History, Natural History & the Arts
New York’s Finger Lakes Region was well known to many Revolutionary War veterans as a place of both strife and potential. Strife because of conflict with Indigenous people, and great potential for lush productive farmland.
Soldiers witnessed both ends of the spectrum first-hand. [Read more…] about Colonial Canandaigua In War And Peace
The culture of ancient Rome banned the moving or dividing of corpses. Christians of the third and fourth centuries maintained the desire for proper burial. A call for corporeal integrity runs throughout medieval culture. Bodies intact were ready for the Last Judgment when soul and body were reunited. [Read more…] about Napoleon’s Private Parts On Fifth Avenue: A Cautionary Tale
The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor in Orange County, NY reopened on Veterans Day after a $17 million expansion during the last year. [Read more…] about Expanded Purple Heart Hall of Honor Reopens
This week on The Historians Podcast, Chris Carola, a veteran Associated Press reporter, tells the story of Jack Wilpers, who grew up in Saratoga Springs, and the key role Wilpers played in the capture of former Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo in 1945. Carola is writing a book on the subject. [Read more…] about Saratoga Soldier Played Key Role in Tojo’s Capture
Christmas conjures up images of festivity, family, and especially sumptuous dinners but it wasn’t that way for George Washington during the Revolutionary War. He served as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from May 1775 to December 1783 or about 104 months.
During that time, he visited his beloved Mount Vernon just once, in 1781 following the victory at Yorktown before returning to his home for good in 1783. [Read more…] about George Washington At Christmas
The last week of the year 1843 was a difficult time for Ballston farmer Uriah Gregory. On December 29th Uriah lost his beloved wife, Tamer, his partner of more than sixty-five years, with whom he shared a life in the earliest days of the new nation. [Read more…] about The Life and Death of a Saratoga County Patriot
Book purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.
America’s First Frontier: New York’s Pioneers and Their Fight for Freedom (2020 Reprint by HVA Press) recalls settlers in Upstate New York who sometimes faced hunger and disease, in addition to their ongoing conflicts with resident Native Americans, the French and later British loyalists. Author Francis Whiting Halsey was born in Unadilla, New York in 1851 and graduated Cornell University in 1873. He as an editor at the Binghamton Times (1873–1875) and New York Tribune (1875–1880). [Read more…] about A New Edition of Francis Whiting Halse’s Upstate NY History Published
Call it an antiquarian newspaper holiday miracle.
“Rather a peculiar thing happened a few days ago,” Lieutenant Howard Smith of Hudson Falls wrote his mother from a military hospital in France on December 26th, 1918. “One of the orderlies of this ward found a picture of me in The Post-Star while he was in another ward. It was an account of my getting a Boche.” [Read more…] about A First World War Holiday Miracle
Timing is everything! While contemplating a unique marker in the Sackets Harbor military cemetery a puzzling question came up. Why was Henderson, NY resident Joseph Hawkins, who never served in the military, buried in the military cemetery?
Coincidentally, Henderson Historical Society’s Eric Anderson was simultaneously researching Joseph Hawkins and shared clues. [Read more…] about A Military Cemetery Mystery Solved
Book purchases made through this link support New York Almanack’s mission to report new publications relevant to New York State.
The new book The 3rd New Jersey in New-York: Stories from “The Jersey Greys” of 1776 (Continental Consulting, 2020) by Philip Weaver is the culmination of over 35 years of primary source research. The book includes reworked material previously published in The Brigade Dispatch and the on-line magazine Journal of the American Revolution. [Read more…] about The 3rd New Jersey Greys In New York