• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • RSS
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

Ohio River Valley

New York Steamboats & The Mississippi River

September 25, 2023 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Mississippi Riverboats at Memphis, Tennessee (1906)This article is excerpted from “The  Keelboats and Flatboats of the Early Days — Discouragements Overcome by Fulton and his Associates,” originally reprinted from the New Orleans Times-Picayune in The New York Times on August 14, 1891. It was transcribed by Hudson River Maritime Museum volunteer Carl Mayer and slightly edited for clarity and annotated by John Warren.

Of the various persons who have disputed Robert Fulton’s laurels as the inventor of the first perfect steamboat, Edward West’s claims are the strongest. West, father of the noted painter William West [William Edward West, 1788–1859, provided numerous illustrations for the books of Washington Irving]. [Read more…] about New York Steamboats & The Mississippi River

Filed Under: History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Agricultural History, Black History, Industrial History, Louisiana, Maritime History, Mississippi River, New Orleans, Nicholas Roosevelt, Ohio River Valley, Pennsylvania, Robert Fulton, Robert Livingston, Slavery, Steamboating, Transportation History

The French and Indian War: A New York Perspective

August 31, 2023 by Peter Hess Leave a Comment

Miniature of Fort Prince George under attack by French troops (diorama in the Fort Pitt Museum, Pittsburgh)In the early 1750s, the French were establishing trading posts and building forts along western the frontiers of the British colonies. In the fall of 1753, in part to protect his own land claims, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie had sent 22-year-old George Washington (then a militia leader and surveyor) to deliver a letter to Fort Le Boeuf at what is today Waterford in northwest Pennsylvania, demanding they stop.

When Washington returned without success, Dinwiddie sent a small force to build Fort Prince George at the confluence of the Allegheny  and Monongahela Rivers (today Pittsburgh). Soon a larger French force arrived, torn down the small British fort, and began and built Fort Duquesne, named for then Governor-General of New France, Marquis Duquesne. [Read more…] about The French and Indian War: A New York Perspective

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Capital-Saratoga, History, Mohawk Valley, Western NY Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Appalachian Mountains, Battle of Carillon, Battle of Lake George, Canada, Crown Point, Detroit, Edward Braddock, Ephraim Williams, Essex County, Fort Carillon, Fort Duquesne, Fort Edward, Fort Frontenac, Fort Oriskany, Fort Oswego, Fort St. Frederic, Fort Ticonderoga, Fort William Henry, French And Indian War, French History, George Monro, George Washington, Hendrick Theyanoguin, Hudson River, Indigenous History, James Abercromby, James Wolfe, Jean-Armand Dieskau, John Bradstreet, Joseph Blanchard, Joseph Brant, Lake Erie, Lake George, Lord Howe, Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, Military History, Mohawk, Mohawk River, Montreal, New France, Niagara River, Ohio, Ohio River Valley, Old Fort Johnson, Old Fort Niagara, Oneida Lake, Oswego, Oswego River, Pennsylvania, Philip Schuyler, Pontiac's War, Quebec, Robert Rogers, Rogers' Rangers, Saratoga County, Seneca Nation, Seven Years War, Siege of Fort William Henry, Virginia, Virginia History, Warren County, William Shirley

Field of Corpses: Arthur St. Clair & the Death of an American Army

March 9, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

field of corpsesNovember 4th, 1791 was a black day in American history. General Arthur St. Clair’s army encountered an Indigenous military force in what is now western Ohio.

In just three hours at what is known as St. Clair’s defeat, the Battle of the Wabash, or the Battle of a Thousand Slain, St. Clair’s force sustained the greatest loss ever inflicted on the United States Army by Native Americans — a total nearly three times larger than that incurred in the more famous Custer fight of 1876. [Read more…] about Field of Corpses: Arthur St. Clair & the Death of an American Army

Filed Under: Books, History Tagged With: Books, George Washington, Indigenous History, Lenape, Military History, Ohio, Ohio River Valley

Calvin Fairbank: Imprisoned 17 Years For Helping Enslaved People to Freedom

August 9, 2022 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

Calvin Fairbank by artist Melissa MoshettiRev. Calvin Cornelius Fairbank was born November 3, 1816 in Pike, Wyoming County, NY. He began his academic studies at a seminary in Lima, Livingston County, NY, and became a licensed preacher in 1840.  In 1842 he was ordained an elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he graduated Oberlin College in Ohio two years later. At Oberlin he met John Mifflin Brown (1817-1893), a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and an Underground Railroad activist.

Fairbank was a radical abolitionist who not only spoke out against slavery, but actively worked to free as many enslaved people as he could. [Read more…] about Calvin Fairbank: Imprisoned 17 Years For Helping Enslaved People to Freedom

Filed Under: Events, History, Western NY Tagged With: Abolition, Allegany County, Black History, Civil War, Crime and Justice, Legal History, National Abolition Hall of Fame, Ohio River Valley, Religious History, Slavery, Underground Railroad, Wyoming County

Native American History: The Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes Region

February 6, 2019 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

ben_franklins_worldDuring the 17th and 18th centuries, the Ohio River Valley proved to be a rich Agrarian region. Many different Native American peoples prospered from its land both in terms of the land’s ability to produce a wide variety of crops and its support of a wide variety of small fur-bearing animals for the fur trade.

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History Susan Sleeper-Smith, a Professor of History at Michigan State University and author of Indigenous Prosperity and American Conquest: Indian Women and the Ohio River Valley, 1690-1792 (The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2018), helps us explore this unique region and the important roles it played in the early American past. [Read more…] about Native American History: The Ohio River Valley and Great Lakes Region

Filed Under: Books, History Tagged With: Early America, Early American History, fur trade, Great Lakes, Indigenous History, Native American History, Ohio River Valley, Podcasts

Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela

December 23, 2015 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

ben_franklins_worldDid George Washington start the French and Indian War?

Why should we remember a battle that took place over 260 years ago?

In this episode of the Ben Franklin’s World podcast, we investigate the answers to those questions as we explore the Battle of the Monongahela with David Preston, author of Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela and the Road to Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2015). You can listen to the podcast here: www.benfranklinsworld.com/060

[Read more…] about Braddock’s Defeat: The Battle of the Monongahela

Filed Under: Books, History Tagged With: American Revolution, Edward Braddock, Fort Duquesne, French And Indian War, French History, George Washington, Military History, New France, Ohio River Valley, Oxford University Press, Pennsylvania, Podcasts, Virginia

Primary Sidebar

Help Support The Almanack

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • bob buchanan on Bath Fish Hatchery: Home to Wild Finger Lakes Strain Rainbow Trout
  • Bob Meyer on Debar Pond Lodge: History & Controversy
  • Brian O'Connor on The Canal Era in the Finger Lakes
  • Elye Grossman on Catskills Resort History: The Beginning of the End
  • Elye Grossman on Catskills Resort History: The Beginning of the End
  • Dr. Barbara Rumbinas on ‘Vermont for the Vermonters’: A History of Eugenics in the Green Mountain State
  • Thomas Keating on The Northwestern Adirondacks’ Grass River Complex & Lampson Falls
  • Editorial Staff on A Mexican War Monument in Saratoga County
  • Stephen H Muller on A Mexican War Monument in Saratoga County
  • Pat Boomhower on Ask Governor Hochul to Support New York’s History

Recent New York Books

Marty Glickman The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend
Vermont for Vermonters
Flee North Thomas Smallwood Early Underground Railroad
Making Long Island
The Witch of New York
styles brook book lorraine duvall
James Wilson: The Anxious Founder
Flatiron Legacy National Football League History NFL
Henry David Thoreau Thinking Disobediently

Secondary Sidebar