The First Forty-Niners

                                              28 FEBRUARY 1849                                        THE FIRST FORTY-NINERS In the frosty chill of the morning of 24 January 1848, a millwright named James T. Marshall walked the length of a newly dug millrace off the American River in the foothills of California’s Sierra Read More

The Peterhof Affair

                                              25 FEBRUARY 1863                                           THE PETERHOF AFFAIR The Union Navy’s blockade of the Confederacy during the Civil War yielded quite a few captures.  In disposing of these ships and their cargoes, there emerged a controversy over what to do with the mail Read More

The First Battle of Quallah Battoo

                       5-7 FEBRUARY 1832                THE FIRST BATTLE OF QUALLAH BATTOO His trading mission scrubbed, Captain Charles Endicott refitted Friendship for sea and departed 4 March 1831 for Salem.  His landfall on 16 July was preceded several days by the arrival of another Read More

Friendship and the Sumatran Pirates

                      EARLY FEBRUARY 1831               FRIENDSHIP AND THE SUMATRAN PIRATES Salem, Massachusetts, was one of our busiest seaports in the early days of our young nation.  In fact, it was the major port through which the American spice trade was conducted.  About the Read More