Added, added and added.
1855 - Soldiers shoot Jewish families in Coro, Venezuela
World wide immigration going on. Money, taxation and corrupt governemtn as usual.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/coro.html
In 1827, a group of Jews emigrated from the tiny island of Curacao to the nearby mainland port city of Coro, Venezuela. Twenty-eight years later, violent rioting drove the entire Jewish population – 168 individuals – back to Curacao. It was the first time that Jews had been driven out of an independent nation in South America.
The hostility directed at Coro’s Jews was in part economic in nature. Venezuela’s banking system was in chaos, its government corrupt and unemployment rampant. Xenophobia – resentment of foreigners – was running high.
Starting in the 1840s, the municipal government of Coro and the local military garrison asked the Jewish community for loans as advances against their taxes. These were made interest free, and at times were simply “voluntary†contributions as it became clear that the loans would not be repaid. Aizenberg notes, “With the passing of time these payments became not a financial resource which the government could tap in case of urgent need, but a regular source of funds which it came to expect as a matter of course.â€
1955 - US Congress authorizes registered mail
The background is interesting as major issues are going on. The postal system was the internet of it’s day. The panama rail road cut 3 weeks off a mail to the west coast. 3/4 of all federal civilian workers were in the postal system. Note the effect on politicians..............
The registered mail thing deserves a little thinking as the importance of it use for confidential documents?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service
The postal system played a crucial role in national expansion. It facilitated expansion into the West by creating an inexpensive, fast, convenient communication system. Letters from early settlers provided information and boosterism to encourage increased migration to the West, helped scattered families stay in touch and provide assistance, assisted entrepreneurs in finding business opportunities, and made possible regular commercial relationships between merchants in the west and wholesalers and factories back east. The postal service likewise assisted the Army in expanding control over the vast western territories. The widespread circulation of important newspapers by mail, such as the New York Weekly Tribune, facilitated coordination among politicians in different states. The postal service helped integrate established areas with the frontier, creating a spirit of nationalism and providing a necessary infrastructure.[17]
The Post Office in the 19th century was a major source of federal patronage. Local postmasterships were rewards for local politicians—often the editors of party newspapers. About 3/4 of all federal civilian employees worked for the Post Office. In 1816 it employed 3341 men, and in 1841, 14,290. The volume of mail expanded much faster than the population, as it carried annually 100 letters and 200 newspapers per 1000 white population in 1790, and 2900 letters and 2700 newspapers per thousand in 1840.[18]
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An Act of Congress provided for the issuance of stamps on March 3, 1847, and the Postmaster General immediately let a contract to the New York City engraving firm of Rawdon, Wright, Hatch, and Edson. The first stamp issue of the U.S. was offered for sale on July 1, 1847, in New York City, with Boston receiving stamps the following day and other cities thereafter. The 5-cent stamp paid for a letter weighing less than 1 oz (28 g) and traveling less than 300 miles, the 10-cent stamp for deliveries to locations greater than 300 miles, or twice the weight deliverable for the 5-cent stamp.
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In 1855, William Henry Aspinwall completed the Panama Railway, providing rail service across the Isthmus and cutting to three weeks the transport time for the mails, passengers and goods to California. This remained an important route until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Railroad companies greatly expanded mail transport service after 1862, and the Railway Mail Service was inaugurated in 1869.[20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_mail
U.S. certified mail began in 1955 after the idea was originated by Assistant U.S. Postmaster General Joseph Cooper.[10] It is also acceptable to send U.S. Government classified information at the Confidential level using the Certified Mail service.
1855 - Clipper Guiding Star disappears in Atlantic, 480 dead
Again lots of movement going on. Gold. Australia
http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?131797
Owned by Miller & Thompson (Golden Line), Liverpool and built in 1853 by W. & R. Wright, St. John, Nova Scotia; 2,013 tons; 233x38x22.1 ft;
The large clipper GUIDING STAR, owned by Miller & Thompson’s Golden Line completed her first round trip to Melbourne in 1854. On January 9th 1855, GUIDING STAR departed Liverpool to Australia with 62 crew and officers and 481 passengers on board, mostly emigrants. She was insured for £12,000, a huge amount at that time.
She was last seen in the Southern Ocean by the American Ship MERCURY, on 12th February 1855. On 19th February, large icebergs were seen and narrowly avoided by the ship GEORGE MARSHALL, on the same route of GUIDING STAR, which at that time was about 36 hours behind the George Marshall.
Ever since never was heard of the Guiding star. It is thought that she was embayed in a huge icefield that had boundaries extending from 44°S-28°W to 40°S-20°W.
Many emigrant ships, including the GUIDING STAR promised a fast passage and they did that by going as far as possible South to catch up with favourable winds towards Australia.
Thank you, Sir.
1855 - The first locomotive runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean on the Panama Railway
We don’t think about the railroad much these days, but it was a big deal back then. We bought the railroad back from the French when we started the canal.
http://www.panamarailroad.org/history1.html
It was then, with the changing of the North American boundaries when the US came into possession of Oregon, and the war with Mexico giving California to the US, that the attention of North America was properly aroused to the necessity of a shorter route to the almost (at that time) inaccessible possessions.
There were three routes to California from the East Coast. A man could go across the continent, presumably on his own two feet if he had to. He could take a ship for the long, uncomfortable and dangerous voyage around Cape Horn, or he could make the “pleasant voyage to Panama, stroll across the fifty miles of Isthmus to the Pacific and, after another easy sea voyage, find himself in San Fransisco
The changes that took place were sparked initially by, of all things, the United States Post Office! Some new way had to be found to carry the growing volume of mail from the East Coast to California, and the Panama route was logical.
They decided the road could be built in six months at a cost of one million dollars. True, there were swamps, but these could be filled. Crews of men could chop through the jungle and the numerous rivers and streams could be easily bridged. The cordillera, or hump, rose to a modes 300 feet— no height to deter railroad men who were already eyeing the Rockies and Sierra Nevada. To lay several miles of rail a day was commonplace in the States, and so the estimated time and money seemed reasonable for this bit of track which seemed scarcely more than an oversized spur.
At the end of twenty months, by toil and sweat and back-break, seven precarious miles of track had been laid. The ends of the rails lay on reasonably solid ground at Gatun, on the edge of the Chagres valley. Work came to a halt. The money was all gone and the backers could not understand how it could take anyone, no matter how lazy or what the difficulties, so long to build a measly seven miles of railroad.
The Panama Railroad is possibly the only line in the world that literally lifted itself up by its own shoelaces. All during the gold rush, miners were taken as far as the end of the road and then continued the journey on foot. The same high fares were in existence for years. Why reduce them? The passengers never complained! By the time the road was finished, nearly a third of its tremendous cost had already been liquidated.
Notwithstanding all of the difficulties and discouragements, the road was successfully completed in 1855, just five years from the date of the beginning of its construction, at a total expenditure of $7,407,535.00. On January 27,1855, at midnight, in the pitch dark and in pelting rain, lit by sputtering whale oil lamps, the last rail was set in place on pine crossties. Totten himself had driven the last spike with a nine-pound maul. The following day, on January 28, 1855 the world’s first transcontinental train ran from ocean to ocean. The massive project was done!
Upon completion the road stretched 47 miles (76 km), 3,020 feet (76 km) with a maximum grade of sixty feet to the mile (11.4 m/km or 1.14%). The summit grade, located 37.38 miles (60.16 km) from the Atlantic and 10.2 miles (16.4 km) from the Pacific, was 258.64 feet (78.83 m) above the assumed grade at the Atlantic terminus and 242.7 feet (74.0 m) above that at the Pacific, being 263.9 feet (80.4 m) above the mean tide of the Atlantic Ocean and the summit ridge 287 feet (87 m) above the same level.
1855 - NYC regains Castle Clinton, to be used for immigration
Immigration was a state issue in 1855. I believe the supreme court ruled it a federal issue in 1875, but congress passed no laws or few laws for many years.
Castle Clinton had an interesting history.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Clinton
In the first half of the 19th century, most immigrants arriving in New York City landed at docks on the east side of the tip of Manhattan, around South Street. On August 1, 1855, Castle Clinton became the Emigrant Landing Depot, functioning as the New York State immigrant processing facility (the nation’s first such entity). It was operated by the state until April 18, 1890,[4] when the Federal Government took over control of immigration processing, which subsequently opened the larger and more isolated Ellis Island facility for that purpose on January 2, 1892. Most of Castle Clinton’s immigrant passenger records were destroyed in a fire that consumed the first structures on Ellis Island on 15 June 1897,[5] but it is generally accepted that over 8 million immigrants (and perhaps as many as 12 million) were processed during its operation. Called Kesselgarten by Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews, a “Kesselgarten” became a generic term for any situation that was noisy, confusing or chaotic, or where a “babel” of languages were spoken (a reference to the multitude of languages heard spoken by the immigrants from many countries at the site). Prominent persons that were associated with the administration of the immigrant station included Gulian Crommelin Verplanck, Friedrich Kapp, and John Alexander Kennedy.
1855 - The Devil’s Footprints mysteriously appear in southern Devon.
It was in interesting year. There were reports that church attendance increased.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Footprints
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/devon/other-mysteries/the-devils-footprints.html
The mysterious footprints, which appeared overnight in heavy snowfall in Southern Devon in 1855, have never been adequately explained. According to contemporary reports, they stretched for over a hundred miles, and went through solid walls and haystacks, appearing on the other side as though there was no barrier. The extent of the footprints may have been exaggerated at the time, and they may have been the result of freak atmospheric conditions. But in truth the ‘footprints’, if that is what they were, still remain a complete mystery.
On the night of the 8th of February 1855, heavy snowfall blanketed the countryside and small villages of Southern Devon. The last snow is thought to have fallen around midnight, and between this time and around 6.00am the following morning, something (or some things) left a myriad of tracks in the snow, stretching for a hundred miles or more, from the River Exe, to Totnes on the River Dart.
The early risers were the first to find them, strange hoof-shaped prints in straight lines, passing over rooftops, through walls and covering huge areas of land. A set of the prints were even supposed to have bridged a two mile span of the river Exe, continuing on the other side as if the creature had walked over the water.
Lot of adds since I last updated the group. If you receive this you are on the list as a charter member. Most were explicit but a couple I inferred “add me.”
1855 - US adventurer William Walker conquers Nicaragua, reestablishes slavery
Another individual very much in the news at the time and a part of the major issue. conquered Nicaragua and canceled their antislavery laws. Defeated by Costa Rica.
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/walker.html
1855 - Indian Wars: In Nebraska, 700 soldiers under American General William S. Harney avenge the Grattan Massacre by attacking a Sioux village, killing 100 men, women, and children.
It is interesting to see all the background prior to the civil war. This is the first major clash with the Sioux? It is a response to this incident which could have been avoided http://www.legendsofamerica.com/wy-grattanfight.html
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ne-indianbattles.html
Blue Water/Ash Hollow Battle (1855) - Called the Blue Water Battle or the Ash Hollow Battle, it was the first major clash between U.S. soldiers and the Sioux Indians. In 1855, to punish the Sioux for their depredations following the Grattan Fight near Fort Laramie, Wyoming the previous year, the Army sent out Colonel William S. Harney and an expedition of 600 men from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Sioux village of Little Thunder in Blue Water Creek Valley, just above the creek’s junction with the North Platte River. By a circuitous route dragoons entered the valley and advanced downstream, while Harney and a force of infantrymen marched up the valley from the Platte. Attacked from two directions on September 3, 1855, the Indians scattered, but not before the troops killed 80 warriors, wounded five, and captured 70 women and children. Four soldiers met death and seven suffered wounds.
The rest of the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne in the vicinity managed to avoid the troops. The latter moved northwestward to Fort Laramie, Wyoming and marched over the Fort Laramie-Fort Pierre Road through the heart of Sioux country to Fort Pierre, South Dakota on the Missouri River. There, they joined part of the expedition that had come up the Missouri River and spent the winter of 1855-56. For almost a decade most of the Sioux gave no further serious trouble. The site is in privately owned, but the 40-acre Ash Hollow State Historical Park overlooks the battlefield. It is located in Garden County on U.S. Highway 26, 1 ½ miles west of Lewellen, Nebraska.
1855 - 1st train crosses Miss River’s 1st bridge, Rock Is Ill-Davenport Ia
First time Lincoln and Jefferson Davis met as opponents? The railroad made for east/west transportation and reduced the South’s river transportation/power?
http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer/bridge.html
The construction and completion of this bridge came to symbolize the larger issues affecting transcontinental commerce and sectional interests. Backers of a railroad across the country were divided between those who favored a northern route and those who advocated a southern one. The bridge also pitted steamboats against the railroads, and these disagreements were decided in the federal courts.
Two notable players in the controversy surrounding the bridge were men who would later face each other on a grander stage: Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Lincoln was the attorney for the bridge company in litigation brought by the steamship interests. Davis, as secretary of war, took an active role in the contest between northern and southern routes for a transcontinental railroad.
During the 1850s, a struggle was going on in the Mississippi Valley between those who favored north-south traffic and those who advocated east-west travel across the continent. It was a contest between the old lines of migration and the new; between the South and the East; between the slow and cheap transportation by water and the rapid, but more expensive, transportation by rail. It arrayed St. Louis and Chicago against each other in an intense rivalry. The people of the city of St. Louis and other river interests supported the principle of free navigation for boats, whereas the citizens of Chicago and the railroad interests stood by the right of railroad companies to build a bridge.
Southerners were opposed to any northern bridge because it would allow the north to settle the west in greater numbers. Davis made no objection at this time because he felt that the progress of the southern route seemed assured. In the spring of 1854, however, as the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act heated up sectional rivalries, Davis realized that his southern transcontinental railroad might be delayed. His interest in the Rock Island site grew.
1855 - US Court of Claims forms for cases against government
What claims were the Mexican American vets making against the govt?
Now the Mexican American war is another rabbit hold to investigate regarding the civil war. Lincoln was agin it. lots of north south issues in it. that war caused lot of discussion on slavery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Claims
The Court of Claims was established in 1855 to adjudicate certain claims brought against the United States government by veterans of the Mexican–American War. Initially, the court met at Willard’s Hotel, from May to June of 1855, thereafter moving to the U.S. Capitol.[1] There, the court met in the Supreme Court’s chamber in the basement of the Capitol, until it was given its space to use.[1]
1855 - Isaac Singer patents sewing machine motor
The sewing machine profits equipped an infantry regiment for the Union.
http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventors/a/sewing_machine.htm
However, Isaac Singer’s machine used the same lockstitch that Howe had patented. Elias Howe sued Isaac Singer for patent infringement and won in 1854. Walter Hunt’s sewing machine also used a lockstitch with two spools of thread and an eye-pointed needle; however, the courts upheld Howe’s patent since Hunt had abandoned his patent.
If Hunt had patented his invention, Elias Howe would have lost his case and Isaac Singer would have won. Since he lost, Isaac Singer had to pay Elias Howe patent royalties. As a side note: In 1844, Englishmen John Fisher received a patent for a lace making machine that was identical enough to the machines made by Howe and Singer that if Fisher’s patent had not been lost in the patent office, John Fisher would also have been part of the patent battle.
After successfully defending his right to a share in the profits of his invention, Elias Howe saw his annual income jump from three hundred to more than two hundred thousand dollars a year. Between 1854 and 1867, Howe earned close to two million dollars from his invention. During the Civil War, he donated a portion of his wealth to equip an infantry regiment for the Union Army and served in the regiment as a private.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Howe
Howe contributed much of the money he earned to providing equipment for the 17th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army during the Civil War, in which Howe served as a Private in Company D. Due to his faltering health he performed light duty, often seen walking with the aid of his Shillelagh, and took on the position of Regimental Postmaster, serving out his time riding to and from Baltimore with war news. He’d enlisted August 14, 1862, and then mustered out July 19, 1865.[6][7]
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