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The start of a new year…
January 4, 2016 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
The start of each new year typically brings a sense of promise – a certain newness of hope and expectation which drives us to peel off bad habits and at least seek to develop new ones. Of course this new refreshed outlook is often quickly squashed once we grab the morning paper and allow the events all around us to cast a wet blanket on our hopes and dreams for the new year. Perhaps a bit jaded – but all too true.
Of course, it doesn’t need to be this way. I’m convinced part of the antidote is for us to practice counting our blessings throughout the year – day-in and day-out. Sound like a plan? For those of us who are “all in”, let’s put our resolution for 2016 to the test and look through the news reports of the first week of January through time and see if we can come out the other end with a sense that life is truly good – after all, we could be living in the past when technology, medicine, the average standard of living, and life-expectancy were not what they are today: 1st Week of January thru Time
How things have changed…
December 28, 2015 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
In today’s society when Sunday has become no different than any other day of the week in terms of work, play, and daily behavior, it can be difficult to realize that “blue laws” once existed which prevented–legally–many activities from happening on Sunday.
This article from the October 15, 1883 issue of the “Norristown Register“, Pennsylvania, reports a particularly harsh enforcement of the blue laws near New Haven, Connecticut, noting in part: “A score of people …were arrested on the Old Foxon Road….Sabbath breaking was their crime, and the form of their offending was traveling on the Sabbath…” with details of the law and how the offenders were nabbed, including: “…Many of the people out for a ride stopped under the trees & gathered up the scattered nuts. Each person that stopped was arrested. the nuts lay as a trap…” (see images).
They put it in print… Jesse James’ belongings auctioned at “high” prices…
December 14, 2015 by TimHughes · Leave a Comment
Collector interest in the personal effects of the famous and infamous is certainly strong, with news noting auctions of noted personalities reporting surprising high bids.
This is not a recent phenomena. The “St. Louis Globe-Democrat” of April 11, 1882, contains a front page report headed: “Jesse James Relics” which reports on an auction of household goods at the home of the infamous bandit who was killed just 8 days prior. Interest in his personal effects was high, with the report noting in part: “…The crowd began assembling at noon…several thousand people had gathered about the house. The goods sold were of little or not value, yet a large sum of money was realized. Six plain cane-bottom chairs sold for $2 each, and the one on which the outlaw was standing when he received the fatal bullet sold for $5…an old revolver, $17; washstand, $11…The entire lot would not, only for the name, be worth $10, but nearly $200 was realized…”.
Can you image what these Jesse James belongings would sell for today? A revolver (the one noted above?) owned by Jesse James was in a Heritage auction in 2013 & was expected to bring $1.6 million. It did not sell.
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. 
The Traveler… 13th Amendment ratified…
December 7, 2015 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment
Today I traveled to New York City by the way of the New York Tribune (December 7, 1865). The headlines: “The Constitutional Amendment”, “It Is Adopted”, “The Twenty-Seventh State”, “Freemen To Be Protected” were all reporting: “The Constitutional Amendment has passed each branch of the Legislature. The House passed a resolution instructing the Judiciary Committee to report a bill to protect persons of African descent in their persons and property, and also to allow them to testify in cases in which they may be interested.”
This abolished slavery in the United States.
~The Traveler
A December stroll thru time – 50, 100, 150, 200, & 250 years ago…
December 3, 2015 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
What news was reported in the month of December – 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 years ago? Such a walk back through time via the eyes of those who read the daily and weekly newspapers of the period can be quite revealing. This is why we often say, “History is never more fascinating than when it’s read from the day it was first reported.” The following links will take you back in time to show the available newspapers from the Rare & Early newspapers website. There’s no need to buy a thing. Simply enjoy the stroll.
Lincoln’s “under the radar” proclamation for Thanksgiving…
November 25, 2015 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
Many are quite familiar with President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of October, 1863. However, few have read or heard of his similar proclamation from a few month’s prior which helped build the foundation for his famous October proclamation. The Star of the West, July 25, 1863 contains the text (see images below) of this earlier declaration calling for a day of thanksgiving and prayer – words which are apropos as we prepare (in the U.S.) to celebrate Thanksgiving. Note: We’ve included the text of this famous proclamation below.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
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 November stroll thru time – 1765… 1815… 1865… 1915… 1945…
November 5, 2015 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
What news was reported in the month of November – 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 years ago? Such a walk back through time via the eyes of those who read the daily and weekly newspapers of the period can be quite revealing. This is why we often say, “History is never more fascinating than when it’s read from the day it was first reported.” The following links will take you back in time to show the available newspapers from the Rare & Early newspapers website. There’s no need to buy a thing. Simply enjoy the stroll.