Hi, everyone. A wonderful guy made a video trailer for one of my books. If you ever need a trailer, let me know, and I will recommend him.

I wanted to share it with you. So, no history facts this time, although the book has history in it.   

The website is https://www.writingwater. 

                            The Mob of 1770

Snowball fights can be fun. However, the snowball fight outside the Boston Custom House on March 5, 1770, turned deadly.

Eight British soldiers under the command of British Captain Thomas Preston were besieged by a mob of colonial dock workers, pelting them with snowballs in an unfriendly fight.

The soldiers fired into the mob and killed five of them.

Samuel Adams published the story, and it was known as the Boston Massacre. Bostonians loudly demanded justice.

If the captain had been found guilty, all the blame would be on him. But if found not guilty, the blame would be put on the soldiers. The captain was found to be not guilty. So the British authorities made the eight Redcoats scapegoats.

The men knew they needed a good lawyer. John Adams, an ardent anti-British patriot, felt it was his duty and took on their case.

The soldiers and Mr. Adams were ridiculed in court, and Adams faced cold stares and hostility on the streets. 

The defense attorney, John Adams, argued the mob was an unlawful assembly. The soldiers had no choice but to defend themselves. His argument persuaded the jury to declare six of the Redcoats not guilty and two guilty of manslaughter. The two men found guilty chose to be branded rather than go to prison, which was part of the common law at the time. No one went to prison.

John Adams later became the second President of the United States.

"Lord, Help The Fish!"

We have all heard of Sam Houston and his part in the Alamo. But did you know he ran away from home in Tennessee when he was a teenager? He lived with the Cherokee and was named Raven. He served under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 182. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1823, and he was elected as the governor of Tennessee in 1827.

He was the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and represented Texas in the United States Senate. He was the sixth governor of Tennessee and the seventh governor of Texas. He is the only person to be elected governor of two different US states.

He married Eliza Allen in 1829, but after 11 weeks, they divorced as she was in love with another man. However, some dispute that. They separated, as she was Catholic.

In 1830, he entered the US House of Representatives and beat William Stanbery with a cane over accusations of fraud. The House convicted Houston, and the Speaker, Andrew Stenson, reprimanded him, and a federal court ordered Houston to pay $500 in damages.

He went to live with the Cherokees and married Dianna Rogers, the daughter of a Cherokee chief and a Scots-Irish trader. They lived together for many years. When Sam moved back to Texas, she went back to her people and later remarried.

Houston, now 47, married for the third time. Margaret Moffette Lea was 21. They had eight children. She was a Baptist and influenced Sam to stop drinking and "acting out." (I was able to find a definition for acting out.)

In 1850, he agreed to be baptized. It was set for November 19, 1854. His friends thought it was a joke, and they filled the area for the baptism with tree limbs and debris. Houston had made up his mind, and he was immersed in Little Rocky Creek. When coming out, he said, "Reverend, you've baptized my pocketbook." The reverend replied, "Thank God, I wish it could have happened to the pocketbook of every Baptist.

Later, Houston met a friend who said, "Well, General, I hear your sins were washed away the other day." Houston said, "Yes, that's true. Lord help the fish."

Sam, age 70, died on July 26, 1863. The inscription on his tomb reads:

A Brave Soldier. A Fearless Statesman.

A Great Orator—A Pure Patriot.

A Faithful Friend, A Loyal Citizen.

A Devoted Husband and Father.

A Consistent Christian—An Honest Man.

If you want to know how Sam Houston, with his ragtag army of about 200, defeated Santa Anna with his thousand, read my book Wild River. He did it with the help of Emily Morgan, a mulatto woman. (Also known as the Yellow Rose of Texas). (Sh-sh-sh, don't tell the Daughters of the Texas Revolution, as they are not happy about Emily's contribution.) It is on Amazon and my website, https://www.writingwater. It should come up on the menu as Home- Writing Water

 

                      Stalked by Tragedy

Lincoln's death seemed to bring tragedy to other people.

Henry and Clara Rathbone attended the play at Ford's Theatre. They were startled by Lincoln's assassination. Sometime later, they decided to move to Germany. There, Henry killed his wife and ended up in an insane asylum.

The soldier who shot John Wilkes Booth was Boston Corbett. In 1887, he was arrested for brandishing a gun at the Kansas State Legislature. He was sent to the Topeka Asylum for the Insane. He escaped and was never seen again. In his civilian life, he was a hatter, and scientists now think he had mercury poisoning because of his work.

Ann Suratt was the daughter of Mary Suratt. Mary conspired with Booth to kill President Lincoln and was sentenced to be executed. Ann Suratt wanted President Johnson to grant her mother clemency. Ex-Senator Preston King and Senator James H. Lane prevented her from seeing Johnson. Her mother, Mary, was executed. 

The ex-senator Preston King committed suicide by jumping off a ferryboat on the Hudson River with a bag of bullets tied around his neck

The next year, Senator Lane killed himself in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Dr. Anson G. Henry, who helped Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln get back to Illinois. He died on July 30, 1865, drowned when the steamer in which he was a passenger sank off the coast of California.

In 1875, Mary Todd Lincoln was sent to the state hospital for the insane. Scientists now think she had migraines, Pernicious Anemia (vitamin B12 deficiency), and bipolar disorder. 

Abraham Lincoln wrote a Murder mystery when he was a lawyer in Illinois. It is now in the public domain. I am working on a book of six short stories, and I am including his as he wrote it. I am also including in the book, as one of the short stories, my telling of the same story. 

                       Abraham Lincoln's Children

                              Tragedy followed Lincoln's children.

Willie and Tad with their mother. The picture is courtesy of Edward Anthony.

Mr. Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln had four children: Robert, Edward, Willie, and Tad.

Edward died before his father became president. His passing was on February 1, 1850, at 3 years and 11 months from chronic consumption, which we now call tuberculosis.

Tad died July 15, 1871. Scientists are not sure if it was from tuberculosis, pleurisy, pneumonia, or congestive heart failure. He was 18.

Willie died from typhoid fever on February 20, 1862, at the age of eleven years.

Robert, ironically, was rescued from a moving train by Edwin Booth, the elder brother of John Wilkes Booth.

When he heard his father was shot, he rushed to his bedside and stayed with him throughout the night.

Robert graduated from Harvard University, joined the army, and served on General Ulysses S. Grant's staff. He later became the minister to Great Britain. He traveled with President Garfield as Secretary of War when the president was shot at the Washington, D.C., railroad station and was with him when the president died.

Then he became the president of the Pullman Company of Chicago. He attended the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, with President William McKinley. He witnessed the president being assassinated.

Enough was enough. He had witnessed three presidential assassinations. He retired to his summer retreat in Manchester, Vermont, where he became a recluse. 

He died at the age of 83 of a cerebral hemorrhage. He is the only one not buried in the Lincoln family plot in Springfield, Illinois.

Information from Shocking Secrets of American history by bill Coate

The next blog will be about what happened after Lincoln was shot. 

What you may not have known about Thomas Jefferson

                                 Thomas Jefferson

         What you may not have known about Thomas Jefferson

Martha Wayles was born on her father's plantation near Williamsburg, Virginia. She married Mr. Skeleton but was widowed by the age of 22. She married Thomas Jefferson in 1771 and moved to his home, Monticello.

Martha's father was a large slaveholder, and Martha inherited 135 slaves when her father died. They came to Monticello, including the slave girl Sally Hemings.

Thomas and Martha became the parents of six children. Three died in infancy. Sally became responsible for the children's care after Martha died in 1782.

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson became the minister to France, bringing his daughter Mary and the slave Sally with him. Sally was now 15. While in France, Thomas became intimate with Sally.

After he moved back to Monticello in Virginia, he had five children with the teenage slave. He became president, and the rumors started. He did not confirm or deny the allegations.

Before his wife Martha died, he promised he would give Sally her freedom when he died. He did. 

Why did Martha want Sally to have her freedom? Because Sally was Martha's half-sister. Martha's father, John Wayles, was Sally's father, and her mother was a slave named Elizabeth Hemings.

Thomas Jefferson's concubine was his sister-in-law.

********************************************************************************

Thomas Jefferson chose Monticello, his home, to be his burial place. He designed his grave marker, a simple stone obelisk. The inscription was to be chiseled into the granite.

People wondered whether it would show that he was the 3rd president of the United States and that he had been vice president from 1797 to 1801. He had many disagreements with President John Adams. As Jefferson was from the South, he helped Adams win, as he was from the North. 

Jefferson was the first Secretary of State under George Washington. He was the minister to France and the governor of Virginia.

Jefferson died on July 4th, 1826, and when the marker was revealed, it read:

"Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Liberty, and Father of the University of Virginia."

He wanted to be remembered for independence, religious liberty, and education.

From Shocking Secrets of American History By Bill Coate

 

A Dinner Party on July 20, 1790, made History.

 

The Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, wanted to see President Washington settle the issue. He was not able to see the president, but Thomas Jefferson rose to the occasion.

James Madison, a member of the House of Representatives, wanted the federal government to settle all state debts incurred during the Revolutionary War.

Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton said his state, Virginia, had paid its debt and did not want to pay the debts of the northern states.

On July 20, 1790, Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, invited Hamilton and James Madison to dinner. During the meal, Jefferson proposed that the South would accept Madison's proposal if our nation's capital were located in Virginia. Madison believed the Southern states would back it.
The Residency Bill was passed by Congress. So, the capital of our country is Washington, D.C.

History at a dinner party.