As discussed in our post about Johnny Appleseed, hard cider and whiskey were both an important part of early frontier life.  Both could be used as a preservative, for barter and trade as well as a drink.  Whiskey was used in place of money in the western counties of Pennsylvania as coin or currency was seldom seen by farmers living in this remote area.  The estimate was twelve hundred pounds of wheat, oats , or rye could be distilled into 20 gallons of spirits.  Those spirits could be poured into jugs and hauled by mule 300 miles from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, where they could be sold at the high price…

Most people think of the gold rush as the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, California in 1848.  However, there were at least two previous to Sutter’s Mill. The first gold rush was when gold was found in Cabarrus County, North Carolina in 1799.  Conrad Reed found a 17 pound nugget in a stream playing on his family’s farm.  The boy and his family thought it was just a pretty rock, and used it as a doorstop for several years.  Conrad’s father took the rock to a jeweler in 1803 who recognized it as gold, but did not tell Reed.  The jeweler “took the rock off his hands” for $3.25,…

When I say the War Between the States, most people think of the American Civil War, which began in 1861.  However, that is not the first time states in the union were at odds with each other.  An example of this was the conflict between Michigan and Ohio in 1787. The United States enacted the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, which defined the border between Michigan and Ohio as “an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan.”  The goto map at this time to outline territorial borders was the Mitchell Map.  Unfortunately, John Mitchell had no formal training in as a geographer and lived…

Jemima Wilkinson was born in 1752 to a Quaker family in Cumberland, Rhode Island.  Her mother died when she was twelve, and she was raised by her older sisters who taught her the traditional education of girls at that time-  riding horses, gardening, and reading the basics of Quaker theology.  Historian Stafford C. Cleveland wrote in his 1873 History and Directory of Yates County she “took pleasure in adding to her good appearance the graceful drapery of elegant apparel”, and was a lady of “personal beauty”. At 16, Jemima became involved in the “Great Awakening”, a religious movement sweeping New England in the 1770s.  Jemima often sat meditating alone on…