipedia) - John Paul Jones (July 6, 1747 - July 18, 1792) was America's first well-known naval fighter in the American Revolutionary War. Although he made enemies among the American ruling class, his actions in British waters during the Revolution earned him an international reputation which persists to this day.
During his engagement with Serapis, Jones uttered, according to the later recollection of his First Lieutenant, the legendary reply to a quip about surrender from the British captain: "I have not yet begun to fight!" Continued

Hold the mayo! When did crab cakes get so bland?

2009-07-05T03:56:00.009-04:00

There was a time in Harford County when corn on the cob came in two basic varieties: white or yellow. The yellow corn started disappearing from roadside stands some 20 years ago. "Can't sell it, the yuppies think it's cow corn," one local proprietor told me.

Around the same time, crab cakes started getting snotty too, or perhaps I should say "phlegmy," the culprit was too much mayonnaise. To be fair, mayonnaise has been a standard ingredient of many Maryland crab cake recipes since the 1930's, but the levels were reasonable. Take the recipe on the side of the Old Bay can for example:

2 slices white bread, crusts removed and crumbled
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 teaspoons OLD BAY® Seasoning
OR OLD BAY® 30% Less Sodium Seasoning
2 teaspoons McCormick® Parsley Flakes
1/2 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
1 egg, beaten
1 pound lump crabmeat

Two tablespoons of mayonnaise for a pound of crab meat is fine and tasty, but any more and you're getting into crab imperial territory. It used to be an easy choice: if you wanted mustardy, you ordered a crab cake, if you wanted creamy, you ordered the imperial.

Believe it or not, there was a time when Maryland crab cakes didn't contain mayonnaise at all. Here's a recipe from 1685:

To fry Crabs Take the meat out of the great claws being first boiled, flour and fry them and take the meat out of the body strian half if it for sauce, and the other half to fry, and mix it with grated bread, almond paste, nutmeg, salt, and yolks of eggs, fry in clarified butter, being first dipped in batter, put in a spoonful at a time; then make sauce with wine-vinegar, butter, or juyce of orange, and grated nutmeg, beat up the butter thick, and put some of the meat that was strained into the sauce, warm it and put it in a clean dish, lay the meat on the sance, slices of orange over all, and run it over with beaten butter, fryed parasley, round the dish brim, and the little legs round the meat.

Here's another, more recent version from the 1950's (This one comes from the University of Maryland Agriculture and Home Economics Extension Service, circa 1956, and is a personal favorite - sans onions):

1 pound blue crab meat
2 tablespoon chopped onion
2 tablespoons butter or other fat, melted
1 egg beaten
1/2 teaspoon powdered mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
Dash pepper
Dash cayenne pepper
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs

Now that's a list of ingredients that'll make a good, authentic mid-20th century crab cake. Fried or broiled? One of each please.

Photos: 1. Price's Seafood in Havre de Grace. 2. Signage for The Crab Shack in Conowingo.

Bill Watterson

2009-07-05T01:32:00.005-04:00

(Wikipedia) - William B. "Bill" Watterson II (born July 5, 1958), is an American cartoonist and the author of the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes cartoon series.
... Watterson was born in Washington, D.C., where his father, James G. Watterson, worked as a patent examiner while going to George Washington University Law School before becoming a patent attorney in 1960. Continued

Photo: Zooomabooma

Preserving the Declaration

2009-07-03T19:48:00.005-04:00

(Wired) - The Declaration of Independence can be fairly said to stand alongside the Magna Carta and Bill of Rights as the most important documents in the history of democracy. Its significance was understood from the moment it was signed, so one is left to wonder why its preservation was ignored for so long. Continued

Photo: "John Trumbull's painting, Declaration of Independence, depicting the five-man drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence presenting their work to the Congress. The painting can be found on the back of the U.S. $2 bill. The original hangs in the US Capitol rotunda." (Wikipedia)

The Great Reunion of 1913

2009-07-03T02:15:00.003-04:00

(NPS) - The largest combined reunion of Civil War veterans ever held occurred at Gettysburg in 1913. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hosted the event and extended invitations to every surviving honorably discharged Union and Confederate veteran in the nation. It was scheduled to be a unique encampment, a combined reunion of members of the Grand Army of the Republic and United Confederate Veterans. The response was overwhelming and despite efforts to limit the numbers attending, over 50,000 veterans came to Gettysburg and settled into the great camp situated on the battlefield. Former foes walked together over the old battlefield and re-lived the terrible days where so many of their comrades had lost their lives. Continued

The Real John Dillinger: Is Public Enemies historically accurate?

2009-07-02T16:34:00.003-04:00

(Slate) - Did FBI agents shoot and kill John Dillinger on the streets of Chicago on July 22, 1934? Or was it the cops from East Chicago who fired the fatal rounds, the very officers who later received the reward money? Did the famous bank robber pull his gun at the last moment, as the feds maintained? Or were the eyewitnesses, who said they saw no weapon, telling the truth? Continued

Photo: John Dillinger (Wikipedia).

Chautauqua 2009 Coming to Cecil County in July

2009-07-02T13:37:00.002-04:00

(HSoCC) - ... On Friday the 10th, listen to Woody Guthrie celebrate the life of working people in his songs, poetry and prose. On Saturday the 11th, hear how Jackie Robinson dealt with being the first black player in major league baseball. And on Sunday the 12th, see how Eleanor Roosevelt changed both our nation and the world through her commitment to social activism. Continued

Hard Times: Coxey's Army

2009-07-02T02:39:00.003-04:00

(lesTout) - Before the Great Depression of the 1930's, there was another "Great Depression" during the latter part of the 19th century. It was also called the "Long Depression" because it went on, more or less, for a couple of decades. It all started with the Panic of 1873 and was followed by a long list of panics, crashes, and scandals. Continued

Photo: Members of Coxey's Army (Library of Congress).

The Battle of Gettysburg, Day 2

2009-07-02T00:08:00.004-04:00

The men who fought there

Were the tired fighters, the hammered, the weather-beaten,

The very hard-dying men.

They came and died

And came again and died and stood there and died,

Till at last the angle was crumpled and broken in…

Wheatfield and orchard bloody and trampled and taken,

And Hood's tall Texans sweeping on toward the Round Tops…

- Stephen Vincent Benet, John Brown's Body

(Library of Congress)

Video: How to drive a Model T Ford

2009-07-01T15:02:00.002-04:00

My grandfather had one of these. He used to pay my mom a penny a night to go out and light a lamp on the back of it, so nobody would run into it. One time, he and "some floozy" (not my grandmother), got drunk and drove it into a large fountain. It made the morning papers. After that, the company that supplied the car (he was a salesman), affixed company banners all over it as punishment. I probably shouldn't be telling this story.

Via boingboing

A Historian Is on a Quest to Locate Lost Events

2009-07-01T03:54:00.004-04:00

(NYTimes) - ... Andrew Carroll, 39, an amateur historian, is embarking this week on a 50-state journey to uncover, memorialize and preserve these and other sites where history happened serendipitously, and which, for one reason or another, have been relegated to anonymity.
“It’s sort of a reverse scavenger hunt,” he said. “Trying to find things that aren’t there.” Continued

See also: Here is Where

Photo: Little Falls (Quaker) Meeting House, Fallston, MD

5 Pathetic Groups That People Think Rule the World

2009-06-30T20:05:00.003-04:00

(Cracked) - Oh, look, they made another Dan Brown movie at some point. Angels & Demons deals with the deep dark secret organization, The Illuminati, and their attempts to control the world, which means you're probably going to be hearing a lot about that in the next few months on certain, paranoid websites.
Yes, wide-ranging conspiracy theories aren't limited to pulp novels reenacted by a terrible Tom Hanks haircut. YouTube and Digg comments and countless blogs are full of people ranting about the secret elite who are out to enslave all of us.
They have a lot of reasons for believing the following groups are the guilty parties behind everything wrong with the world, and most of those reasons are very, very retarded. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Pa Ingalls - Pioneer GeekDad?

2009-06-30T00:03:00.005-04:00

(Geekdad) - Somewhere along the line, some folks may have gotten the idea that Little House on the Prairie is “just for girls” and that the plot mostly involves Laura Ingalls running through the tall grass in a calico dress.
But I’m reading the book to my boys right now and there’s a lot more D.I.Y. than dresses. Much of the book is about Pa building the house. Continued

Photo: My great grandparents and their children in front of their second little house on the prairie, they'd build one more (which is still standing in New Mexico), after this one.

Mystery of Crop Circles Revealed!

2009-06-28T21:19:00.005-04:00

(LesTout) - In a stunning setback for UFOlogists, pseudo scientists, and the just plain gullible, it was revealed today that Australian crop circles are created by wallabies - drunk wallabies. Continued

More crop circle news via National Geo:
Huge Pre-Stonehenge Complex Found via "Crop Circles"

Photo by PanBK.

Green Ben: Benjamin Franklin and Ecosystems

2009-06-28T08:44:00.003-04:00

(Historynet) - Long overlooked correspondence between Franklin and Priestley gives us front row seats to a remarkable historical drama: two great minds grappling with the first stirrings of a genuinely new way of thinking about life on earth. Priestley’s experiments revealed that the air we breathe is not some unalienable physical phenomenon, like gravity or magnetism, but is rather something that has been specifically manufactured by plants. In turn, Franklin recognized that the manufacture of breathable air is itself part of a vast, interconnected system that links animals, plants and invisible gases. And the choices we make as humans—destroying trees that grow near houses, for instance—can have a dangerous impact on that flow, if the core participants in the system aren’t properly appreciated and protected. In discovering how Mother Nature had invented our atmosphere, Franklin and Priestley were inventing something just as profound: the ecosystems view of the world. Continued

A Ham Radio Weekend for Talking to the Moon

2009-06-27T03:46:00.002-04:00

(NYTimes) - On Saturday, amateur radio buffs or “hams,” as they call themselves, will hold a global bounce-fest, using as many giant parabolic antenna radio telescopes as they can borrow around the world.
Not that one needs an excuse to hold a moon-bounce, but this one is being held as a kind of advance celebration of the 40th anniversary next month of the Apollo 11 mission. Continued

Photo: Library of Congress

Middle River gets a new trail along water

2009-06-26T11:52:00.001-04:00

(Baltimore Sun) - ... Neighbors lauded the blacktop trail, built with $1 million in county and state money, as only the beginning of a series of pathways that will eventually connect downtown Essex north to Marshy Point Creek. The path begins in the 7.4-acre Hawthorne Park, winds through the neighborhood to Darkhead Creek Park and ends at Hawthorne Elementary School. Continued

Was Custer Outgunned at Little Bighorn?

2009-06-25T17:35:00.005-04:00

(Wired) - Tactical blunders and faulty intelligence work contributed heavily to one of the worst defeats ever sustained by the U.S. Army during its protracted campaign to subjugate the Plains Indians, but technology may have played a role, too. Simply put, the Indians may have come to the battlefield in eastern Montana better equipped to fight than the 7th Cavalry troopers. Odd, considering the mercurial brevet Maj. Gen. Custer was leading the spear tip of a force ordered to compel the rebellious Indians to return to their reservations, or else annihilate them. Continued

Photo: Gatling Gun, U.S. Army Ordnance Museum Aberdeen, Maryland. Canon EOS 5D

Bel Air’s mill to be gone in 60 days; Historic building being razed

2009-06-25T14:10:00.001-04:00

(Ægis) - The 120-year-old mill on Bel Air’s Main Street will soon be just a memory.
Constructed in 1886 and at one time producing 100 barrels of flour per day, the four-story building is now being demolished after Henry Holloway, owner of The Mill of Bel Air, stopped using it last year. Continued

Hard Times: Wild Boys of the Road

2009-06-25T01:04:00.003-04:00

(LesTout) - You read in the papers about giving people help. The banks get it. The soldiers get it. The breweries get it. And they're always yelling about giving it to the farmers. What about us? We're kids! Go ahead! Put me in a cell. Lock me up! I'm sick of being hungry and cold. Sick of freight trains. Jail can't be any worse than the street. So give it to me! Continued

Photo: "Family who traveled by freight train." Dorothea Lange, 1939 (FSA/Library of Congress).