Gunboat St. Louis In The Civil War

 

The gunboat St. Louis, launched on October 12, 1861, was one of seven Cairo-class gunboats built to carry the war onto the western rivers.

With 13 guns and a draft of just six feet, it brought heavy firepower into waterways that larger warships couldn’t reach. It initially operated under Army control, with naval officers commanding it.

In February 1862, the St. Louis helped capture Fort Henry on the Tennessee River. Days later, it carried Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote into the attack on Fort Donelson. Confederate gunners hit it 59 times and disabled it. Its armor offered protection, but it wasn’t invincible.

The gunboats had an advantage at Fort Henry. It stood on low ground, and rising river water had flooded part of it. Foote’s vessels could fire straight into the defenses. The bombardment forced the fort’s surrender before General Grant’s infantry arrived.

Fort Donelson was a different fight. Its batteries stood high above the Cumberland River, giving Confederate gunners a commanding view of the approaching boats. On February 14, they battered Foote’s squadron during a ninety-minute exchange. Foote was wounded, and the gunboats withdrew. Grant’s army continued the fight ashore and captured the fort on February 16.

A Double Murder At Rahway, New Jersey

 

Edith Janny (The Evening World. August 23, 1918)

August 22, 1918, was supposed to be a fun day for Edith Janny and her friend Genevieve Hendrickson. They enjoyed a leisurely day at Seidler’s Beach, frolicking in the sand. Later that night, around 9:30 p.m., Arthur Kupfer and Isaac Saxe picked the girls up and drove them back to Perth Amboy.

 

Kupfer dropped Saxe and Hendrickson off at their homes around 10:30 p.m. and headed to the Highland Park Hotel. Kupfer and Janny stayed there from 11 p.m. until shortly after midnight, possibly as late as 12:30 a.m.

 

Rudolph Osterwald, the hotel proprietor, refused to let them spend the night because “it would look bad for the hotel.” Mrs. Osterwald told the girl, “It would be better for her to go home—no matter what her mother might say—than to wait until morning and then appear, showing plainly to the neighbors that she had been out all night.”

Somewhere along the way home, bandits hijacked the car and killed Kupfer and Janny.

University of California (Berkeley) & Stanford University Rugby Teams 1913

 

I found this great image showing the 1913 University of California (Berkeley) and Stanford University Rugby Teams. They were to meet on the turf at Palo Alto on November 8, 1913. The San Francisco Chronicle said the teams were evenly matched. 

Stanford had the "better balanced fifteen, but whetther the Cardinal can succeed in playing its own style of game is what gives Stanford no more than an even break after the initial whistle."

Therefore, it was anyone's guess who would win.

Alfred Morrison: The Mount Vernon Dream Killer

 

Alfred Morrison (The Evening World. April 6, 1900)

A sneak thief stole an overcoat from Alfred Morrison’s back porch Thursday evening. When he went to bed that night, he fell asleep with a big cavalry revolver under his pillow.

His younger daughter, Josephine, slept in the bed with him. His wife and youngest child slept in a smaller bed on the other side of the room. 

Alfred Morrison woke up at 2:30 a.m., standing beside his wife’s bed, holding his pistol. “Run for a doctor, quick,” she screamed, “you’ve hit me.”

Much like Walter Mitty, Morrison was an excitable guy who lived in a vague, dreamlike state. For example, that night, he pictured himself fighting off a hoard of burglars, not his wife.

Lemp Brewery In St. Louis: Makers Of Falstaff Beer

 

Lemp Brewery in St. Louis, Missouri
(color drawing after a photo in the St. Louis Star & Times. March 14, 1914)

The Lemps knew how to get their name in front of people. They put it on bottles, advertisements, and the side of a smokestack. By the 1870s, they ran the largest brewery in St. Louis.

 

Before all that, there was a grocery store.

 

Johann Adam Lemp came to St. Louis in 1838. He’d learned to brew in Germany and started making beer while running his store. The lager found customers. Enough of them that groceries stopped being the principal business.

 

The family claimed 1840 as the brewery’s founding year. Historians haven’t quite settled that, but records show brewing operations by 1841. Adam called it the Western Brewery and set up near the riverfront.

 

He had beer to make and a problem to solve.

 

Lager needed to stay cold while it aged. St. Louis got hot, and a brewer couldn’t leave barrels sitting through a Missouri summer and expect everything to turn out fine.

 

Adam used caves.

New York City At The Start Of The Revolution

Harper's Weekly Magazine published this print of New York City in 1776 in its February 19, 1876 issue. It's a great look at New York City at the start of the American Revolution.

Edgar Allan Poe: Master of Suspense

 

Edgar Allan Poe (Harper's New Monthly Magazine. 1872)

Edgar Allan Poe knew how to make a room feel unsafe.

 

A man hears a heartbeat under the floorboards. Another walls up a body and figures he’s gotten away with murder. A house seems to rot along with the family inside it.

 

Poe didn’t need a monster at the door. He could leave a man alone with his thoughts and wait for him to come apart.

 

Poe’s life gave him plenty to work with. 

 

His father left, and his mother died when he was two. John and Frances Allan took him in, but never adopted him. They fought over money.

 

He did well in the Army. But West Point was another matter. Poe did well in French and mathematics, but he wanted out. John Allan wouldn’t agree to his resignation, so he stopped showing up for classes and duties. A court-martial dismissed him in 1831, seven months after he entered the academy.