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So you wanna go back to Egypt? Ocean rescue methods…
December 10, 2015 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
The Bible tells of the historical account of the Israelites’ journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom in The Promised Land. At one point, as their trek became particularly challenging, some began to grumble and complain – going so far as to attempt a coup in order to turn the wagon-train around and head back to Egypt – to slavery… to oppression… to strife… to the very misery which had caused them to cry themselves to sleep night-after-night as they called out to God for deliverance. How could they have so quickly forgotten? Yet, are we any different? Our brains have a tendency to filter the bad from our memory banks to allow our occasional backward glances to fall upon the good. If we’ve learned to walk through life with an acknowledgement of ever-present blessing and with a heart-deep gratitude for the very breath of life, this filtering-process can be healing and redemptive to our soul – perhaps even treasured as a gift from our Creator. However, when we walk with our heads down – with thoughts of dissatisfaction poisoning our minds and morsels of entitlement chaffing our lips, what was designed to be sweet-nostalgia turns into quite the bitter pill – causing us to forget just how great it is to live in the present. How sad.
BUT – In an effort to right the ship for some, reinforce good thinking in others, and foster a positive outlook regarding the present for all, we will occasionally post a newspaper article, image, or clip from the past to help remind us of how good it is to live in the 21st Century. Our first selection is a print from a late-19th century issue of Scientific American Supplement which depicts a rather precarious method for rescuing distressed air-travelers at sea – or was it air-travelers rescuing seafarers (???). Please enjoy – or better yet, allow it to nurture a thankful heart for contemporary travel methods and rescue techniques. 
They put it in print… Not much hope for a reconciliation…
November 23, 2015 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
The “Weekly Museum” newspaper of New York City has in its August 30, 1800 issue, a: “Curious Advertisement” by a woman whose husband left her. She pulls no punches on how she feels: “Whereas my husband…a dirty Dutchman…did…absent himself in a clandestine manner from my bed & board without my approbation or any known cause of provocation on my part…I do…disown and reject him from this time forever…no one will use the last influence…to return him to me again as I am relieved from a detested nuisance…” with more (see).
I don’t think there was much hope that marriage would be saved.
The Traveler… white man sentencing… six slaves conspiracy…
November 16, 2015 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
I traveled to New York City by The New York Evening Post of November 15, 1815 where I found three men in North Carolina were tried and convicted for having cruelly whipped a black slave to death and one of the three men was sentenced to be hung. “…But as it was the first time a white man was condemned to death in the state for killing a slave, the governor thought proper to reprieve him when under the gallows…” (see image below).
In Maryland, six slaves had conspired to kill their master if any of them were to be whipped the next day. When Mr. Owings “called one of them to correct him”, their plan then ensued and a very brutal murder occurred. At the end of the report, all six were sitting in the new jail.
~The Traveler
A ghost robs a bank (revisited)…
October 29, 2015 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
And just in time for Halloween, a report from “The Observer” of London, January 1, 1797 (original post, 2010):
They put it in print… when ghost stories were mainstream…
October 26, 2015 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
Science in the 1850’s was not what it is today, and although ghost stories still popular the fringe of scientific investigation, such reports rarely make the mainstream media today.
But not in 1858. The “Norwalk Experiment” newspaper of Ohio, printed in its Dec. 7 issue a fascinating report headed: “Dead Man Picking Himself Up–A Ghost Bringing His Bones from Hartford”. The crux of the article is: “The spiritualists of this city…gravely discussing the question whether the spirit of a man whose dead body was dissected by medical students…is picking himself up, piece-meal, and bringing his bones, one by one, to this city to be put together again…”. further on is mention that: “…This extraordinary determination, which we believe has no parallel in ghostology, ancient or modern, it is alleged, is being carried out…” with much more.
Interesting reading, giving evidence that ghost stories were more “mainstream” a century ago than they are today.
The Traveler… a sweet business…
September 21, 2015 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled to back London, England by The London Chronicle of September 21, 1765. I found the reporting of some sweet business happening in New England, the making of maple syrup! “Having chosen out a large maple-tree, suitable for the purpose, they with an axe box it…a kind of trough is prepared… in order to retain the sap as it runs down. By this means upwards of 30 gallons from one tree has been drawn in a day;… produces a sugar, the grain of which is equal in fineness to the the Jamaica… upwards of 600 lb. was made by one man the last season…”
~The Traveler
The put it in print… America will become the greatest nation ever!
June 15, 2015 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
One of the joys of reading old newspapers is the opportunity to discover what were, in fact, very prophetic statements made long before anyone could have known they would become true. As they say, hindsight does provide 20-20 vision.
One of the best is found in “The London Chronicle” issue of Nov. 2, 1765. Some 150 years before the per-eminence of America as a world power both military and economically, a writer begins an article: “Little doubt can be entertained that America will in time become the greatest and most prosperous empire that perhaps the world has ever seen…”.
How true that statement would become, but to predict that future nearly a dozen years before America would even declare independence from the mother country was truly a stretch. It’s a neat find in an otherwise inconspicuous newspaper.
They put it in print… the best UFO alien abduction newspaper ever?
June 8, 2015 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
UFO stories, with supposed “photos” have become rather commonplace in tabloids over the last 50 years, but few are accounts of alien abductions, and even fewer are accounts of abductions with eye-witness corroboration.
The small town of Show Low, Arizona, has a weekly newspaper and its issue of Nov. 14, 1975 has a terrific account (see image below) of perhaps the most famous alien abduction case in American history. It appears dramatically in this newspaper because it is essentially the “hometown” paper for the event: it published 38 miles from the abduction site (very rural Arizona) and less than 20 miles from the home of Travis Walton, the man abducted for 5 days before being returned to earth.
See the link to the issue of the “White Mountain Independent” for further details including multiple images showing snippets of much of the coverage. For any UFO enthusiastic this could well be the very best UFO newspaper report to be had. Is it even better than a Roswell newspaper from 1948?
Note: While the link above states the issue is no longer available, it is currently listed on eBay at: Thomas Walton Abducted By Aliens?
They put it in print… Fall of the Leaning Tower of Pisa…
June 1, 2015 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
The headline reads: “Fall of the Leaning Tower of Pisa”. Obviously it piqued my interest. I just had to read the report.
The letter was written by an eye-witness who was: “…an intelligent friend…now traveling…”. This report notes in part: “The building to which the extracts refer was called the Campanile…a gothic edifice at Pisa & was known to most Europeans as the ‘Leaning Tower of Pisa.’ It was finished in 1174…I was fortunate enough to be in Pisa during the earthquake…As I was an eye-witness, I hasten to communicate the description…about 7 o’clock in the morning…was suddenly awakened by shouts…The Campanile, or Leaning Tower…has now become, I may say, almost a total ruin, having fallen to the southward…The centre is a completely mutilated ruin…The marble pillars…were very much shattered…” and even more.
This was obviously a hoax, but it is interesting the extend of detail the writer shares in an attempt to make his report believable.
The writer concludes by noting: “…can hardly tell you how proud I feel at being the first to bring the news to Paris…and though my account has not been so descriptive as I could wish, you will at least have in your power to contradict any misstatement made…There were no lives lost…Reports were current in Leghorn that the Duomo or Cathedral had suffered, but this is wholly incorrect.”
See the hyperlink for the full report, found in “The Daily Union” newspaper, Washington, of Aug. 14, 1847.
They put it in print… Cheating in baseball predates the “Black Sox” scandal of 1919…
May 29, 2015 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
Cheating in baseball may be as old as the the sport itself, but it was most notably brought to national attention with the infamous “Black Sox” scandal of 1919, when several players of the Chicago White Sox were 
accused of throwing the World Series that year for financial gain.
As newspaper report from shortly after the end of the Civil War gives evidence that it happened much earlier as well. The “New York Times” issue of Sept. 29, 1865 reports on a game between the Mutuals and Eckford teams, ultimately won by the latter with a score of 23-11. Excellence in play was reported with: “…Some of the fly tips taken by Mills surpassed, anything we ever saw in that line of business, while their pitching came nearer to the Creighton mark in accuracy of delivery than any we have seen since his death…”. But records show that several Mutual players were later charged for accepting money to deliberately toss this game (see this hyperlink for the details). Ironically the summary mentions the poor play of the Mutuals marked by “…over-pitched balls, wild throws, passed balls, and failures to stop them…”. Interesting evidence that all was “not well” with the game.
Although the 1919 World Series remains prominent in sports history, this obscure game from 54 years earlier gives evidence to a a rather lengthy history of cheating in baseball.