D.W. Wilkin's Blog, page 341

2 Awards–Tagged for The Next Big Thing and The Versatile Blogger

TWO AWARDS

Well I am honored. Twice in the last few weeks, awarded by other authors!

First Edward Carpenter has nominated me for The Versatile Blogger (See the bottom half of today’s post)

And now Debra Brown, author of The Companion of Lady Holmeshire, has tagged me for The Next Big Thing.

THE NEXT BIG THING

Winning this award means answering ten interview questions:

1) What is the title of your book?

        I only just started to think about the next book. Currently, the first draft I a writing is the end of a trilogy I have been working on for 25 years. By working on a project so long, I now have revisions to the first and second part of the trilogy.

        This last two weeks though I have been very fertile about deciding what will be my next project. I would like to complete it before November 1st, since that is the start of NaNoWriMo, (Which I have won 3 times now) and so far, these last three years I have finished my projects before I have started work on my NaNoWriMo project (National Novel Writing Month.)

        Without a title, the concept is RenTech Police Your Planet.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

        In the editing stage of all the Regency Timelines, I read about many of the atrocities that the French were responsible for. I can not think of anything good that came from such men as Robespierre, Danton, Marat or even Napoleon. The last has the sobriquet of Tyrant for a reason. The Terror has been on my mind, not least because others have tried to tackle that period and it seems to me, failed.

        I do not think that I am filled with Hubris that I can attack the subject and best it. But I can put my slant on some of the issues.

        Lester Del Rey was an author as well as editor with his own imprint. He wrote a book called Police Your Planet. I clearly saw how I could generate a plot by combining some of the elements in that book, some elements of the terror and the Guillotine, and the world of my RenTech duology. My RenTech/Steampunk world of Hornik and it’s neighbors forever changed as a Steam Engine changes the agrarian countryside to industry, and how the surrounding kingdoms are so effected. One of these surrounding kingdoms is where the Terror that has to be stopped, takes root.

3) Under what genre does your book fall?

        Science Fiction and Fantasy would seem to be the traditional venue for Steampunk related literature. As the integration of Steam to a feudal society has pushed them in the work that is being serialized now to a Pike and Musket era world, this will follow that and become early Georgian. Ultimately though, there will be a love story behind the veneer of world building.

 

4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

        There will of course be a hero and a heroine. And to be a hero, the lead has to be an actor in his late twenties, early thirties, so Colin Firth is too old. I will have an old duke, though, and Colin, of Patrick Stewart, would do well for that role.

        For the heroine, beauty is important, and acting range would not necessarily be so. I have a friend who is a professor at a theatrical arts department. She says she advises all the young girls to get to size 0. With all the competition, casting is all about how good you look and a hope that great acting will come later. My current favorite for that girl the hero will want to do all to get is Laura Vandervoort.

        For our hero, it is a shame that the John Carter movie failed, but it did and we lose Taylor Kitsch as a hero. But with a hero we can do depth of range. A hero does not have to look so gorgeous as the ingenue. So Jake Gyllenhaal who has made an impression since October Sky. Tobey Maguire I think is now too old to play late twenties.

 

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

        There is a time in all our lives when what is right is the reason to take a stand and stop evil no matter the costs.

 

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

        I am on the self publishing track. I do publish through Regency Assembly Press and this will be through their imprint, Space Opera Books.

 

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

        I expect this project to be about 105,000 to 120,000 words. Should be a month or so to write the first draft.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

        It will be like Police Your Planet, but I hope to put dash and derring-do in like The Prisoner of Zenda .

  

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

        The Scarlet Pimpernel!

  

10) What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

        Well, if you should like that last reference, then I think what I come up with will intrigue you. There will be a few excerpts placed here over time as well for you to take a look at. Sample and see if you want the book when it is available, possibly in 2013.

THE VERSATILE BLOGGER

For the Versatile Blogger award, I am to reveal 7 things about myself:

1) I like history.

        In college, where I started with the goal of getting a business degree, I found that the courses that appealed to me where the ones in the history department. So I started taking those for my major. My parents thought this would lead to a law degree. But that was an area I didn’t like so much and worked in 2 law firms after college to know for sure that the profession wasn’t for me.

        History though is a great long big story. A precursor to writing stories, since you are studying stories. And to writing stories that have great big doses of historical fiction.

2) I like to read.

        I have a library of well over six thousand volumes. Most cataloged. My wife thinks this is terrible and hates the space I devote to the library. My parents hate it. My siblings tease me about it. But that has been the fodder that has been feeding the engine. I have read those books (Most of them) and have learned about story and pacing, and setting and dialogue. You really can’t be a writer if you haven’t read (And check with all the writers you admire, they will tell you the same.)

3) I am not confident in my own achievements.

        I don’t know if you should always be critical of yourself. I know I am a very good storyteller (need help in copy-editing, but I am a Historian, not a Lit major) But I am critical. I am always thinking the glass is not even half full yet. Because I most of forgot something. Or that could be better. Or why did I not go left instead of right and half a dot.com business?

4) I still am waiting to hit rock bottom.

        Ya gotta love this recession, right. We made the interiors of Cheesecake Factories, a chain of high end restaurants in the USA. My company, that I leveraged everything to purchase, made all the exquisite woodwork. . I had over 40 employees at times, and then sub contracted the installation crews so we had them under us as well. My company. Owner, president and then… All money to build new construction dried up.

        We tried to keep it going. Put all the money we had made back into it. Had to close the doors. Walk away from everything. Tried to get a new job before the bank took the house. But they took that too. Lived with my wife & 2 birds at my sister in laws in an 8 x 10 room, everything in storage for six months. Relocated to the desert. Got a job finally, but they didn’t quite understand cash flow and I was let go. Keep thinking we have hit bottom, but then something new comes along

5) I am good at what I do

        Those who read these books I write only have good things to tell me (except for the issue of copy editing, and I do put the works through an external editing process). I can tell an entertaining story. I can sometimes write my dialogue as if it was designed for Beatrice and Benedick to banter. I can provide good bang for your buck!

6) I want more.

        But it would be nice to have enough money in the bank to get a new car. To pay for things around the house, to make a full time living at writing. 600 books a month is my goal for sales. I think if I achieve that, we are in business.

7) I have travelled but not enough

        Been to Israel and Egypt, Canada and Mexico, parts of the USA, Europe. I am anglophile and have been to England three times, 1975, 1990, 2007. My grandfather was English, he had a bunch of siblings and his father had a bunch of siblings. I have hundreds of English cousins. So I have that affinity. It would be nice to travel back. (Maybe one day an English Writers Conference will have me as the Guest of Honor

That is the gist of 7 things. There are many more things that make me, well me. But that is probably for the next award.

A Regency Era Timeline 1824 in progress

English Historical Fiction Authors

Several of the followers of The Things That Catch My Eye blog will know that I also blog over at English Historical Fiction Authors.

The EHFA has a different blog post everyday supplied by authors like myself in the field. The reason to draw your attention to the EHFA today, is that the one year anniversary of the website/blog will be this weekend and there are approximately 20 books being given away in honor of that event. Just post a comment on Saturday the 22nd, or Sunday the 23rd at the site.

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorealing Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1824:

Year

Month Day

Event



1824

Jan 1

The Camp Street Theatre opened as the first English-language playhouse in New Orleans.



1824

Jan 8

William Wilkie Collins, English novelist (Woman in White), was born.



1824

Jan 8

Tom Spring defeated Jack Langan in a British championship boxing match that lasted 2½ hours.



1824

Jan 21

Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Confederate General, was born.



1824

Jan 22

A British force was wiped out by an Asante army under Osei Bonsu on the African Gold Coast. This was the first defeat for a colonial power.



1824

Jan 26

Edward Jenner, discoverer of vaccination, died.



1824

Feb 4

J.W. Goodrich introduced rubber galoshes to public.



1824

Feb 9

Anna Katharina Emmerick (b.1774), a sickly, virtually illiterate German nun, died. Her gory visions of Jesus’ last hours of suffering before his crucifixion drew pilgrims to her bedside in the years before her death. In 2004 she was beatified by Pope John Paul VI.



1824

Feb 10

Simon Bolivar was named President by the Congress of Peru.



1824

Feb 14

Winfield Scott Hancock (d.1886), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1824

Feb 23

Lewis Cass Hunt (d.1886), Brig General (Union volunteers), was born.



1824

Feb 28

Charles Blondin, tightrope walker, was born.



1824

Mar 2

Bedrich Friedrich Smetana (1884), Czech, Bohemian composer (Bartered Bride, Moldau), was born.



1824

Mar 2

In the Supreme Court case of Gibbons v Ogden held that the power to regulate interstate commerce was granted to Congress by the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The Court found that New York’s licensing requirement for out-of-state operators was inconsistent with a congressional act regulating the coasting trade. Gibbons had hired Cornelius Vanderbilt as captain of his boat, which operated under a federal license.



1824

Mar 5

Elisha Harris, U.S. physician, founder of the American Public Health Association, was born.



1824

Mar 5

James Merritt Ives, lithographer for Currier and Ives, was born.



1824

Mar 7

Meyerbeer’s opera “Il Crociati in Egitto,” premiered in Venice.



1824

Mar 9

Leland Stanford, railroad builder and founder of Stanford University, was born in what was then Watervliet, New York (later the town of Colonie).



1824

Mar 11

The U.S. War Department created the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A lifelong friend and trusted aide of Ulysses S. Grant, Ely Parker rose to the top in two worlds, that of his native Seneca Indian tribe and the white man’s world at large. He went on to become the first Indian to lead the Bureau.



1824

Mar 12

Gustav Robert Kirchoff, physicist, was born in Prussia.



1824

Mar 26

1st performance of Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis.”



1824

Apr 17

Russia abandoned all North American claims south of 54’ 40’.



1824

Apr 19

George Gordon, (6th Baron Byron, b.1788) aka Lord Byron, English poet, died of malaria in Greece at Missolonghi on the gulf of Patras preparing to fight for Greek independence. In 1999 Benita Eisler published the biography “Byron: Child of Passion, Fool of Fame.” In 2002 Fiona MacCarthy authored “Byron : Life and Legend.” In 2009 Edna O’Brien authored “Byron in Love.”



1824

Apr 27

William Richard Bexfield, composer, was born.



1824

May 7

The Ninth Symphony by Beethoven had its premiere. The “Ode to Joy” lyric was originally written by Friedrich von Schiller as the “Ode to Freedom.”



1824

May 8

William Walker, president of Nicaragua, was born.



1824

May 16

Edmund Kirby-Smith, educator and soldier, was born. He was a Confederate general in the western theater.



1824

May 29

Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox, Major General (Confederate Army), was born.



1824

Jun 8

A washing machine was patented by Noah Cushing of Quebec.



1824

Jun 10

Caesar Augustus Rodney (v.1772), US Attorney General (1807-1811) and nephew of US Judge Caesar Rodney (1728-1784), died in Buenos Aires. He served as a US Senator from Delaware (1822-1823).



1824

Jun 16

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was formed at Old Slaughter’s Coffee House in London under the direction of Arthur Broome.



1824

Jul 20

Alexander Schimmelfennig, Brig. General Union volunteers, was born in Prussia.



1824

Jul 20

Marc Brunel (55) was appointed as engineer for the Thames Tunnel Company. He hired his son, Isambard Brunel, as his assistant. Brunel senior, a royalist, had fled the French Revolution to become, briefly, official engineer to the city of New York, and then, having settled in London, a consultant engineer to the Royal Navy. Educated and trained in both French and English schools and workshops, Brunel junior served his practical apprenticeship assisting his father in the building of the first tunnel under the Thames, which later carried the Underground between Wapping and Rotherhithe.



1824

Jul 27

Alexandre Dumas fils, French playwright, novelist (Camille), was born.



1824

Jul 30

Gioacchino Rossini became manager of Theatre Italian in Paris.



1824

Jul

The Richmond [Virginia] Light Artillery changed its name to the Richmond Fayette Artillery in honor of the Marquis de La Fayette.



1824

Aug 15

General Lafayette returned to the US under an invitation from Pres. Monroe. Political ribbons were printed in for the 1st time in large quantities to celebrate his US tour.



1824

Aug 15

Freed American slaves formed the country of Liberia.



1824

Aug 24

Simon Bolivar’s army beat the Spanish in Peru in the Battle at Junin.



1824

Sep 4

Anton Bruckner, composer and Wagner disciple, was born in Austria.



1824

Sep 23

Captain Richard Charlton was appointed British Consul to Hawaii.  He arrived in Hawaii and assumed his post in April, 1825.



1824

Oct 4

The Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824 was enacted, after the overthrow of the Mexican Empire of Agustin de Iturbide. In the new constitution, the republic took the name of United Mexican States, and was defined as a representative federal republic, with Catholicism as the official religion. A liberal constitution, established at this time, was later replaced by Santa Anna.



1824

Oct 21

Joseph Aspdin patented Portland cement in Yorkshire, England.



1824

Oct 22

The Tennessee Legislature adjourned ending Davy Crockett’s state political career. Crockett died at the legendary siege of the Alamo in 1836.



1824

Oct 23

The 1st steam locomotive was introduced.



1824

Nov 2

Popular presidential vote was 1st recorded; Jackson beat J.Q. Adams. Gen. Jackson won the popular vote followed by John Quincy Adams, William Crawford and Henry Clay. Jackson won 99 electoral votes, Adams won 84, Crawford won 41 and Clay won 37. Crawford, Treasury secretary, was accused of malfeasance. Henry Clay was denounced for passing days gambling and nights in a brothel. Clay convinced his supporters in congress to vote for Adams. The House of Representatives chose John Quincy Adams, who chose Clay for vice president. A furious Jackson proceeded to help found the Democratic Party.



1824

Nov 5

Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School with a letter to Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which he asked him to serve as the first president. The first engineering college in the U.S., Rensselaer School, opened in Troy, New York, on Jan 3, 1825. It later became known as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.



1824

Nov 16

NY City’s Fifth Avenue opened for business.



1824

Nov 18

Franz Sigel (d.1902), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1824

Dec 1

The presidential election was turned over to the U.S. House of Representatives when a deadlock developed among John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford and Henry Clay with Jackson 32 votes shy of a majority. John Quincy Adams ended up the winner. He was reportedly the only bald-headed president.



1824

Dec 9

In the Battle of Ayacucho (Candorcangui) Peru defeated Spain.



1824

Dec 22

Chiefess Kapiolani, a Christian, defied Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess, and lived.  Tennyson’s eponymous poem celebrated the event.



1824



Charles X becomes the new King of France.



1824



Don Juan, written by English poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, is published this same year as he dies of marsh fever at Missolonghi at age 36, in the midst of trying to help the Greeks gain their independence.



1824



Fanny Wright makes a second trip to America, right behind the Marquis de Lafayette, joining him on his visits to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. She is a champion for women’s rights and advocates free public schools in America.



1824



Hawaii’s high chieftess, Kapiolani, hikes 100 miles to the 4,000 ft. peak of Mauna Loa and descends 500 feet into the Kilauea Volcano’s crater against her husband’s pleas, and defies the steaming lake of red-hot lava by saying “I fear not Pele”. Later in the 1840s, she will be found to have breast cancer and will undergo a mastectomy without anesthesia.



1824



Hawaii’s Kamehameha II and his wife both die of measles during a state visit to Britain on July 14.



1824



Later in the year a penal colony is founded at Redcliff, before moving upriver to the present site of Brisbane.



1824



Lord Byron dies.



1824



Nicholas I is crowned Tsar of Russia.



1824



Oxley charts the Brisbane River as far as Colleges Crossing.



1824



Robert Owen, an English reformer, advocates women’s liberation, abolition of slavery and free progressive education. He purchases the town of New Harmony, Indiana from German Lutheran Rappites, with the intention of beginning communes in England, Ireland, Mexico, and the U.S. All will fail.



1824



The book, A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison Who Was Taken by the Indians in the Year 1755 When Only about Twelve Years of Age and Has Continued to Reside Amongst Them to the Present, will outsell the works of Sir Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper until the end of the century. It is written by Mary Jemison, age 81, who had married a member of the Delaware tribe during her captivity and whom she really did love. Her Indian captors had sided with the British during the Revolution, and later deeded land to her when they were removed to reservations.



1824



The Combination Acts are repealed in England, which stimulates the trade movement.



1824



The first Anglo-Burmese War begins, and Britain begins annexation of Burma.



1824



The first joint strike by men and women takes place by weavers at Pawtucket, Rhode Island.



1824



The first regional American cookbook is published: The Virginia Housewife by Mary Randolph, age 72. It includes recipes for turtle soup, Virginia ham, and gooseberry fool.



1824



War develops between the British and the Ashanti in the Gold Coast, aka Ghana, West Africa.



1824



The Frenchman, Eugène Delacroix, paints The Massacre of Chios.  Britain’s romantic poet, Lord Byron, who has written “We are all Greeks,” has gone to Greece and dies of “marsh fever.”



1824



Britain and the U.S. negotiate a treaty establishing procedures for suppressing the slave trade, but the U.S. Senate undercuts the treaty’s powers and the British refuse to sign.



1824



In Britain, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is founded, the first animal protection organization in the world.



1824



John Hayter painted portraits of Hawaii’s King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamamalu in London shortly before they died there of measles.



1824



Lydia Maria Child of Wayland, Mass., authored “Hobomok,” a novel of a Puritan girl who falls in love with an Indian after her fiancée is lost at sea. She later founded Juvenile Miscellany, the 1st children’s magazine in the US. She later authored “The Frugal Housewife” and “An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans” (1833) and the poem: “The New England’s Boy’s Song About Thanksgiving Day” (Over the river, and through the woods…). In 1994 Carolyn Karcher authored her biography: “The First Woman in the Republic.”



1824



James Morier authored “The Adventures of Haji Bab of Ispahan,” the tale of a barber’s son who seeks his fortunes in Persia.



1824



Meyerbeer composed his opera “Il Crociato in Egitto,” with a part for the last of the great castrato singers, Giovanni Batista Velluti.



1824



The Second Bank of the United States, established by federal charter in 1791, was completed in Philadelphia by William Strickland. It was modeled after the Parthenon. From 1841-1934 it served as a Custom House. It was acquired by the National Park Service in 1939 and in 1974 became the home of the Peale portraits. The renovated museum reopened Dec 1, 2004.



1824



Rafael Garcia led the defense of Mission San Rafael against hostile Indians.



1824



Hens called Rhode Island Reds were first bred in Little Compton, R.I. They lay brown eggs and gained a regional preference.



1824



“Publish and be damned,” was exclaimed by the Duke of Wellington to Harrietta Wilson, a courtesan of note, whose publisher went trolling amongst her former beaux, offering exclusion from her memoirs for 200 hundred pounds sterling.



1824



Dean William Buckland of Oxford Univ. discovered and described the bones of the meat-eating Megalosaurus, “huge reptile.”



1824



William Moorcroft, East India Co. head of 5,000 acre horse farm at Pusa, India, arrived in Peshawar, Afghanistan, while enroute to Bukhara, Uzbekistan, to trade for horses.



1824



The Ashanti tribe in West Africa defeated the troops under Sir Charles MacCarthy. His polished skull then became a prized feature of the annual yam festival.



1824



The first company to come out with the paper milk carton was the Toronto East India Company, which developed it in 1824 due to a glass shortage.



1824



In England the first animal welfare group was founded.



1824



The Royal National Lifeboat Institution was established in England.



1824



The Mexican governor of California offered all missions for sale under a program of secularization.



1824



A Mexican General was served chiles en nogada after he threw out the last Spanish viceroy. The dish consisted of green chiles, pomegranate seeds and a white walnut sauce.



1824



Newfoundland became a British colony.



1824



The Saud family established a new capital at Riyadh.



1824-1860



Yanagawa Shigenobu II, Japanese printmaker, was active. His work included the color woodcut “Kuroho” (1832-1836).



1824-1868



Lesotho acted as a buffer between the Afrikaner’s Boer Republic and British colonial interests and supplied seasonal farm workers to both.



1824-1877



Julia Kavanagh, Irish novelist: “The slight that can be conveyed in a glance, in a gracious smile, in a wave of the hand, is often the ne plus ultra of art. What insult is so keen or so keenly felt, as the polite insult which it is impossible to resent?”



1824-1879



William Morris Hunt, artist. His work included an oil of Niagara Falls.



1824-1887



Gustav Kirchoff, German physicist, discovers that the reasons for the Fraunhoffer lines in light spectra from the sun are due to absorption of specific wavelengths of energy by elements in the gaseous chromosphere that resonate when impacted at specific energy levels. The light emitted by the excited atoms will then have characteristic markings such as the D-line of sodium.



1824-1889



(William) Wilkie Collins, English novelist. His work included the 1860 mystery: “The Woman in White.” It was later made into a TV version on both “Mystery” (1985) and “Masterpiece Theater” (1998).



1824-1892



George William Curtis, American author-editor “Heroes in history seem to us poetic because they are there. But if we should tell the simple truth of some of our neighbors, it would sound like poetry.”



1824-1907



William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Scottish scientist-inventor, a leader in energetics. Along with Helmholtz he helped establish the principle of the conservation of energy.

A Regency Era Timeline 1823 in progress

English Historical FIction Authors

Several of the followers of The Things That Catch My Eye blog will know that I also blog over at English Historical Fiction Authors.

The EHFA has a different blog post everyday supplied by authors like myself in the field. The reason to draw your attention to the EHFA today, is that the one year anniversary of the website/blog will be this weekend and there are approximately 20 books being given away in honor of that event. Just post a comment on Saturday the 22nd, or Sunday the 23rd at the site.

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorealing Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1823:

Year

Month Day

Event



1823

Jan 15

Matthew Brady, Civil War photographer, was born.



1823

Jan 27

Edouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo, French composer (Symphonie Espagnole), was born.



1823

Jan 27

Pres. Monroe appointed 1st US ambassadors to South America.



1823

Feb 2

Rossini’s opera “Semiramide” premiered in Venice.



1823

Feb 16

John Daniel Imboden (d.1895), Brig General (Confederate Army), was born.



1823

Feb 27

William Buel Franklin (d.1903), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1823

Feb 28

Ernst Renan, French philosopher, historian, scholar of religion, was born.



1823

Mar 3

Guyla Andrássy Sr., premier of Hungary (1867-71), was born.



1823

Mar 23

Schuyler Colfax, (R) 17th US Vice President (1869-73), was born.



1823

Mar 25

Coelestin Jungbauer (75), composer, died.



1823

Apr 1

Simon Bolivar Buckner (d.1914), Lt. Gen. (Confederate Army), was born.



1823

Apr 3

William Macy “Boss” Tweed, New York City political boss, was born.



1823

Apr 4

Karl Wilhelm Siemens, inventor (laid undersea cables), was born.



1823

Apr 22

R.J. Tyers patented roller skates.



1823

May 5

James Allen Hardie (d.1876), Bvt Major General (Union Army), was born.



1823

May 8

“Home Sweet Home” was 1st sung in London.



1823

May 10

The 1st steamboat to navigate the Mississippi River arrived at Ft. Snelling (between St. Paul and Minneapolis).



1823

May 15

Antonio Frantisek Becvarovsky (69), composer, died.



1823

Jun 11

Major General James L. Kemper, Confederate hero, was born. He fought at the battles of Williamsburg and Gettysburg.



1823

Jul 1

The United Provinces of Central America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and San Salvador) gained independence from Mexico. The union dissolved by 1840.



1823

Sep 10

Simon Bolivar was named president of Peru and assumed the presidency with dictatorial powers. He had led the wars for independence from Spain in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.



1823

Sep 21

The Angel Moroni 1st appeared to Joseph Smith (b.1823), according to Smith (founder of Mormon Church). Smith in New York claimed that an angel named Moroni led him to ancient golden plates that revealed the untold story of America during biblical times.



1823

Oct 5

Carl Maria von Weber visited Beethoven.



1823

Oct 12

Charles Macintosh of Scotland began selling raincoats (Macs).



1823

Dec 2

President Monroe, replying to the 1816 pronouncements of the Holy Alliance, proclaimed the principles known as the Monroe Doctrine, “that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by European powers.” His doctrine opposing European expansion in the Western Hemisphere insured that American influence in the Western hemisphere remain unquestioned. Former US Pres. Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) helped Monroe shape the Monroe Doctrine.



1823

Dec 7

Leopold Kronecker, German mathematician (Tensor of Kronecker), was born.



1823

Dec 19

Georgia passed the 1st US state birth registration law.



1823

Dec 20

Franz Schubert’s “Ballet-Musik aus Rosamunde,” premiered in Vienna.



1823

Dec 23

The poem: “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” was published. The poem was first published anonymously in the Troy, New York Sentinel, and was reprinted frequently thereafter with no name attached. Authorship was later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore and the poem was included in an anthology of his works. His connection with the verses has been questioned by some. Recent scholarship reveals the original to have been written by Major Henry Livingston (1748-1828). The segment of the poem referring to reindeer reads: Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer, and Vixen, On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blixem. Rudolph was added following the publication of Robert L. May’s Christmas story in 1939.



1823



Anne Royall, 54 and a Virginia gentleman-farmer’s wife, finds herself penniless after 16 years of marriage when her husband dies and his relatives cheat her out of his estate (she had been a servant at his estate when they had met). She petitions Congress for a widow’s pension, since her husband had been a Continental Army general, but it’s not enough to support her. To help earn her living, she soon travels the country, writing about her experiences and giving scathing insights into the lives of prominent people such as General Lafayette and others.



1823



Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley publishes Valperga.



1823



Oxley enters and charts the Brisbane River for the first time.



1823



Oxley enters Moreton bay and finds Pamphlett, Finnegan and Parsons, who had been living with the Bribie Island people after wrecking on Moreton Island several months earlier.



1823



The Spanish revolution is crushed.



1823



US President James Monroe issues the Monroe Doctrine, which warns the European powers not to interfere in American politics.



1823



Austria, Russia and Prussia authorize French troops to enter Spain to destroy the liberal revolution there and re-establish the rule of Ferdinand VII. Ferdinand begins revenge killings that will revolt those who returned him to power.



1823



Steam powered shipping begins between Switzerland and France on Lake Geneva.



1823



Mexico, interested in populating Texas, allows Stephen F. Austin to sell plots of land to settlers so long as they are of good character. 



1823



Alfred Russel Wallace (d.1913), naturalist, was born. He developed the theory of evolution by natural selection at the same time as did Charles Darwin.



1823



Raphaelle Peale painted “After the Bath.” The artist was a hopeless lush and one of the subtlest still-life painters who ever lived. On display at the Nelson Art Gallery, Kansas City, Missouri.



1823



Johann Anton Ramboux, German artist, created “Merenda in the Farnesi Gardens in Rome” in pen and brown ink over pencil.



1823



Franz Schubert composed his song cycle “Die Schöne Müllerin.” He also became gravely ill with syphilis in this year.



1823



The Reverend Hiram Bingham, leader of a group of New England Calvinist missionaries, began translating the Bible into Hawaiian. The project took 16 years.



1823



Mission San Francisco de Solano de Sonoma was established by Father Jose Altimira. It was to be the last of the 21 California missions set up to convert the native Indians and develop the local resources. The native Indians were of the Nappa tribe, hence the name of the Napa Valley. Spanish explorer Francisco Castro accompanied Father Altimira and they planted the first grapevines.



1823



The city of Ypsilanti, Mich., was initially named Woodruff’s Grove and was founded by pioneers in 1823. It was re-named Ypsilanti in honor of a Greek war hero, Demetrius Ypsilanti. The railroad came to the city in 1838, and it became a major stopping point for travelers between Detroit and the west. The Michigan State Normal School, now Eastern Michigan University, was founded here in 1849.



1823



In New Orleans Louis Joseph Dufilho Jr. established a pharmacy and was the first licensed pharmacist in the US. The building later became The Pharmacy Museum.



1823



John Rankin, Presbyterian minister, moved to Ripley, Ohio, and soon established the Ripley Line of the underground railroad. In 2003 Ann Hagedorn authored “Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad.” In 2005 Fergus M. Bordewich authored “Bound for Canaan,” a look at the people involved in the UR operations.



1823



Philip Cazenova founded a British banking firm partnership. It incorporated in 2001.



1823



Lord Byron returned to Greece to provide moral support to insurgents and draw attention to Ottoman massacres of Greek civilians.



1823



Steam powered shipping began on Lake Geneva between Switzerland and France.



1823



The first New England missionaries arrived on Maui.



1823



The Momotomba volcano, 18 miles from Managua and on the northwest shore of Lake Nicaragua, went dormant. In the 17th cent. it had destroyed the capital of Leon.



1823



Poet Lord Byron spent a summer on the Ionian island of Cephalonia.



1823



In Brazil homosexual acts were decriminalized.



1823



British Major Dixon Denham and Captain Hugh Clapperton (1788-1827) entered Northern Nigeria from the north, crossing the desert from Tripoli.



1823



A fire in Rome destroyed a basilica, said to have been built over the burial site of St. Paul. This basilica had been built by Theodosius over an older church built over the burial site.  A new St. Paul Outside the Walls basilica was built over the site. In 2006 a sarcophagus was uncovered that dated to at least 390BC.



1823-1871



Charles Buxton, English author: “You will never ‘find’ time for anything. If you want time you must make it.”



1823-1890



William Kitchen Parker, English anatomist and embryologist. See [1883].



1823-1896



Coventry Patmore, English poet: “Nearly all our disasters come from a few fools having the ‘courage of their convictions.”’



1823-1900



F. Max Mueller, German philologist: “To think is to speak low. To speak is to think aloud.”



1823-1911



Thomas Wentworth Higginson, American clergyman-author: “To be really cosmopolitan, a man must be at home even in his own country.”

Ruritanian Romance: Serializing a chapter at a time Chapter 3

English Historical Fiction Authors

Several of the followers of The Things That Catch My Eye blog will know that I also blog over at English Historical Fiction Authors.

The EHFA has a different blog post everyday supplied by authors like myself in the field. The reason to draw your attention to the EHFA today, is that the one year anniversary of the website/blog will be this weekend and there are approximately 20 books being given away in honor of that event. Just post a comment on Saturday the 22nd, or Sunday the 23rd at the site.

The Prize is Not as Great as You Think

As I have been plugging for the last few weeks, I now present you with the serialization on Wednesday’s of The Prize is Not As Great As You Think. That has been my working title and it is possible that before all is done, something different will suggest itself. Something shorter.

As mentioned it is a Ruritanian Romance. I can’t remember just now how the idea came to me, but then after it did I started to research, and reread such works as Edgar Rice Burroughs the The Mad King as well as the The Prisoner of Zenda to prep for writing my tale.

To prep you, the tale deals with events in the Grand Duchy of Almondy, as I describe ‘bordered the north of Switzerland. To the east was France and now Belgium. The Germanies to the west, and finally the Netherlands to its north. Almondy was landlocked.’

One of the characteristics of a good Ruritanian Romance is intrigue. And as you can tell from the position of the country, the buffer between Germany and France, there certainly will be opportunity for it. With such neighbors, and set 836 years after the conquest. The conquest that took place the same year the William invaded England and defeated Harold. The year of our story begins in 1902, September.

A period of time when the Great War is brewing.

I hope you enjoy and should you like to leave feedback before next Wednesday and the next installment, please do so.

Chapter One can be found either at our website

Or here on the blog

In chapter three we have now seen how the bastard brother has worked towards his brother the Crown Princes death, which now has occurred. This changes a great many things. Including the life of the man now next to be Grand Prince. He learns of his cousin’s death and preparations begin to take place as the new Crown Prince of Almondy reflects on what was his life and what will be his life. Even as he asks questions of who is really involved in the tragedy of his cousin’s killing. Could Germany or France be involved in this matter. Almondy is seen as a pawn between these two powers. It is a possibility.

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Dramatis Personae (so far)

Athelstan Perry-Bastard son of the Grand Prince of Almondy

Crown Prince Reginald Baxter Simeon Fitzroy Perry-Heir of throne of Almondy

Grand Prince Michael Alan Henry Fitzroy Perry-Ruler of Almondy

Michael VII-Grand Prince around 1640’s

Gerald Henry William Fitzroy Perry-2nd in line to Grand Prince

Princess Margaritte-sister of Baron William

Baron William Fitzroy Perry-Leader of government

Prince Michael Fitzroy Perry the Castle Snatch, Founder of the Fitzroy Perry, and conqueror in 1066 of the Almondian Keep.

Samuel-Bodyguard of Crown Prince Reginald

Franc-Bodyguard of Crown Prince Reginald

Places        

Celebont Palace-The permier castle of the Grand Prince of Almondy

Ritzlauer Hotel-Where Athelstan Perry lives

Steilenberg-Capital

Almondy-Our mythical Country, north of Switzerland

Castle Repos where Reginald is headed to spend a few weeks before he is killed

Splatz–Small village where Prince Gerald has his farm on the outskirts of

Nantz–nearest town to Splatz and Castle Grayton where there is a railroad stop

Castle Grayton–Hunting Lodge near Splatz of Prince Reginalds

3) A Humble Farm

Gerry was content. Over six feet tall and big in the shoulders, he was glad to be home. The family ceremonies, marching in the St. Michael parade, were over for the year and now he could return to his cows and tend the needs of the farm. Blue eyed with sandy brown hair, he was out of his formal clothes, and the ancient uniform that he wore to march in the parade was put away. Even the patent leather shoes with gilt buckles were gone for another year and he wore his second favorite boots once more.

His father would hate that he had become a farmer, but it was a good life. And the Grand Prince, for all that he was a dictator and did little for many, kept the prices on food solid. So good that the farmers sold strong enough that no farmer who put in a honest day’s labor would ever starve.

Farmers fed the cities and they were paid for it. Not that a farmer ever wanted all those riches that the city folk had. What would you do with them anyway?

There was work in the cites such as making roads so that these new automobiles could ride on them. His cousin Reginald, the Crown Prince, said he had ordered a Mercedes that had 35 horsepower. When Gerry had ridden to Nantz for the train to Steilenberg he had used one horsepower. His mare Maggie was just fine to take him anywhere in the principality. Why look for trouble and try to find someone to sell you gasoline, or could fix one of the tires. Any smith could shoe a horse. There wasn’t any place Gerry could think of nearby to purchase gasoline or fix a tire.

All Reginald and Athelstan could talk of was progress, and where the country should go once the old Grand Prince died and the shackles he placed on the principality were gone. The two did not know their own father well enough, Gerry was pretty sure. The Grand Prince was smart enough to have kept them from folly for over thirty years.

The two chomped at the bit wanting to fight alongside the great powers of Germany or France. The last time Almondy had been in battle sixty thousand men had gone to war and twelve thousand had not come back. The next war would be worse, and it would probably be fought right in the principality. The Germans wanted to kill the French and the French wanted to kill the Germans just as badly.

These countries could not see that peace was the best. They never would.

Much simpler to like cows and milking them. There was a calm when you were in the rhythm of milking a cow. As long as you didn’t make the cow mad. And Gerry had the four sweetest cows this side of Splatz. They never gave him trouble.

No, never. You sat on your stool, pulled on the teat and milk came out. Twice a day, and then you had it to take to market, the night before’s milking and that morning’s. Though that Henry Samuelson was very energetic and now was running a cart late morning to take the milk into town for sale, and in the evening as well. He only charged a penny a liter and that meant a better use of Gerry’s time for it saved him two hours a day, each day.

The cows had to be milked every day else they let you know they were not happy. Painful, Gerry thought. Two days not milked and very painful. Wednesday’s though, he took the milk to town himself for then he met friends and had some fresh bread from Pieter the baker. He then sat in the platz and sold some cheese and milk and even a duck or chicken or two. Gerry had to thin his flock regularly and one man could only eat a bird every other week. Else Father Guiseppe, all the way from Italy, would scold him for being a glutton.

Gerry had a good life and had urged Reginald to marry and produce a son or three so that he would no longer be heir to Reginald. Cousin Athelstan laughed and laughed over that. Finally he shared the joke with Gerry, who had to chuckle as well. Everyone wanting Reginald to marry. Well it was time. Reginald was over thirty now and soon he would be Grand Prince. That was sure.

“So, another trip to the capital. I heard that young Samuelson looked after your farm when you were away,” Pieter said.

Gerry said, “He is a good lad. A very good lad. I don’t know that he makes a decent living at this carting nonsense or will ever make anything of himself and save enough for a farm. But he is honest, eh, and has that smile that make all like him.”

Pieter looked to Gerry. “You should smile more yourself. The ladies think you are quite handsome when you do, you know. And you are a Fitzroy Perry. You could be Grand Prince even.”

“That is why they like me. Once Reginald has married and has children I shall be a lot less attractive I assure you. Father did not think I would ever be higher than fifth in line but then the smallpox took all of Cousin William Simeon’s line and that shooting accident three years ago, and cousin Alan died. I just moved up the ladder I guess. I would have married Farmer Friedrich’s daughter over along the river, he has some land that would have been her dowry. But once I became second in line, he would not even speak to me. He thought for sure I was no longer for farming. She married the cobbler and now’s expecting her second child. He has no idea whether to plant millet or soybeans, oats or barley and Fredrich won’t give him the land. Hopes he can sell it and give the man the money to make more shoes.”

Pieter laughed, “We don’t buy the shoes he makes now. Not that I can see anyway. His window is so full of shoes you think that we all had a third foot.”

Gerry looked at Pieter who laughed harder. Gerry returned to the subject of his cousins for all liked to hear what the royals were up to, and they had Gerry to tell them the gossip. No other small village had a man close to the succession and could tell them of the royals.

“My cousin Athelstan says that I need be suspicious if any French or German comes to town that we do not know or vouch for. Almondy’s neighbors are thinking long term now. Athelstan worries that they may try and manipulate me.”

“I don’t know any German or Frenchie that has been here since you have been gone. I heard that there was an Englishman wandering about in the countryside.”

“Pieter, those in Steilenberg thing we are the countryside,” and now Gerry laughed.

“I know that. Do you think I am a simpleton. Just because I rise and start my fires at two o’clock so that you and the others can have fresh bread each day does not mean I am dumb. No, the countryside is anywhere around here that is not the town. That is where this Englishman was seen. They say he is walking about the countryside and is on a holiday. I am not the simpleton but this Englishman sure must be to think that walking about this part of Almondy is a holiday.”

“It is not all bad for one of my cousin Reginald’s lodges is here.”

“Yes, Castle Grayton. But it is neither gray nor a castle. It is a good lodge and I will say that the view to the alps of Switzerland can not be bested by anything else in our countryside. But that is five miles away,” Pieter said.

Gerry laughed, “And would you not want to see it and then spend time here? For only the little village below Grayton is there, with no rooms for all that live there work at the lodge of the Grand Prince.”

“I suppose that you are right.”

There was a little commotion in the rest of the square, and a crowd seemed to be at the telegraph office. The one phone in the whole county was there, though a second line was being installed in the town council hall. “Trouble. When you see everyone swarm like that, it means trouble and never any good news, else you would hear cheering. Look see,” Pieter pointed. “Old man Gerard is sending a boy to fetch the constable.”

They saw a young lad, too far across the platz to see who it was, but he ran from the telegraph office to the constables. Then the three constables, there were seven for the entire county, burst from the door of the office and now they were shouting and pointing. Arms flailing. Then the attention of the men from that side of the square all seemed to focus on the side where the bakery was and Gerry and Pieter they sat.

“The commotion seems to be centered now on us here. And good friend, I can only think that there is one reason that they all point this way and now come,” Pieter said.

“Dear me. I can only think of one reason also. The Grand Prince must have finally succumbed to his many ailments.

The chief Constable, Lestaing said, “Hush all, Mr. Perry! Mr. Perry may we have a word? A message from Steilenberg. Terrible news, terrible news indeed.”

Gerry stood to receive all the men. “Is it my cousin? He has died?”

“Died, yes. Yes Mr. Perry. Died. No killed. The Crown Prince has been killed is the message from the Capital and we are to protect you until a company comes from the army. More later they said but we were to find you immediately.”

Gerry sat back down heavily.

“Back, all of you get back and give Gerry some room to breathe here. Constable clear these people back and delegate some to be your deputies,” Pieter said, waving his baguette like a stick to give Gerry some room and air.

“Tell me. Tell me what you know?” Gerry asked.

“That is all. Here you can read for yourself. If you want we shall send back to Steilenberg that we have you, your, uh highness. And ask them for any information you want.”

Gerry nodded, “Yes, let me read it.” That was quickly done. He was handed the telegram.

P Reginald KILLED STOP

FIND P GERALD IMMED STOP

MAKE P GERALD SAFE STOP

COMPANY FROM ARMY COMING STOP

MORE LATER END

“Yes, a typical telegraph. Constable Lestaing, yes, you will get your men and arm them. My cousin Athelstan told me that something like this could occur, but I thought he was joking. He said he would send me a paper on what to do in case this occurred. You, boy, run to the Postmaster and see if I have any mail. Master Helmut, will you see to my horse and getting the milking done for the next while. I don’t think I am going to be allowed to leave these gentlemen’s sight and best then I stay at the Blue Belle.” The only tavern that was good and that had rooms in the town.

Gerald thought that sounded commanding but he had little idea what else to do. He would have to tell his cousin the Grand Prince that he could not be one himself. He had gone to the Assembly a few times with cousin Athelstan and saw why his cousin Reginald had avoided the place. They talked about many things and all too much for him.

The assembly talked whether they should rescind the ecumenical religious freedom as Rome wanted, Catholicism being the mainstay of the country, but Protestanism was second. And who did not see a Jewish doctor since Michael the third brought them into the country when King Edward expelled them from England? Smart move that as well for the Jews brought banking to the country as well. That made them important enough that their neighbors also refrained from attacking them.

Family legend had it that the Princess Sophie who had run off to America was of course half Jewish, her mother being Jewish, and that the man she ran off with was Jewish as well. But now the Principality had Chinese, who were Buddhists and Japanese who were Shintoists. It was a melting pot and Gerald would not know how to make a decision there. Or how to keep France and Germany from each others throats.

How to know where to spend money, and how to keep the army supplied with new weapons like these automobiles, or the machine guns he had seen demonstrated. Those would cut a man in half surely. How could he be the Grand Prince and ask any man to fight, when those horrible guns could kill so swiftly.

Athelstan would be a much better Grand Prince than he would. Besides the court would laugh when he would bring his cows to the royal palace in Steilenberg. One could be an eccentric Grand Prince, but he was pretty sure that the nobles would not want to see Cows and their Grand Prince milking them. They would all probably complain about the flies and cow patties till he became deafened by them. That was the way he had always found the Steilenberg folk.

Men were rushing around at his direction then. Gerry turned to Pieter, “This is terrible. I do not think I can do this.”

“Nonsense. I have known you for years. You certainly will be better than your poor cousin as a Grand Prince. Reginald looked good in the pictures of him in his uniform, but I always heard he was dumber than a chicken. Liked the ladies and drinking, but not much more to him was there? You’ve told us all about him for years.”

Gerald’s lips puckered as he nodded. “Yes. I had always thought that my cousin would rise to the occasion though, for I think being Grand Prince here, now, means that one is thrust into greatness. If the first Michael had known we would be in the middle of such powerful neighbors, I think he would have walked right on by. Who knew in 1066 that the Celebont Palace would become so important. The knight my esteemed forbearer took the place from had only finished building it and was deep in debt to the king of France. Styled himself a baron. Now look what we have got. Damn French have no king any longer but they want all the interest from that loan, I tell you,” Gerry said.

“Can’t trust no bankers. They’re all Jews!” Pieter went to spit. They had enough room that they had some privacy even as men tried to get a glimpse of Gerry. They had seen him ten minutes before the telegram came and they all knew what he looked like.

“Don’t disparage the Jews. The banker here, Mister Potts is not a Jew, though Doctor Coyne is. Best Doctor for miles as you well know. Took good care of that burn you had last year, and your broken leg the year before.”

Pieter nodded. “I suppose you are right. It is just a saying.”

“It is sayings that cause problems. Best think bad thoughts about people you know are bad and have done you wrong and then think nicely of those who have never harmed you. That I believe would be the best motto to live by, don’t you think so?” Gerry asked.

Pieter laughed, “There you see, Highness you will make a great Grand Prince!”

Gerald shook his head. He knew he would not and did not want to be one. Consable Lestaing had returned and he had three rifles and four pistols that he and another carried.

“Here, if we can move you now to the Blue Belle, it will be easier to protect you…”

“I suppose that if men killed my cousin, then there are those who might kill me, but I am just a farmer.” Gerry tried to protest. It did little good and soon they were all moving to the Blue Belle. There were some guests but all were Almondians and when they heard what was happening and who was now sitting in the main room, some who had rooms upstairs were happy to clear out of them and give the Crown Prince a safe zone that he could go to.

Steilenberg was two days ride away, but the train, which had a stop up the valley at Nantz, could have a company there in some few hours. Depending on the station masters getting an army train assembled in Steilenberg and then getting the routing handled. That took time too. By nightfall a company of soldiers from the army could reach Splatz.

“Well, it will be a few hours. Pieter has a good round loaf of sourdough and you Master Kramer, do you not have a stew, as you usually do?”

Master Kramer and his wife kept the kitchen always ready to serve travelers food. There usually was a big pot of stew on the stove. For as long as Gerald remembered, bread from the bakery that Pieter now owned, would be used as bowls for stew from the Blue Belle. It always was a hearty meal. “I do. Of course I do. I shall fetch you some in a bread bowl, shall I highness?”

“Yes and I think a whisky is called for today to drink as well. I fear Constable Lestaing has made it clear he will not let me travel to my house. Though once the soldiers are here, I hope there will be enough men that I may go there and collect some things. I do not even have my night clothes that I may sleep. Or my shaving gear for tomorrow morning my cheeks will be very prickly.” That brought a laugh, but the Constable solved that problem. New shaving gear was brought from the local store of Mr. Mueller, while a nice girl, Hilda, went from the Inn to Gerry’s farm to fetch other items of a personal nature.

Hilda was a maid and two young men went with her, enjoying their new status as deputies of Constable Lestaing and the chance to accompany the very pretty Hilda. Pieter had returned to the bakery and the novelty was wearing off. Other townsmen drifted away about their business and soon it was the Constable and just a few others who had acted as guards with Gerry, a few other thrill-seekers stayed in the hall as well as the guests of the Blue Belle.

“I don’t suppose that things will ever be the same again will they?” Gerry asked and it certainly was directed at the Constable. He was the closest thing to a man with authority in Splatz that Gerry, or any other, could trust.

Lestaing looked about and then shrugged, “Probably not, Prince. And don’t shake your head and tell me I’ve said before I wouldn’t call you that. You are the Prince now, whether you like it or not. Someone has to be the Prince, else this country is going to fall apart. Look about this room, a third are of German stock and proud of it. The other third are French, and as proud. That last bit, from all the other parts of Europe and Mr. Cheng is from China. We all get along pretty well, but that last war near tore us apart here as well as on the battlefield. An Almondian knows better to take sides in a fight between the big countries. But if the commoners all had the vote, then what would happen in the Assembly? War there I would bet. That is why Almondy needs the Grand Prince, to walk us across that tightrope.”

The room they sat in had two parts to it, the bar and dining area and the smaller sitting room area. They were in the dining room at a table next to the wall, and also adjacent to the bar. Two of the men that Lestaing had deputized stood there at the bar while the Constable stood at the other side of the table looking across the room. The other constables of Splatz had been summoned and some were in the rest of the dining room. One waited outside to wave down the soldiers when they arrived. Another was in the small entry room where the desk for those who were guests of the Blue Belle conducted their arrangements.

Eleven men Gerry knew of were watching him and the Blue Belle. As much as it was possible that there would be an attack against him, he did not think so. But he had been in the army for two years, and made a lieutenant as well because of his blood. Reginald had started life in the army as a colonel and then after three months he was made a general.

Gerry started as a lieutenant and ended as one as well. His first three months were spent learning how to be a soldier and the next three an officer, just as the other members of the aristocracy and rich upper class of men who had sent their sons to become soldiers did. Reginald, he knew, had never risen at four in the morning and spent fifteen minutes trying to bathe with cold water and do all that you needed to dress quickly and get outside for inspection, still in the dark with twenty nine other men of your barracks all doing likewise. And there being only two commodes.

At least though there were commodes. Thirty years before, he had heard often enough from the training sergeants, the gentleman officers would have an outhouse instead. The regular soldiers then and now had no such luck but had a shovel in which to make a hole in the ground. Gerry had found later that was not an exaggeration. Fortunately since the Franco Prussian war, and they had fought with the winning side, much had been done to modernize the army.

Gerry was not a fool. Lestaing was right. Almondy would certainly be the center of any new war. And as Gerry read in the papers, chances were that Almondy could swing the balance of power from one side to the other. “I don’t mean to criticize, but may I offer some advice, Constable. If I were to be attacked, first such a person has to get into the Blue Belle, or see me through the windows. Perhaps closing the drapes? Then there is only one man outside. A perimeter of a few more men, they can be watched from someone at the windows. A man in the kitchen and that back door there kept closed, opened carefully and when opened another man to help watch.”

“Yes of course. I tell you Prince, when the army gets here I shall be glad. This is too much for me. But you are right about this.” Lestaing gave out orders and repositioned his men as Gerald had suggested. “Why did you not stay in the army?”

Gerry thought for a moment and then signaled the barmaid for a tankard of Almondy Ale. “Not a long story but one of conscious and similar to the advice you have given me. I had befriended all the cultures of ours but I knew as I went higher I would have to give orders that would cause one Almondian to hurt the family of another from elsewhere in Europe. That I thought would be hard to do. So dairy farming. Good hard work and no bullets.”

Now though, a bullet quite likely had killed his cousin. Whatever killed Reginald, this day would be remembered a long time. “I wonder how my cousin died and what the Grand Prince will do. When I was in Steilenberg I heard that there were radicals that had tried to kill Reginald before. But Athelstan also said that there were factions in service to Germany and France also that might wish to provoke an incident and make it look like their rival had done so. Something that would force us into alliance with the other.”

Lestaing said, “I hope for your sake that Grand Prince Michael lives for a long time. Then you do not have to bear such burdens. But if he were to pass the crown to you, I should think to have an alliance with both and we join the country that is attacked. Would that not be a deterrent. I have always thought to say that to someone, and you are the only Assemblyman we have because you are a noble. Now of course you are much more.”

Lestaing had a point. Two. It was a good idea to make alliances with France and Germany and say that Almondy would join the defender. The other point was less palatable. That Gerald was now in a position that he would be Grand Prince. Could he convince Michael to pass him by? Could the Assembly choose the next inline? Could he even abdicate or refuse? Would that be allowed? Had it been done before? He was not a good student of the history of the Princes.

“Constable, can we send a runner to the bookseller. Mr. Granowitz has a number of books and if he has a few on the Princes of Almondy I should like to read them. I have been avoiding this part of my heritage.”

Lestaing started to laugh, “I hope you have kept up on other matters. There is a lot to do should you become the Grand Prince. Of course you need not carry the statue of Saint Michael any longer during the pageant.”

“Yes. I know some things that I expect would be helpful, but I probably have much to learn. I think the key to being a good ruler of Almondy is choosing good advisors,” Gerry said.

“Yes. That is true of all men in power. I am fortunate that the mayors of our town always look to me to be chief constable. Mayor Goretz, before your time, thought perhaps that his brother would be a better chief constable and others had to appeal to the Senior Chief Constable in Steilenberg to ensure I was not removed from my office. I do not know if your cousin, Prince Reginald, was thinking along such lines as good and trustworthy men to help him rule and govern. The pictures in the papers often had him at parties and with various pretty women.” Three national papers and then several regional papers. Even they had a paper printed in Nantz.

Gerald said, “I should mourn more. Though I did not know Reginald all that well. When I went to Steilenberg as a child he had little to do with me. He was a few years older and that made all the difference. Even Athelstan was older for he was just a few months younger than Prince Reginald. Athelstan though spent time with me and saw to it that I had someone who talked to me. He called me five when I was very young because I was fifth in succession. Lately when he felt like making a joke he has called me two.”

The constable nodded, “If he has the poor taste to call you one, you should do something about that now. I will not say that Prince Reginald was a great man, but before we had these newspapers, Princes had lovers at court. All know that. And many drunk and caroused. Perhaps they knew that once the crown was upon their head they would not have such time to do so again. We commoners can celebrate all our lives, but the Grand Prince must be serious for he has serious burdens and obligations.”

Gerry nodded, “I shall think on it. But if so, then I must catch up on carousing. Milking cows and tending the farm has not left me as many opportunities to make such a noise as my late cousin.” Gerry wished he could feel more regret at Reginald’s death. He knew that he was shocked by the news. But he also knew that Reginald was more of an acquaintance and one he did not admire than one of his closest relations. Gerry also sensed that Reginald did not feel favorably to him either. His country relation who actually worked. Gerry was an embarrassment to Reginald and his cousin was surely glad they did not see each other more than once a year during the Pageant of St. Michael.

The constable grinned at Gerry’s last remark and turned to the bar and motioned for another Almondy Ale. Gerry had finished his stew and Mistress Kramer had a piece of pie. A very large piece of pie, that she had whipped cream up fresh to place on top of it for him to eat. She brought that out to give to Gerald.

Everyone in the county knew he was a Prince but what Prince milked cows? They quickly had forgotten that Gerald was a Prince when he had brought the farm and lost his city airs. And when he did not seem to be inheriting the throne, he had become just one more of the hundreds of descendants of Prince Michael Fitzroy Perry, the Castle Snatch, that lived throughout the country. Though there were few now who could trace their line through a male, direct to the first Prince.

Hundreds though who could claim that they were family. And as he had seen at gatherings in Steilenberg, many would claim the closest of acquaintance even though they were the most distant of family, should they need something from the Grand Prince. They all paid the favorable taxes whether they owned rent paying land or not, which was a benefit. That was the most that the Grand Prince seemed to do when he was asked for favors, though all men were given a chance to enter the army as officers. They could even stay in it, for Gerald had met near twenty cousins who were in the army while he was in it.

The training class after his had a cousin who he had met often in Steilenberg when he had been serving. He had not seen Sir David Lieven when he was at the capital for the St. Michael pageant a few weeks before. But Gerald had only stayed the one night, and gotten on the train not more than an hour after they had finished that terrible climb up the hill.

The hill had been mostly open in the days of the Castle Snatch in the eleventh century. Not until the summit was reached were there buildings for a little village outside, and a little away from the keep’s gates. But the way up to the keep was quite large, and now three streets to the left and two to the right of the main thoroughfare ran parallel. There was even a flattened area about the middle of the climb that the Square and Cathedral of St Alban had been built. The church was nicer he was sure, than Notre Dame in Paris, though tourists did not come as often to see the cathedral of Steilenberg. Other buildings were there as well. Rich nobles and merchants settled there, half way to the summit and the Celebont Palace. Enough room that they could lay out gardens and big houses. Higher along the roads to the castle there was not enough room for such luxury.

Sir David Lieven was a Captain in the cavalry now, a prestigious assignment, though not the guards. Gerry knew that Reginald did not like Sir David, but Sir David could not trace his line through men all the way back to the Castle Snatch. At least two women, maybe even more, interrupted the direct line. A cousin none the less and dedicated to Almondy. Reginald was, no, had been, such a snob. That, and not a friend.

When Gerald had become the second to the throne, Reginald had made a remark about the stench of his cows. Not that Gerald had not expected something like that. And not that he could reply in kind to the Crown Prince. Reginald had been a bully.

So mourning his cousin did not come with ease. Gerald needed to find something good to say.

Those sent to his farm had returned and he found they had been very thorough getting his writing journal and favorite pen. They also had found his travel case. Gerald had not taken it to the barn to put away just yet. It had been still out, though emptied after his last trip to Steilenberg. Hilda had filled it with clothes, including his officer’s uniform.

“I don’t know that I need that. I don’t even know that I can fit into that.”

Lestaing laughed. “I think you will find that you do need a uniform, highness. You will probably be wearing one quite often. It did seem to be the only thing that papers showed that Prince Reginald ever wore.”

Gerry nodded. That was so. Reginald was the Colonel in Chief of the Guards, though little good that did since the Guards did not seem to have protected him from death. Reginald was also the Colonel in Chief of at least three other regiments as well as the Senior General under his father of the entire army.

Would Cousin Michael Alan make him a man with such rank? Since the Franco-Prussian war Almondy had a war college and Gerry had attended for three months at the end of his term as a lieutenant. He knew from his experience that those who wanted to treat it professionally, as the Germans did theirs, were outvoted by those who did not think it was necessary.

There were eight million Almondians and if Gerry had to bet, over two million men could be sent to fight if needed.

Without some professionalism soon, there would be no way to lead so many. Further, without professionalism in their army the enemy, or friends that bordered their country would not think of Almondy as a threat. Just some roads they had to pass over to get at one another. And even better, if the Great Powers could fight in Almondy and destroy Almondian lands instead of their own, better still.

With his writing material he thumbed to a free page and titled it ‘Reginald.’ He did not want to make two lists, but one of just his good qualities. Too many would remember Reginald’s bad qualities now.

One day the good ones Gerry hoped could make it into a history book. He now had three books courtesy of Mr. Granowitz the bookseller. The man would not tell Gerald how much they cost, so Constable Lestaing agreed to find out. That way Gerald could send him the money. Why not? The royal treasury could pay or Gerry had the price even from his farming monies.

One thing Reginald thought to tell Gerry at the last trip was that Athelstan had been saying that Gerry had but five crowns a week all told to spend upon himself. Not the worst of the poor, but certainly not what one would think of a noble’s life.

Gerald however did not care. He would miss his cows if he now had to lilve in Steilenberg. He was sure he would have to live in Steilenberg. He would miss not having cares beyond the farm. Those were more than enough for any man.

What if it rained too early? What if it rained too late? What if it rained at the right time, but too long? Too much snow. Too little. Too much sun and the same about too little. The stock getting sick. The stock having too many chicks, or calves, or foals. What if the price of feed went up by too much? What if the Grand Prince dropped the price of milk or beef, or chickens or grain? All these he worried about. All of them.

Would he have such worries in Steilenberg?

Now Gerry began to write about his cousin. Should Reginald choose he could say a word to make one filled with humor as well as make one feel snubbed. Reginald had been a ready wit.

The Crown Prince had given out a great deal of coin when he was drunk and brought drinks for his many friends. A friend when he knew you for a moment and you chose the same brewery or distillery that he favored at that time. He did not discriminate that way.

Reginald was strong as well, though the last couple years had put on too much weight. No he was still strong in spite of it. As Gerry thought about the list, he saw that it was growing and with some more time he would have a half dozen entries easily. More time and perhaps he could stretch it to a dozen. Reginald must have had something to recommend himself to the ladies besides the title he had been supposed to inherit. They all went back for more even after he had them. Though an unfavorable view would be that the ladies hoped for the prize of the throne next to the one he was to occupy.

That too could turn out to be his own fate, Gerald thought. That was something he did not want to think of. That was something he could not think of. He was twenty five and had not decided should he marry or not. He had told Pieter that he wanted to wait until he was no longer considered for the the Throne. Well that might never be an option. Now he might have no choice in the matter.

“Riders coming. I think it is the cavalry!” One of the lookouts at the window said and then one of the men from outside came in.

“The cavalry are here, highness.”

Gerald nodded and then knew he had to stand and go to them. He started to put his writing materials and books together but the maid Hilda hurried over, “Allow me highness, please. I shall put them with your things.”

Again he nodded and continued out to meet those who were riding up. It was a company he saw that even as the gloom of dusk was drawing nigh. One hundred and twenty men, all on horse. A pennant near the front of the column snapped and he saw on the long white triangle a black circle that enclosed a white number one.

“The First Cavalry regiment. A very good fighting unit. I was in the second infantry. But not the Guards. Do you wonder at that?” Gerald said aloud.

The constable shook his head, “From what I have heard the First Cavalry always has a few companies ready to stage from the railway station and they can have the rest of the regiment ready in an hour. The guards take longer.”

Gerald laughed, “True. At least it was so five years ago when I finished my stint as a soldier. Too many nobles and rich officers amongst the Guard and usually allowed leave to pursue their social agenda. They have their duties that they must attend, four hours of service with a royal once every two weeks, there are that many guard officers, but otherwise they may do as they please.”

“Well, highness, maybe that would be a thing you can change in Steilenberg. I think most people think the Guard are the elite of our men.”

Gerald nodded, “The men and sergeants are.”

The Constable looked at Gerald. Gerald shrugged. He certainly remembered them that way. He had been escorted by two privates of the Guards when he was in Steilenberg the previous week.

The unit made it’s way about the platz but two patrols split off and galloped to the flanks and the side streets that were to either end of the block that the Blue Belle was on. Good tactics that and they should run into the men that Gerald suggested be placed there.

At least the commander of the company thought the same way that Gerald did. He recalled that there had been attempts on his cousin’s life before by radicals. Anarchists with bombs. All over Europe such little men thought they were made big by lobbing a bomb against their leaders. In many countries it was against those who had no real power, but were figureheads now.

Gerald liked being alive, most days. Last time he had a cold he would have liked to die. Milking the cows those three days were not fun, but it did pass and he felt better soon enough. So he did want to live. If there were anarchists now intent on killing him, best to take precautions and not only make it impossible for the anarchists to reach him, but try and root out the anarchists as well. Almondy had some men and women who acted as spies. He wondered how they were doing against the anarchists, or did his cousin the Grand Prince just have them looking to France and Germany and those two behemoths intentions regarding Almondy?

A company of cavalry should have a captain in command, a lieutenant to aid him, and four lieutenants to command the four patrols. Seven sergeants, fourteen corporals and one hundred and twenty troopers. There, next to the trooper who carried the company banner was a very familiar face. The very cousin he had been thinking of. Sir David Lieven. On the other side of the banner trooper was another Captain as well.

“Hello highness. You look well,” Sir David said.

“Captain Lieven, please.” The other officer said. The trooper holding the banner grimaced. Behind them was a lieutenant and a couple sergeants. The troopers were spreading out, some dismounting and getting their rifles quickly. Rushing forward to enter the Belle, as well as make a perimeter around him. They thought to push the Constable from his side but he motioned that they shouldn’t.

One looked to the Captains on their horses for clarification but Gerald said, “I believe I am now the Crown Prince?”

That caused the man to back down even as the second Captain said, “Yes, highness. I have the duty and regret to inform you that…”

“My Cousin Reginald was killed. I saw the telegram. You are?”

“Captain Adolphus Krabe and this is my command, Fox Company.”

Gerald nodded and turned back to Sir David, “You command Baker Company, I had heard?”

“Yes highness. Sorry but I have to call you that now, cousin. I tagged along for the ride when I heard the news. I am afraid I and Sergeant Phillipe here are absent without leave, though I shouted at the duty officer where I was going.”

“With your permission Highness, I will remind the other Captain that I command this column,” Krabe started again.

Gerald shook his head. “Captain, Crown Prince Reginald was killed how? You do not know either and we asked for clarification from Steilenberg hours ago. No, I think we must change some things. Who is your second, lieutenant?”

A man behind the sergeant that had dismounted said to the question, “Mannstein, highness.”

Gerald said, “Good. And you were one of the ready companies at the train depot, I suppose.” There was a lot of nodding to that. “Good. No offense Krabe was it? But I know Sir David as he probably told you. Sir David, please take command of Fox company. Krabe, I shall need an aide and you will do. You and your sergeant as Sir David of course has brought one of his. Lieutenant Mannstein please inform the patrol lieutenants, and now if both Captains will come inside. Four troopers, yes that will do. We have been in the dining room holding our own and that shall serve. Come you two, I do not wish to wait all night for I imagine you are holding the train at Nantz.

Lieven clapped his arm about Krabe and said, “Did I not tell you that his highness would surprise you. Why I think you are in shock. And look here, Crown Prince Gerald Henry William Fitzroy Perry has much more to be in shock about then you or I. Highness, I come!”

A Regency Era Timeline 1822 in progress

English Historical FIction Authors

Several of the followers of The Things That Catch My Eye blog will know that I also blog over at English Historical Fiction Authors.

The EHFA has a different blog post everyday supplied by authors like myself in the field. The reason to draw your attention to the EHFA today, is that the one year anniversary of the website/blog will be this weekend and there are approximately 20 books being given away in honor of that event. Just post a comment on Saturday the 22nd, or Sunday the 23rd at the site.

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorealing Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1822:

Year

Month Day

Event



1822

Jan 2

Rudolph J.E. Clausius, German physicist (thermodynamics), was born.



1822

Jan 6

Heinrich Schliemann (d.1890), German businessman and amateur archeologist, was born. He began excavating Troy in 1870 following a visit to Hissarlik in 1868.



1822

Feb 4

Free American Blacks settled Liberia, West Africa. The first group of colonists landed in Liberia and founded Monrovia, the colony’s capital city, named in honor of President James Monroe.



1822

Feb 9

The American Indian Society organized.



1822

Feb 16

Francis Galton (d.1911), English scientist, was born. He was one of the first moderns to present a carefully considered eugenics program.



1822

Feb 22

Adolf Kuszmaul, German physician (stomach pump, Kuszmaul disease), was born.



1822

Feb 23

Boston was granted a charter to incorporate as a city.



1822

Mar 9

The first patent for false teeth was requested by C. Graham of NY. [see Jun 9, 1882]



1822

Mar 16

John Pope, Union general in the American Civil War, was born.



1822

Mar 16

Rosa Bonheur, French painter and sculptor, was born.



1822

Mar 19

Boston was incorporated as a city.



1822

Mar 22

Gioacchino Rossini married Isabella Colbran in Bologna.



1822

Mar 30

Congress combined East and West Florida into the Florida Territory.



1822

Apr 3

Edward Everett Hale, American clergyman and author (Man without a Country) , was born.



1822

Apr 13

Gaetano Valeri (61), composer, died.



1822

Apr 26

Frederick Olmstead, landscape architect, was born in Connecticut. His work included Yosemite Nat’l. Park, Central Park in New York City (1858), and other city parks in Boston, Ma., Hartford, Ct., and Louisville, Ky.



1822

Apr 27

Ulysses S. Grant (d.1885), general and 18th U.S. president (1869-1877), was born in Point Pleasant [Hiram], Ohio.



1822

May 24

At Battle of Pichincha (Ecuador) General Sucre (1795-1830) won a decisive victory against Spanish forces. Shortly after the battle, Sucre and Bolivar entered the newly-liberated Quito and Sucre was named President of the Province of Quito, which formed Gran Colombia with Venezuela and Colombia.



1822

May 26

Edmond de Goncourt, writer, was born.



1822

May

Dr. Gideon Mantell published his book “The Fossils of South Downs,” based on his studies of huge teeth and bones found at the Tilgate Forest quarry.



1822

Jun 6

Alexis St. Martin, a fur trader at Fort Mackinac in the Michigan territory, was accidentally shot in the abdomen. William Beaumont, a US Army assistant surgeon, treated the wound and St. Martin survived. The stomach wound did not close and Beaumont undertook experiments in 1825 to study the digestive system.



1822

Jun 9

Charles Graham patented false teeth. [see Mar 9, 1822]



1822

Jun 14

Charles Babbage (1792-1871), a young Cambridge mathematician, announced the invention of a machine capable of performing simple arithmetic calculations in a paper to the Astronomical Society. His 1st Difference Engine could perform up to 60 error-free calculation in 5 minutes. Babbage and engineer John Clement completed the calculator portion of a new engine in 1832, but the project lost funding and remained unfinished.



1822

Jun 16

Denmark Vessey [Vesey] led a slave rebellion in South Carolina. [see Jul 2]



1822

Jun 18

Slave revolt leaders Denmark Vesey [Vessey] and Peter Poyas were arrested in SC.



1822

Jun 25

Ernst Theodor Amadeus (ETA) Hoffmann (46), German writer, judge, composer, died.



1822

Jul 2

Denmark Vesey [Vessey] (b.1767) was executed in Charleston, South Carolina, for planning a massive slave revolt.



1822

Jul 8

Percy Bysshe Shelley (b.1792), English poet, drowned while sailing in Italy at age 29.



1822

Jul 22

Gregor Johann Mendel (d.1884), Austrian botanist who developed the theory of heredity, was born.



1822

Jul 25

Gen. Agustin de Iturbide was crowned Agustin I, 1st emperor of Mexico.



1822

Jul 26

Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin held a secret meeting.



1822

Aug 19

Melchor Lopez Jimenez (62), composer, died.



1822

Aug 25

F. William Herschel (85), German astronomer (discovered Uranus), died.



1822

Aug 31

Fitz John Porter (d.1901), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1822

Sep 6

John Constable, English painter, painted his “Cloud Study, 6 September 1822.” He painted some 100 studies of the sky between 1821-1822.



1822

Sep 7

Brazil declared its independence from Portugal.



1822

Sep 9

Napoleon J K P Bonaparte, French prince and member National Convention, was born.



1822

Oct 4

Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th president (R) of the United States, was born in Delaware, Ohio. Hayes was a major-general in the Civil War, then an Ohio congressman, then succeeded Grant as president (1877-81). Hayes won the Electoral College by a margin of one vote after his opponent won the popular vote in an election so fraught with charges of vote fraud that there were even fears of a coup.  Hayes refused to seek a second term.



1822

Oct 8

The Galunggung volcano on Java sent boiling sludge into valley. The eruption left 4,011 dead. The long-inactive volcano erupted Apr 4 and blew its top on Apr 12. The Oct 8 and Oct 12 eruptions left 4,011 dead.



1822

Oct 9

George Sykes (d.1880), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1822

Oct 13

Antonio Canova (b.1757), Italian sculptor, died at age 64. His work included a sculpture of Napoleon’s sister Pauline, as a semi-naked Venus Victrix.



1822

Oct 15

Alfred Meissner, Austrian physician and writer, was born.



1822

Oct 20

The 1st edition of the London Sunday Times was published.



1822

Nov 2

The USRC Louisiana along with USS Peacock and the Royal Navy schooner HMS Speedwell captured five pirate vessels off Havana, Cuba.



1822

Dec 1

Franz Liszt (11) made his debut as a pianist for Isabella Colbran.



1822

Dec 4

Frances Crabbe, English feminist and founder of the Anti-Vivisection Society, was born.



1822

Dec 6

John Eberhard was born. He built the 1st large-scale pencil factory in US.



1822

Dec 12

Mexico was officially recognized as an independent nation by US.



1822

Dec 14

John Christie, English patron of music, was born. He founded the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. 



1822

Dec 14

The Congress of Verona ended, ignoring the Greek war of independence.



1822

Dec 26

Dion Boucicault, Irish-US actor and playwright (Rip van Winkle), was born.



1822

Dec 27

Louis Pasteur (d.1895), French chemist and microbiologist, was born in Dole, France. One of his several monumental contributions to science and industry was pasteurization, the process of heating wine, beer and milk to kill microorganisms that cause fermentation and disease. Pasteur also developed important vaccines and his work on molecular asymmetry led to the science of stereochemistry. He was the first to vaccinate animals for anthrax and chicken cholera, and in 1885 he proved that his rabies vaccine could be used successfully on humans when he saved the life of a 9-year-old boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog. The Pasteur Institute was formed in Paris in 1888 for research on rabies. Pasteur ran the institute until his death in 1895.



1822

Dec 28

William Booth Taliaferro (d.1898), Brig Gen (Confederate Army), was born.



1822



A New York physician, John Stearns, writes on the use of ergot to induce labor and save the doctor’s time. Even though he’s been told by an immigrant German midwife there are no ill effects from its use, it is found that it produces an incessant action leaving no time to turn a child in the uterus or birth canal should problems develop. He cautions its usage only after the child is positioned for delivery. A fungus, it comes into wide use and by 1900 will be routinely employed.



1822



An Italian ballerina, Marie Taglione will make her debut at the age of 8 in Vienna and within a few years will be setting the standard to which all other ballerinas are judged. By the time she retires in 1847, she will become world famous not just for her dancing, but for her choreography as well.



1822



Brazil declares its independence from Portugal.



1822



Ecuador and Colombia are liberated as well.



1822



In West Africa, Liberia is founded as a colony for freed American slaves.



1822



New York City’s population is now 124,000, where a family of 14 can live comfortably on $3,000/year.



1822



Reformer Francis Place distributes his pamphlet, To the Married of Both Sexes of the Working People throughout London, recommending contraception in the forms of coitus interruptus or by the insertion of a soft wool or cotton sponge as large as a green walnut or small apple, tied by a bobbin or penny ribbon.



1822



The Congress of Verona breaks down after Britain’s refusal to intercede in Spain; this action causes the end of the Congress System.



1822



A member of Portugal’s royal family is in power in Brazil. He has lifted duties paid on the importation of books, abolished censorship and ordered the teaching of law at the universities of São Paula and Olinda. His rule is being challenged from Portugal, and from his royal palace he declares “Independence or death!” At the age of 24 he his proclaimed Emperor of Brazil: Pedro I. 



1822



Officials of the American Colonization society have purchased a strip of land they call Christopolis, at Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic Coast in western Africa. Eighty-six freed blacks have arrived. 



1822



In Vienna the accordion is invented.



1822



In Britain, fewer crimes are capital offenses. 



1822



The Ottoman Turks respond to rebellion on the island of Chios by slaughtering five-sixths of the islands 120,000 inhabitants. 



1822



Charles Willson Peale painted his “Self Portrait.”



1822



Pierre-Paul Prud’hon (1758-1823) painted “A Grief-Stricken Family.” It was painted shortly after his student and mistress, Constance Mayer, slit her throat.



1822



Utagawa Kunisada, Japanese artist, painted “The Popular Type.”



1822



William West painted a portrait of the poet Lord Byron.



1822



J.F. Champollion published his work on deciphering the Rosetta Stone.



1822



Thomas De Quincey wrote his “Confessions of an English Opium Eater.” He used the word tranquilizer to describe the effect of the drug.



1822



The Queen of the Angels Roman Catholic Church in Los Angeles was built.



1822



Twenty years after the war of 1812 the US government finished paying off the national debt entirely.



1822



The Superintendent of Mails in Washington, D.C., complained about the need to hire 16 extra mailmen because of the volume of Christmas cards and holiday mail. The tradition of Christmas cards had become so popular it became a burden for the United States Postal System, which petitioned Congress to limit the exchange of cards by post. But the cards kept coming and the postal burden worsened.



1822



California became part of Mexico.



1822



Monterey had begun the century as the Spanish capital of Alta California but in this year became the Mexican capital of Alta California.



1822



Christian Buschmann (17), organ and clavier tuner, constructed the first primitive accordion. It wasn’t until the 1840s that the “magdaburgerspelen” came into fashion, the instrument generally believed to be the forerunner to the durspel of our time.



1822



Mary Mantell, a fossil collector in Sussex, England, discovered a handful of teeth that her husband, Dr. Gideon Mantell, recognized as similar to those of the iguana lizard of South America. This was recorded as one of the first dinosaurs to be discovered.



1822



The parasitic plant Rafflesia was discovered in the lowland forests of Southeast Asia. It steals nutrition from other plants and periodically creates a monstrous, red-brown flower with the perfume of rotten flesh.



1822



Albanian leader Ali Pasha of Tepelena was assassinated by Ottoman agents for promoting autonomy.



1822



In London a bronze Achilles cast from cannons from the Napoleonic wars was unveiled at the residence of the Duke of Wellington. A strategic fig leaf was soon added.



1822



Gebruder Heubach (Heubach Brothers) began a porcelain manufacturing operation in Lichte, Thuringia, Germany. The firm became known for manufacturing doll heads and in 2005 was still in operation as Lichte Porcelain.



1822



There was a massacre of Greeks on the island of Chios. The event was later depicted in a painting by Delacroix.



1822



In Mexico the mission of St. Gertrude the Great on the Baha Peninsula was closed as the local population diminished.



1822



In New Zealand Welshman John Grono named Milford Sound, South Island, after his home, Milford Haven. It was later named a UN protected World Heritage Site.



1822-1825



Luis Antonio Arguello, son of Jose Dario, was the first native-born governor of Alta California.



1822-1831



Pedro I ruled Brazil.



1822-1884



Gregor Mendel, Austrian botanist monk, established basic principles of heredity.



1822-1888



Matthew Arnold, English poet and critic. His books included “Culture and Anarchy.” His best known poem is Dover Beach.” In 1999 Ian Hamilton wrote “A Gift Imprisoned: The Poetic Life of Matthew Arnold.”



1822-1889



The period of the Brazilian monarchy.



1822-1890



Cesar Auguste Franck, French composer born in Belgium. His work included “Piece Heroique.”



1822-1895



Louis Pasteur, French chemist and bacteriologist, was born on Dec. 27.



1822-1900



Edward John Phelps, American lawyer and diplomat: “The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.”



1822-1904



Some 23,000 immigrants, mostly from the US, arrived in Liberia.

A Regency Era Timeline 1821 in progress

English Historical Fiction Author’s

Several of the followers of The Things That Catch My Eye blog will know that I also blog over at English Historical Fiction Authors.

The EHFA has a different blog post everyday supplied by authors like myself in the field. The reason to draw your attention to the EHFA today, is that the one year anniversary of the website/blog will be this weekend and there are approximately 20 books being given away in honor of that event. Just post a comment on Saturday the 22nd, or Sunday the 23rd at the site.

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorealing Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1821:

Year

Month Day

Event



1821

Jan 4

The first native-born American saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton, died in Emmitsburg, Md.



1821

Jan 21

John Breckinridge (d.1875), 14th U.S. Vice President, was born. He served under James Buchanan (1857-1861). Breckenridge was a Confederate General in the Civil War. [His brother-in-law was Lloyd Tevis, founder of Wells Fargo]



1821

Feb 3

Elizabeth Blackwell (d.1910), first woman to get an MD from a U.S. medical school, was born in Bristol, England.



1821

Feb 11

Auguste Edouard Mariette, French Egyptologist, (dug out Sphinx 12/16/42), was born.



1821

Feb 12

The Mercantile Library of City of NY opened.



1821

Feb 21

Charles Scribner, was born. He founded the New York Publishing firm which became Charles Scribner’s Sons and also founded Scribner’s magazine.



1821

Feb 22

The Adams-Onis Treaty became final, whereby Spain gave up all of Florida to the US. The boundary between Mexico and the Louisiana Purchase was established and the US renounced all claims to Texas.



1821

Feb 23

College of Apothecaries, the 1st US pharmacy college, was organized in Philadelphia.



1821

Feb 23

John Keats, English poet, died of tuberculosis at the age of 26. In 1998 the biography “Keats” by Andrew Motion was published. Earlier biographies included one by W. Jackson Bates (1963), and a novelistic psychological portrait by Aileen Ward (1963). The standard work on Keats was written by Robert Gittings in 1968.



1821

Feb 24

Mexico rebels proclaimed the “Plan de Iguala,” their declaration of independence from Spain, and took over the mission lands in California.



1821

Mar 5

Monroe was the first president to be inaugurated on March 5, only because the 4th was a Sunday.



1821

Mar 14

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church founded in NY.



1821

Mar 15

Josef Loschmidt (d.1895), a pioneer of 19th-century physics and chemistry, was born in Putschim (Pocerny), Bohemia. In his first publication (1861) Loschmidt proposed the first structural chemical formulae for many important molecules, introducing markings for double and triple carbon bonds. In 1865 he became the first person to use the kinetic theory of gases to obtain a reasonably good value for the diameter of a molecule. What we call “Avogadro’s number” is, in German-speaking countries, called “Loschmidt’s number.”



1821

Mar 19

Sir Richard Burton (d.1890), English explorer, was born.



1821

Mar 25

Greece gained independence from Turkey (National Day). [see Mar 28]



1821

Mar 26

Franz Grillparzer’s “Das Goldene Vliess” premiered in Vienna.



1821

Mar 28

Greek Independence Day celebrates the liberation of Southern Greece from Turkish domination. In 1844 Thomas Gordon authored a study of the Greek revolution. In 2001 David Brewer authored “The Greek War of Independence.”



1821

Apr 4

Linus Yale, American portrait painter and inventor of the Yale lock, was born.



1821

Apr 9

Charles Baudelaire (d.1867), French poet, was born. His works were censored and he was considered a pathetic psychopath; he also became the most acute critic of his age in France. He was photographed by Felix Nadar in 1855.



1821

Apr 20

Franz K. Achard (67), German physicist, chemist, died.



1821

May 3

The Richmond [Virginia] Light Artillery was organized.



1821

May 5

Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor France (1799-1815), died in exile on the island of St. Helena. He died by slow poisoning at the hands of his companion Charles Tristan de Montholon on the island of St. Helena. Scottish pathologist Dr. Hamilton Smith later used Napoleon’s hair to determine that arsenic had been administered about 40 times from 1820-1821. In 1992 Proctor Patterson Jones authored “Napoleon, An Intimate Account.” In 1999 an English translation of Jean-Paul Kauffmann’s “The Black Room at Longwood: Napoleon’s Exile on St. Helena” was published. In 1904 F. De Bouirrienne published “Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte.” In 1988 S. De Chair edited “Napoleon’s Memoirs.” In 2010 a lock of Napoleon’s hair fetched 140,000 New Zealand dollars ($97,000) at auction.



1821

May 25

Diederich Krug, composer, was born.



1821

Jun 2

Ion Bratianu (Lib), premier of Romania (1876-88), was born.



1821

Jun 19

The Ottomans defeated the Greeks at the Battle of Dragasani.



1821

Jun 21

African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church was organized in NYC as a national body. [see Mar 14]



1821

Jun 24

Battle of Carabobo: Bolivar defeated the royalists outside of Caracas.



1821

Jul 2

Charles Tupper, 6th Canadian PM (1896), was born.



1821

Jul 6

Edmund Pettus (d.1907), for whom the civil rights landmark Edmund Pettus Bridge was named, was born in Alabama. He earned his fame as a Confederate brigadier general. Pettus was a lawyer and judge and served throughout the western theater during the Civil War. He resumed his law practice after the war and went on to serve in the U.S. Senate. Pettus died while in his second term in Congress. The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, became a civil rights landmark when on March 7, 1965, a band of civil rights marchers on their way to Montgomery crossed the bridge, only to be attacked by state troopers on the other side.



1821

Jul 13

Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest was born in Tennessee’s Bedford County.



1821

Jul 16

Mary Baker Eddy (d.1910), founder of the Christian Science movement (1879), was born.



1821

Jul 17

Spain ceded Florida to the United States. [see Feb 22]



1821

Jul 17

Andrew Jackson became the governor of Florida.



1821

Jul 19

The coronation of George IV of England was held. His wife, Caroline, was refused admittance. She died Aug 7.



1821

Jul 28

Peru declared its independence from Spain. Lima had been the seat of the Spanish viceroys until this time. Jose Francisco de San Martin of Argentina had blockaded Lima and forced the Spanish viceroy to abandon the city. Martin returned to Argentina in 1822



1821

Jul

English captain John Franklin led a party to explore the Barrens in northwest section of Canada’s Hudson Bay. George Back, midshipman, Royal Navy, painted a scene of the Sandstone Rapids on the Arctic Circle of Canada’s Northwest Territories. Of the 20 men in the party to map the northern coast of Canada west of the Hudson Bay, 11 starved and froze to death. Back returned to England and was hailed as “the man who ate his boots.” Twenty-three years later he led a third arctic expedition of 129 men in two ships and all perished.



1821

Aug 4

The 1st edition of Saturday Evening Post was published. It continued until 1969.



1821

Aug 7

Caroline of Brunswick (b.1768), wife of England’s King George IV, died. In 2006 Jane Robins authored “The Trial of Queen Caroline: The Scandalous Affair that Nearly Ended a Monarchy.”



1821

Aug 10

Missouri became the 24th state.



1821

Aug 19

There was a failed liberal coup against French King Louis XVIII.



1821

Aug 23

After 11 years of war, Spain granted Mexican independence as a constitutional monarchy. Spanish Viceroy Juan de O’Donoju signed the Treaty of Cordoba, which approved a plan to make Mexico an independent constitutional monarchy.



1821

Aug 28

In the city of Puebla a nun served a tri-colored chili dish to the Emperor Agustin de Iturbide, who was on his way home from signing the Treaty of Cordoba, which effectively freed Mexico from Spain. Iturbide, a Creole, had led the suppression of the initial rebellion for independence. He later abdicated, went into exile, returned and was executed. After Iturbide Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna led the country over 11 presidential terms.



1821

Sep 1

William Becknell led a group of traders from Independence, Mo., toward Santa Fe on what would become the Santa Fe Trail.



1821

Sep 10

English captain John Franklin led a party to explore the Barrens in northwest section of Canada’s Hudson Bay. Naturalist John Richards recorded that they found the summer track of a man, where summer last only 8-weeks.



1821

Sep 15

A junta convened by the captain-general in Guatemala declared independence for its provinces Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua San Salvador and Chiapas.



1821

Sep 27

The Mexican Empire declared its independence. Revolutionary forces occupied Mexico City as the Spanish withdraw.



1821

Oct 5

Greek rebels captured Tripolitza, the main Turkish fort in the Peloponnesian area of Greece.



1821

Oct 13

Rudolf Virchow, German politician and anthropologist (cell pathology), was born.



1821

Oct 16

Albert Franz Doppler, composer, was born.



1821

Oct 17

Alexander Gardner, American photographer, was born. He documented the Civil War and the West.



1821

Nov 9

The 1st US pharmacy college held 1st classes in Philadelphia.



1821

Nov 10

Andreas J Romberg (54), German violinist and composer (Der Rabe), died.



1821

Nov 11

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (d.1881), Russian novelist who wrote “The Brothers Karamazov,” was born. “Originality and a feeling of one’s own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.”



1821

Nov 16

Trader William Becknell reached Santa Fe, N.M., on the route that will become known as the Santa Fe Trail.



1821

Dec 12

Gustave Flaubert (d.1880), French novelist, was born. “Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.” [see May 8, 1880]



1821

Dec 17

Kentucky abolished debtor’s prisons.



1821

Dec 25

Clara Barton (d.1912), the founder of the American Red Cross, was born in North Oxford, Massachusetts. She worked as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, distributing food and medical supplies to troops and earning herself the label “Angel of the Battlefield.” She later served alongside the International Red Cross in Europe–however, she could not work directly with the organization because she was a woman. In 1882 she formed an American branch of the Red Cross. Barton lobbied for the Geneva Convention and she expanded the mission of the Red Cross to include helping victims of peacetime disasters. Clara Barton died at her home in Glen Echo, Maryland, on April 12, 1912, when she was 90 years old.



1821

Dec 28

Gioacchino Rossini moved to Bologna.



1821



200 working-class women in Philadelphia establish the Daughters of Africa mutual benefit society.



1821



A Greek War of Independence is begun against Turkey.



1821



A new British census shows that women outnumber men and live longer.



1821



Austria is authorized by the Congress of Laibach to put down a Neapolitan revolt.



1821



Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel dies suddenly at the age of 53 after suffering years of her husband George IV’s efforts to vilify, humiliate and persecute her throughout their marriage. She leaves instructions that her epithet should read: “Here lies Caroline, the injured Queen of England.” George, who is now heavily involved with his mistress, Mrs. Fitzherbert, refuses to allow homage to be paid to the late queen and swears that Caroline’s funeral cortege will not be allowed to pass through the London streets, even if he has to call out troops to stop it.



1821



John Constable paints The Haywain.



1821



Persia and Turkey are at war.



1821



Peru and Mexico both claim independence.



1821



Sophia Woodhouse, an inventor, is awarded a US patent to use different varieties of grass, such as redtop and spear grass which grow along riverbanks, to make bonnets.



1821



The Emma Willard School begins in the Troy Female Seminary at Troy, N.Y., offering to women the study equivalent of courses offered at many of the best men’s high schools and some men’s colleges. Ms. Willard will prove that young women can master subjects such as mathematics and philosophy without losing their charm, wit and health as had previously been thought by so-called “learned” men.



1821



Faraday demonstrates electro-magnetic rotation, the principle of the electric motor.



1821



The stability for Europe sought at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 is coming undone. Following Serb rebellions against Ottoman rule in previous years, the Greeks in March rise simultaneously against Ottoman rule, including in Macedonia, Crete and Cyprus. The Turks respond by hanging the Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregorios V. The Greeks liberate the Peloponnesian Peninsula in September. There, in the city of Tripolitsa, a center of Turkish authority, Muslims in the thousands are massacred for three days and nights.



1821



Napoleon Bonaparte dies at the age of fifty-one under British authority on the island of St. Helena, the reported cause: stomach cancer. The English poet, John Keats, dies of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-six.



1821



A treaty is signed between the United States and the declining power of  Spain. The U.S. buys Florida for 5 million dollars, money the U.S. government gives to U.S. citizens with claims against Spain. Spain receives an established line separating the U.S. from its territory in North America.



1821



Caracas falls to Bolivar’s force. Venezuela is now free of Spanish rule. Peru and Mexico declare independence. In Guatemala independence is declared for its provinces: Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, San Salvador and Chiapas.



1821



Michael Faraday, son of a blacksmith, has overcome the conceit of aristocrats and, as a scientist, has been promoted in Britain’s Royal Institution. His interest in a unified force in nature and work in electro-magnetism produces the foundation for electric motors and contributes to what will be “field theory” in modern physics, which includes its most basic formula: E=MC2.



1821



In California Esteban Munras, engaged by Friar Juan Francisco Martin, arrived at Mission San Miguel and supervised the interior decorations of the new church. Munras, an artist trained by the Spanish, designed murals for the new church.



1821



Owen Chase, the first mate, ghost-wrote the “Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the White-Whale ship Essex.” The story inspired Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick.” In 2000 Nathaniel Philbrick authored “In the Heart of the Sea,” a complete investigation into the Nantucket whaler’s story and “the taboo of gastronomic incest.”



1821



Thomas Jefferson wrote his autobiography.



1821



Stefano Cavaletti, Italian tuner and craftsman, left a note on the snaggle-toothed spinet that he tuned for the young Verdi, free of charge due to Verdi’s talent.



1821



An independent institution for the instruction of Lutheran and reformed theologies was established at the Univ. of Vienna.



1821



In the US Emma Willard started the first secondary school for girls in Troy, N.Y.



1821



John Quincy Adams, Sec. of State, wrote: “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion only of her own.”



1821



Tucson raised the Mexican flag after the Revolution in Mexico.



1821



In the US south Denmark Vessey mounted a slave rebellion.



1821



John (Cameron) Gilroy of Scotland married Maria Clara Ortega, the 13-year-old granddaughter of Jose Francis Ortega, a member of the “Sacred Expedition” of 1769. They lived in San Ysidro. The town of Gilroy, Ca., is named after John Gilroy.



1821



Ignaz Venetz-Sitten, Swiss civil engineer, recognized the continent covering scale of the Pleistocene glaciers.



1821



Thomas Johann Seebeck (1770-1831), Estonia-born German physicist, discovered that applying a temperature difference across two adjoined metals would give rise to a small voltage. This came to be called the Seebeck effect.



1821



The 1st alphabet for Hawaiians was prepared by Christians missionaries. The letters of the alphabet were a,e,h,i,k,l,m,n,o,p,u,w.



1821



Amherst College was founded in Amherst, Mass.



1821



The Boston English High School, the first US public high school, held its opening classes.



1821



One hunter in 12 months shot 18,000 migrating golden plover for the dinner table.



1821



William Playfair, Scottish engineer, political economist and scoundrel, published a visual chart that displayed the “weekly wages of a good mechanic” along with the price of a “quarter of wheat” with the reigns of monarchs displayed along the top.



1821



Anita Ribeiro (d.1849), later wife of Italian revolutionary Garibaldi, was born in Laguna Brazil.



1821



Guatemala established independence



1821



Mexican rule began over the New Mexico territory.



1821



Ignatz Venetz, Swiss civil engineer, presented a paper titled “Temperature Variation in the Swiss Alps” to the Helvetic Society of Natural Sciences, in which he described retreating ice glaciers and acknowledged Jean-Pierre Perraudin, a hunter and mountain guide, as the originator of the idea that a glacier had once occupied the full length of the Val de Bagnes. In 1833 Jean de Charpentier (1786-1855), a German-Swiss geologist, arranged to have the paper published.



1821-1823



In Iceland the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted over this period.



1821-1846



Mexico ruled over California with a series of 12 governors. During part of this time Gen’l. Jose Castro commanded all of the Spanish forces in California and was an active opponent of US rule in 1846.



1821-1858



Elisa Rachel Felix, French actress, died of tuberculosis. She introduced a new voicing into French theater in part due to her physical condition.



1821-1881



Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss critic: “The man who has no inner life is the slave of his surroundings.”



1821-1894



Hermann Helmholtz, German physician turned physicist, a leader in energetics who helped establish the principle of the conservation of energy along with Kelvin.



1821-1924



Thirty-three million people arrive into the US in this period.   

RenTech: Serializing a chapter at a time Steam and Thunder Chapter 3

Today we continue the weekly serialization of Steam and Thunder.

If you feel so inclined to provide feedback for the project that would be great as well.

Steam and Thunder takes a look at the marriage of Steam, invention and innovation to feudal society and the agrarian economies that exist around such a period.

We had the boiling of water. We had pinwheels (400 BC). We had steam rooms in the stone age.

How long before someone thinks to just put a covered pot of boiling water that releases steam and pushed a pinwheel around? The genesis of the steam engine.

An Aeolipile was discussed by Hero of Alexandria in the first century.

We have Taqi al-Din describing a steam turbine in 1551.

Our story takes place in a world, much like our own, but a few hundred years earlier, where we meld the properties of steam and create a rudimentary engine. One that can turn into a functional engine.

But that is part of the backstory that you will find here. Though the period of invention and hard work to turn a simple device that turns a little windmill device and toots a horn into a working machine will take years, those that participate along the way will contribute to not only one innovation, but others that are suggested by it.

And these innovations will need men and women to build them. The second sons and daughters from the farms who seek a different life, a more lucrative life in the cities where new made factories support the building of new devices.

That is the world that I create and work towards showing you here.

Chapter One can be found either at our website

Or here on the blog

Chapter two is at this entry

After Jac was surprised by the visit of Princess Annaxier to the Creatory, Jac goes to the palace as he has promised and been told to do. Here he finds out more about what the Princess would like and plays into his thoughts how the invention of the steam twirler has begun to change the fabric of society in Hornik, and in Hornik’s neighbors.

Please join us on Facebook should you choose to

Dramatis Personae (so far)

Jacklincoln Cartwright – Our hero. The Inventor of the Steam Twirler

Princess Annaxier Farserit – The celebrations of the Princess’ birth is the first memory that Jac has. She is the daughter of the king of Hornik, Lancellnick Farserit

Samathon Cartwright – Father of Jac

Vivan Carthwright – Mother of Jac

Milosk Cartwright – Great Uncle of Jac

Master Builder Mikonal Gearman-Master Builder of Firtoskin to Cawless Canal

Lord Colndefroc – Governor of Cawless

Master Fenntrel – Wheelwright in Cawless

Master Jamestash – Metalsmith in Cawless

Master Carlincoln – Sawyer in Cawless

Master Gunthertic – Jeweler in Cawless

Master Mikaelstan – Glazier in Cawless

Lincarhirt – Uncle of Jac, Pater (Priest) of Krien

Henriforlu – Cousin of Jac, journeyman at Cartwright Foundry

Karlplatt – Senior apprentice at Cartwright Foundry

Kathierin Cartwright – Sister of Jac

Coloskthon – Brother of Jac

Melissandier Cartwright-Sister of Jac

Fredardic-Blademaster

General Artshikal-Tutor for Jac

General Barthome-Tutor for Jac

Cortormain-Journeyman at Gearman and Cartwright Creatory

Henrycarmon-Apprentice at Gearman and Cartwright Creatory

Lem-Bodyguard for Jac

Pad-Bodyguard for Jac

Sergeant Formilham-Princess Annaxier bodyguard

Chapter 3

“Do you realize what this means?” Mikonal Gearman asked later.

Jac said, “Yes. We’ll have an ear at the court for now. We can talk almost directly to the king, for if what the Princess said was true, she and the king do talk often. We must do our best to save the queen, and we need to take on girls as apprentices as soon as we can, for the Princess thinks that we have done wrong by her and all women that we have yet to do so.”

Mikonal looked a question. “Really I did not find that last bit in all you told me.”

Jac said, “I embellished it a little. The Princess was not happy when she pointed out that she had a great education. She reminded me by saying it, that few women have such, and when they do they can little use it.”

Now Mikonal looked as if he understood. “Yes, yes. We shall look into it. I am sure there have been some women about who wanted into the Guild…” Gearman said and then returned to his one favorite part of Jac’s day. Talking of Princess Annaxier. “That she favored you for near half a round. Your journeymen were in awe that you had a private audience…”

Jac stopped him, “You old hypocrite. You don’t want women in the guild. All these years I thought that you liked women, but you don’t. Oh, you like to have bed sport with them. But not to talk to them. You think they are beneath you, and you have travelled all over. Is that why we have no women in the guild? I know that some have come and tried to get in. Tomorrow I shall have criers go throughout Firtoskin and tell all women to come and apply at the Creatory for a position. We shall devise simple tests in each of the seven discilplines and those that pass, I will discuss apprenticeship with.”

“Now don’t be hasty. Who says I do not like women?” Master Gearman who had been his friend, mentor, disciplinarian and guide for two thirds of his life tried to end that line of conversation.

“I know you too well. Explain yourself,” Jac said.

Mikonal began “The kingdom can ill afford to also have women learn our secrets…”

Jac interrupted, “That is everything you would like to say in as few words as possible? Let me see if I understand you. We already have hurt much of the kingdom with these changes that take men from the land and bring them to the city and the Makories. That has already caused you and others great concern. Women, who bear our children, cook our meals, and slave for us in the homes, can not be given such responsibility, not because you think them incapable, but because you don’t want to have another finger pointed at us for making such a change.” Jac had already been thinking about the argument of why there were no women in the guild of Creators. Once the Princess had opened the subject for such discussion, he knew he had to.

Mikonal nodded, “Yes, that is it. I should also be embarrassed from such arguments if we had a woman master amongst us. It would be uncomfortable.”

“You are the Guildmaster, partner, but I believe you do wrong, and so does the Princess. Very few guilds do not recognize women now. Some women are not destined to marry, or are incapable of having children, as are some men. The Healers know this and the Searching Healers hope to one day fix that. But those women should not be denied giving of their energies to the skill they are best at. What if a woman’s brain is better at these higher mathematics than a man’s? If we train the women and find that is so? Then our guild will benefit.”

“You can not be serious?” Gearman asked. “What proof do you have that it would be so?” Creators dealt in proofs. Tests and proofs.

“We see that men and their bodies are most often stronger then women. Why not women’s minds stronger then mens. Like the balance of a scale. We are given something that advances us, why are women not given something as well? For this I have no proof, just supposition that they should have something in opposition to men’s advantage.”

Mikonal paused before giving a response. He formulated his argument and then present it. “It does not say in any creed I have heard of or read, that we are all equal. Perhaps this is the nature of things. Do you argue the point with the Flora and Faunists that they observe such.” Gearman said. He wanted to talk further of how their firm could benefit from Jac’s talk with the Princess. Jac knew there would be no benefit unless the two came to an agreement.

“I argue the point with you. If you wish to gain the Princess as ally I see two ways to do so. The first is to present her with a cure for the Queen. That I do not see happening though. I do not think that any shall find such a remedy before she will die. I have spent the afternoon reviewing all the Healers’ theories and found them all wanting. Perhaps we have thought too much on these tests that we want to conduct before we assure that any such procedure is safe for a person.”

“The King sent a request when the Queen first fell ill. I too looked at all that was available then. And I do so each moon. It is hard, but the king knows that people must die as surely as they will live. That we tempt fate when we try and heal that which the many gods want to take away,” Mikonal said.

Jac shook his head. Mikonal Gearman was the first to argue that all the Creators would not be so brilliant, and wouldn’t have found so many things to aid so many people, if the Gods had not inspired their works.

Jac said, “Yes, that is something that I think those who would argue the very existence of the Gods must decipher. The other means to become a friend to the Princess is to listen to her words and see how they shall relate to our own works. Where does it truly hurt our guild should we find apprentices that are women? There is a battle that has been waged by other guilds and those battles are long over. You will recall that I control my own destiny as a Creator now, and I shall see if there are any woman who would be worthy apprentices. Not the least reason being that the Princess shall respond favorable to the gesture.”

“Very well, GrandMaster. I agree. I can not but agree as you are our only GrandMaster.” It was a sore point between the two that most new inventions came from Jack. They did split the profits of all ventures equally. Master Mikonal managed the businesses, and Jac came up with new inventions for them to sell and exploit.

“I do not want to use my position ill, but I also want to make the correct decision. We meet as a guild in three days, I will tell all of my decision then, and we will discuss it. It will still take the guild to decide to make any woman apprentice I have taken, a journeywoman, or later, a master of our guild. Plenty of time to see if the Princess is correct, though I expect she is. I expect there is even one more reason we have no female apprentices in the guild,” Jac said.

“Yes, I thought you did quite well before in summarizing.” Master Gearman said.

“Oh, I don’t know. While I was growing, and becoming interested in women, if there were a few girls around, it would have made things much more interesting for me, and I should imagine much harder for you.” Jac smiled. The man had often had to be a parent to him, and that is what Jac referred to.

Master Gearman would certainly have had to deal with Jac’s libido if their had been young girls in the shop. He had carefully managed how Jac had learned about sex, and who his bedmates were some years back in the house that Jac lived in. Overtime three servants taught Jac more than enough about women and enjoying bed games. More than he might have learned with a peer from the Creatory.

What they had not taught Jac was anything about love.

Master Gearman grunted. “True. That may have been a reason too.” He then smiled. “You seem set on this course with the Princess, and I do not fault it. But you will let me advise you should you run into trouble. Now you say she mentioned the new glass windows. I do remember the rooms that were assigned to Annaxier, and if I am right, we can refit them. But it would not be cheap. And it would take some time. Quite large casements and the wind…” Master Gearman spoke from memory, for it had been twenty years since he had worked on the palace.

Jac would investigate the following day to see if Mikonal was correct. It would be a nice gift for the Princess, but Jac had a better idea.

“So if your highness will allow…” Jac began when and Annaxier were together. “I can not say that there is any recuperative powers from sunlight, nor how easily moving the queen to observe the gardens from her window, or what else may come of it. But if we do just one window, and our measurements are exact ahead of time, my men can replace a window in the Queen’s chambers in a few rounds. I understand that she sleeps often from the illness and the medicines, that the healers believe help her. If we do but one window we can have it ready in four days, and then you can see the results yourself.”

Princess Annaxier nodded. “I should have to ask the King, but I believe he will say yes. When can we get started?”

“I could measure now, but that is forward of me. I should not enter the Queen’s chambers but if you, highness know how to take measurements, I have put on this paper what we do need, and these other pieces, well the builders of the castle kept track of some things that they did in certain rooms. I do not know which room is the Queen’s, but from what I saw on the records, I thought it could be here, here, this one or this last. If so I have measurements for the casements and you must just confirm them by doing this.” Jac bent down to the papers and knew that the Princess leaned over next to him.

So close Jac could smell her, and she smelled like fresh flowers. Today she was dressed less formally, but then she was at home, if you could call living in a castle, a home. Jac had noted that as he had entered and walked through the castle, and he had been there before, the area closer to the gate was more public, a great many more people about. Then as he was escorted further through halls, and rooms, there were less people. Then six guards at a staircase one floor down, a heavy oak door guarded by four more guards and then hardly anyone but a servant or guards on this floor with many closed doors, and long thin hallways.

Annaxier’s home and she had a gown, with a fine white wool undergarment. Her cotehardie was cut so that the long white sleeves only allowed her fingers to be be revealed and a few inches of her neckline and chest as well. The cotehardie itself was simple, though very form fitting. If the wool had not been present, then the swell of her bosom, which seemed even more generous than he had thought the previous day would have been seen. But it was all of one color, a rich purple the sleeves, neckline and bottom of the gown circled with a blue piece of trim, though the base had discolored having caught much of the dirt and dust on the stone floors about the castle. She had lifted her dress when she entered and he saw that she an underskirt that matched the trim color.

A belt of gold with medallions, circle and cinched her waist and another band of gold kept her hair held in place at her temples, circling her head with no adornment but there was scribe work of leafs and flowers hammered into the circlet. One buttons, the same color as her woolen shift, spaced no more than an inch, if that, were centered down the front of the cotehardie, to her waist. Jac reflected that if all women in their youth looked so healthy and pretty, men of all ages would be stopped and would not be able to do anything but look at such creatures. Maybe that was why women looked this good at this age, so that men would want to marry, and then make more children?

He had washed, going to the baths near the Creatory. The ancient kingdom of Neveria had used baths and the Searching Healers were sure that regular use of such was good for all. A bather was first to scrub as much dirt off, and then rinse, use a substance to create a lather, and then do all again, a final rinse and then one went into the baths, which were moderately warm. The king had installed several in the palace so not only the royal family, but the court and even the servants, could use them and be clean as well.

“Yes, this is the room, so that means these are the dimensions here of her windows. I think this one is the best for it would look towards the mountains which she has told me she loves to see.” Annaxier pointed and then pulled out one particular piece of paper.

“Yes those are the exact windows. Very good. I am told that most can not decipher my writing.”

“A simple system I think you have employed. C4 being the fourth window of your third guess, of which suite it was. Now will you show me how you wish me to measure. When I do fabric, the yarn I need, or thread, I just pull my hands apart.”

“You have heard of a builder’s measure? They are all different from firm to firm. Sometimes from craftsman to craftsman. There is much talk in the Guild of Builders to make it all one and the same, but they are a stubborn lot. They have not done so yet. Here is the one we use. You may keep it highness, a gift, but I will show you what it all means.” He showed her how to take a measurement, and then she demonstrated that she understood.

“You are right that it best that my mother not be disturbed, but if you will wait here, I shall get the measurements.” He agreed and she went to measure the window. If there was something wrong, he would know soon enough. He was left in a small room that was used by courtiers to have meetings as they attended upon the king, or saw to the kingdom’s business. A man poked his head in, then seeing the room occupied nodded and retreated.

In the main corridor his two guardsmen, along with some of the princess’ were stationed. This man came from another room. One thing that Jac was certain was that it had not been the king. While Jac waited he sketched, roughly another drawing of the window that his men would fashion and install. He then listed carefully all the measurements that the princess was to fetch and he would check through them with her when she had returned. He would also explain the reasons for some, and see if she could guess at the reasons for the rest.

“Ah, you have kept busy, I hope I was not too long. I did not tell my mother what I was about, for she was asleep. I think it will be a very nice surprise, and if we arrange for all on the fifth day, from today, she is being taken to the baths which is three rooms from her chamber. Your men will have three rounds to work. Would that be enough? If more is needed, I could possibly devise some reason for the workmen, but I should not like to inconvenience my mother,” Annaxier said.

“Neither would I, princess. I shall make three rounds work. My men shall come early and have everything ready, if a steward and some guardsmen can be assigned and then they can stage everything from a close place. Perhaps even the maids can see to that morning of removing what draperies surround the window as then my men won’t have to waste time doing so, and the drapes can even be cleaned while my men work.”

“An excellent idea. I shall take one of your papers and write all that down so I may see it attended to,” she said.

Then Annaxier began to do as she said. Quickly and efficiently. Working with the Princess seemed as easy as with one of the journeymen whom Jac had trained to follow his directions for years.

When she finished, she turned and must have seen how he was going over measurements. “We need one more, here, do you see. Instead of you going back to the queen’s room to measure it, can you have a messenger bring it to the creatory by tomorrow midday? We shall not need that part of the frame until then.” She nodded, and then he proceeded to quiz her about the window and how it all fit together and the measurements to see how much she understood of it.

“I am not surprised that you understand it so well. I am quite happy that you do,” Jac said when they had finished that part.

“Thank you GrandMaster. Perhaps one day I shall create something for the kingdom just as you do.” Jac nodded. He remembered that talks of where the Princess was too marry had ceased when the Queen had fallen ill. If the Queen had remained well, surely the kingdom would be celebrating Princess Annaxier’s marriage to some prince of Nosgovia, Giurance or even Vonaria. All had been mentioned before but now the King had stopped those plans.

“I hope so as well, highness. If you will permit me, the builder’s measure is not all that Gearman and Cartwright would gift you with today. Along with this use of unoccluded glass, we have learned to make bowls that may hold such things as water, and even flowers. If you would please accept this gift,” Jac indicated a wrapped box.

Annaxier said, “You do not have to do such. You are not seeking a favor, which usually are the reasons such gifts are given to the royal family.”

“Well, I do hope that when you look at it, you will remember me. I can claim no credit beyond the selection of the item. It is one of my journeymen who thought of how to make the glass clearer, and another who found how to fashion the glass into these shapes with these colors. My involvement is that I am owner in the Makory, and thus can get the items quickly. But I thought you might like it. We have been selling these for two moons.”

“Then I thank you.” She bent forward and opened the box. “It seems that the anticipation is so quickly shattered when one just unties the knots and lifts the lid. Even with some little paper to wrap the item within. I remember as a child my father laughing for I could not undo the knots fast enough. If more layers of wrapping were provided I am sure all children would become as frustrated, and a joy for their parents as I was.” Jac thought of that for a moment, for paper was now cheap, and recently, they had found that certain dies applied at the right time, made the whole paper of a color, and then if one mixed it around so it streaked before being put to the drying racks, it created patterns upon the paper.

“I think you have had your first creationist idea,” he said and he explained what thought had occurred to him. She agreed, though she did not stop unwrapping her present.

“Oh my, this is too lovely. I can not take such as this,” Annaxier said.

“My lady, were you to do so, and show flowers in it, then many other women will want such. It is not so expensive, though a little time consuming to make. But think how much more beauty will fill the realm were more ladies to show off pretty items like this bowl with beautiful flowers.” Then he realized that could be taken as a blatant play to have her show it that he might have sales. “I assure you I did not mean that you should show it that I may profit. I will give all that we do to any charities that you name, I think we make about thirty coppens from the sale of a piece like this.”

“Is that it’s cost? No of course, you said profit, what does it cost?

Jac said, “About three silvens.”

She nodded. A week’s wages or so for a man.

“Well, I thank you for the gift, and if you are serious about giving the profits to my charities, then of course I shall show it off and make it the envy of the court. But now we should discuss the Reason of why I asked that you attend me here at the castle and we continue our discussions. How often can you come to the castle? I am sure you are a busy man.”

“As often and for as long as the Princess needs me. I am able to arrange my schedule to be very flexible, I answer to myself,” Jac said.

“That must be a luxury, for I seldom have such time,” Annaxier said. “I have a round here, or there, sometimes two. But I discussed with my father that I should consult with someone who might see things and understand what is happening to Hornik. I thought I would begin at the place where all the changes start.”

He smiled, and refrained from laughing, “And as I started it all off, then perhaps I might know something or other. I think you are right, and I and several others think long and hard about what is happening in the kingdom for it is not what we set out to do. I think the creation of the Steam Twirler was solely to see if I could do so. I was quite young and did not know it would make me so wealthy, and so many others as well. Or would change the lives of so many.”

Annaxier leaned close again. Once more he was overwhelmed by her perfume, “Then do you think you are the right person that I should consult with? I do not think many of the men in father’s council would take the time to talk with a Creationist.”

Jac inhaled deeply. A big breath before saying, “No, most of the lords would not. Most blame us for the ills that are now cropping up in the kingdom even as they reap many of the benefits that creationism gives. A two edged sword. I would be most happy to talk with you. Where and when shall we do this?”

She smiled and nodded. “I can only talk to you here easily, but not above four times each moon, while I can also make my way infrequently into the city and the district where your Creatory is located. Perhaps I can send a message when I am able to come, and you could come here again next phase at the same time?” she asked.

“I could, but I also will wish to come and see how my men fare when they install the window for her majesty. Would I see you then? Though we may not have a chance to talk about this subject then.”

“Yes, I shall see you for I wish to see how the window is installed as well. But you are right. What we will discuss is to be private.” She glanced to the door, where the Sergeant stood. He was half in and half out of the room. It was far enough away, that the Sergeant tried to not hear what they discussed and ensured that none outside did either. Jac knew that private meant something different to an unwed Princess, then it did to him.

Jac left then and returned to the city, walking the short distance with his bodyguards. He discussed with Len and Pad some of what had taken place. The glass bowl, the window. Not the other parts. That they did not need to know. Nor did he want it to be spread about through him. Something like that had a way of returning to the principles and then each would look at the other who was revealing their secrets. It was not going to be Jac. He would have to talk to Master Mikonal, but find some way to not reveal the true purpose of their meetings.

The King’s castle sat atop a hill, for it made sense for castles to do so. Originally, several hundred years ago, when there was a smaller castle, and Firtoskin was a village, an army could come close enough to challenge those within. It had been over a century since the city had outgrown the second wall that had been built around it. A third wall had been contemplated, but not yet built. The first wall was at the base of the hill that the castle sat upon, and that district was considered Old Town.

Old Town and the castle had been razed when the Ishyurk Dynasty had fallen. That castle, Jac remembered being told, had been rebuilt once larger than the one before it, and then when the Farserit dynasty conquered, it was rebuilt much bigger again, to it’s present size. Jac got the sense that it was now not large enough to handle al the business that was conducted there. Outside the very castle gates, an entire square had filled with other block long buildings that the king used to have his government see to their business. Having glimpsed a couple gardens as he walked through the castle, Jac thought that the kings had made a choice whether to turn those gardens over to more buildings, or just take part of the city for their needs.

The Creatory war near the second wall, and the river that was close to it. Other Creatories, houses and even a few Makories were there as well. There was more space in this area, especially on the other side of the river, as well as the other side of the wall. The river was one reason the Makories liked the location for so much transport was done by river boat. Though now, the steam cart was beginning to be used to move material. Master Gearman said that within the next ten years more goods and material would be shipped by steam cart then by river boat. There was even now a negotiation to build a steam cart line to the border of Giurance, but some nobles were very much against it.

Jac thought about that as he neared the Creatory. The foreign powers had once been very well balanced against each other, for several hundred years of war had made it so that the field was nearly even. Now they must not appreciate what fifteen years of the advantages that Creationism had brought to Hornik. His brother had tried explaining some of the trade problems that were occurring. Col had become quite good at managing money. As Jac saw things in how objects related easily to each other, Col saw it with money.

“It is this way, brother. Fifteen years ago, it was simple, there were no steam twirlers and a man in a field would labor and produce a Guildens worth of work in a year. We could trade our wheat for the cotton of Giurance, quite easily, or if they had traded the cotton to Nosgovia, and been paid a Guilden they might buy the wheat from us for a Guilden. We were all very equal.” Jac understood that. He had helped their father in the shop and knew how men used Guildens to purchase things.

“Now you create this device and suddenly where ten men used to make ten Guildens worth of wheat, now we have five men, or even two men doing that work. Those other five men, they have become free, where they were not before. Now they can make ten Guildens of, those pots for the cookfires for instance. Where we used to buy pots from Vonaria. Now we don’t spend the money in Vonaria and our people are twice as productive or more. This has been happening at an ever increasing pace.

All the nations were very much in balance for wars had been fought to keep us all so, and perhaps one grew richer for a few years when there was bad weather. Now Hornik is growing much richer and much faster then the other nations. Not only that, but since we do not trade as much for some things that we had before, they grow even poorer then they had been before your creations.”

That report had scared Master Mikonal and he had instructed that Jac have two guards with him at all times, not just one. Even some of the other masters of the Creators Guild had two guards. Master Mikonal had said that there was a true chance that the foreign countries might try and kill them. To stop these creations would be very valuable to them. Because it would slow Hornik’s becoming ever more productive. Only Giurance made a serious effort to try and establish their own Creationists. Though since the first of the year reports said Keltoria and Pinesque now also worked towards it. Giurance, Jac knew, spent more time trying to tear apart the new devices and then recreate them, instead of working on new items of their own.

That was all well and good but until the other countries allowed the people to leave the land, a law unique to Hornik, then they could not set-up the great Makories and turn out all the needed parts to build the ever helpful devices in great quantities. To make a steam twirler, a small model, that was productive took nearly one hundred and thirty parts, some tooled to a precision that was one sixty-fourth of an inch. To make the steam cart took over thirty hundred parts, and the bearings for the wheels had to be very precise.

Reaching the creatory, Jac looked in once again on all the projects he had being done. He knew that he could not stay long that day and would need to go to see Mikonal. That the man did not come to the Cretory was fine with Jack, for Mikonal always wanted to talk politics, or see how Jac was doing at his many lessons. Jac felt that Mikonal wanted Jac to be a noble, for he was trained being like one. Jac worked every day, and Mikonal, worked only a few days. Most were at the Guildhall. Col now ran the accounts for Gearman and Cartwright, and Mikonal was just consulted on the tasks that Col had taken over.

Once all was set to rights, for Jac had lost the rounds going to the castle, and rounds the previous day when he had spent time learning what progress had been made to help the Queen, he went to the Guildhall. Jac did chuckle to himself, for it was close, but it also was the nicest building for the few men who were masters, in all of Hornik.

It was so because it was the newest Guildhall built, with great sums of money from the masters, all who could well afford it, and built with the newest techniques that the Creationists and Builders had. It was four stories tall, with near a third of the front open and the sky viewed through the great panes of glass. Over thirty feet tall, nearly as grand as the great cathedrals for height and openness, but they were encased by stone, not glass overhead. The Metalmen that had encased the new Creationist work were sure that the glass would hold against the worst storms anyone had ever remembered Firtoskin having.

Jac was not so certain. He looked at the glass, which was surely remarkable. Two years old and a building thousands came to see often. Those inside looked out, and those outside looked in. There was a foyer completely open the full four stories high with balconies or landings for each floor to look down to the enclosed courtyard. Now an entire room itself. Jac wondered that the Princess had not been to the Guildhall, but then the King had been several times. Once before it was finished to look at how the metal held things up, and then he had come after the glass was installed.

Even so, the buildings glass was still somewhat occluded. It was only recently that the glass had become near transparent. Plans were to replace the old glass with the new completely clear glass. Jac marveled at the Glaziers work. It was art and functional as well. Better than any other building he thought, and the four floors in the later half of the building, barely filled. The masters thought that in the years to come, they would bring many people to work in the Guild and help with Creationism.

“Tell me what she had to say.” Gearman at least had first asked after his health and what little other pleasantries that were proper. But he had not lost all his new hopes that the Princess offered with this connection.

“She was quite pleased with our gifts. Saddened though that we have no remedy for the Queen. I gave her a small list of those country remedies that I do not think will hurt the Queen. Though I do not know if they shall help her,” Jac said.

“But is that all she wanted to talk of?” Mikonal asked.

“No, no she had more. As we discussed yesterday, the idea of women as Creationists intrigues her. She knows that we have been working with new maths, with new sciences, and that she would like to know them. I said that they were not secrets. Not secrets from those of Hornik. So we discussed how she might learn some of them. I will tutor her in these, and I suggested other masters were better at some items then I.”

“Yes, the chemicals. You have never been able to remember those well,” Mikonal said. Not that Mikonal remembered them well either.

“Precisely,” Jac said. “But she said it would be better if I was the only one to meet with her and teach her. So I will go several times a moon to do so.”

Gearman nodded a few times, then he smiled. “It is good, very good. The King must know this, but if the court finds out, that she learns these facts, then it will be difficult. It will increase what the other nations bid for her.”

“I don’t understand, she is not being auctioned.” Jac said in the Princesses defense.

“She is. Don’t be naive. I have taught you better. You know better. The other nations would like our Creations and they had hoped a marriage with the Princess would secure them special rights. They have been right also. Why our Creations did more for keeping her from being married then anything else. For each year the price went up what the other nations have to pay. King Lancellnick didn’t like it, but he appreciated it. He did not want his daughter to be so little valued, his sister is married into Pinesque, you will recall, and unhappily. Every daughter of the Farserit’s has left this kingdom, except for one, and she I remember was sickly.”

That Jac did know. “Surely the remorse and pain the royal family feels at the Queen’s sickness must account for why there has been no marriage alliance made. The other nations will understand it.”

Master Gearman said, “They probably do, but when they find that the Princess, who will be bargained to an heir, or a king of some country, marries into another nation, now she will know and understand Creationism. She might even be a Master Creator if you and the Princess have your ways. She will be worth duchies and provinces to us. The king is a shrewd man, and he has raised the stakes well. You must do your best.” As if Jac needed such an instruction. He always did his best. He took his leave of Gearman and went to the studio of Master Fredardic.

For one round Jac was on fire, and his blade defeated all comers. Fredardic lost four of four, and knew when to stop himself. “You shall enter the trials this year. You shall represent our studio and my training.”

“What? I can not do that.”

“Why,” Fredardic said, “You are a citizen of Hornik, and a man that the King should know can use a blade.”

“But surely, it is for soldiers or nobles,” Jac said.

“No, the King would find all men who can fight well. You know we have put up others before. You have entered before.”

Jac remembered and did not like the memory. “Yes. But as a student and I was eliminated quickly. You have always represented the studio.”

“And now I would have you do so. It has been six years since you entered the trials. You will enter again. Oh, do not worry, you won’t win. But you will enter. It is time that the nobles see that others can achieve greatness in our realm.”

“Master Fredardic, you make me even more uncomfortable. I am skilled at one thing. Putting these ideas of creation to work and the skills I learned in my father’s shop. That is all. You have made me good at fighting but I know others are better. Pad and Lem and the other guards I have is because I can not fight for my life like some legend and know that nothing shall kill me. I am not invincible. I may wish I were, but I do not expect to be so. I am no hero.”

“Lad, none of us are heroes until the story is written. We are all just men trying to find a bed at night.” Fredardic said and then smiled. He liked what he had said and so took out a notebook and wrote it down. “These pieces of paper all together that will fit in a pocket is a genius invention. You got paper to work well, but someone else came up with this idea for binding the paper. And writing charcoal. That I think you should turn your mind too.”

He said that every time he had an idea and reached for his notebook. The truth was that at the Creatory, they had taken the notebook and made pads of paper that they used. A better writing stylus though was not easily made.

It was six days later that Jac returned to the palace as he had been instructed. Annaxier was happy to see him she said. “Now what I wish to understand is can we save our kingdom with all these changes, and I know you are not responsible for all of them, or will we end up at each other’s throats.”

It was in Nosgovia, Jac knew, that several nobles and a few of the royal family had been beset by their peasants and killed. It was why nobles had swords now, and peasants did not. But that was over forty years before. Before the steam twirler. And not many in Hornik knew that an event like that had occurred.

Jac took a moment before he answered, He had thought of these social issues before. Just as he thought about how heating the water made steam and pushed up the valves in the twirler. How one thing led to another, he though how the change between how one man acted to another meant as well.

Jac said, “I will be honest, it will take effort to ensure that we do not have such anger that everyone wants to kill each other. There are kitchens that give out bread in the morning and later in the day, a full meal to all who come. Whether they are rich, or they have nothing.”

“Yes, GrandMaster. I have visited one. I then asked the Sergeant to find out who is paying for the kitchens. You will understand that this is not one of my charities that I want the money from the glass bowl you gave me to go to.” Jac had seen the glass bowl prominently displayed when he arrived. A table had been set up in the grand entry hall, and the bowl, with flowers had been set there. Jac did not want to speak about the kitchens any more then he had. The Sergeant should not have found out who paid the workers at the kitchens, or who bought the food.

“You and your brother tried to hide who is responsible but I have access to resources that the two of you should never try and disguise. Though all the sergeant had to do was ask where one of the kitchen workers got paid, and then he asked the paymaster who came around, where the money came from. Very easy it turned out. You are very generous,” Annaxier said.

Jac replied, “I do what I may, and though we can feed most who come, I fear these last months more come then need it, and more come now then we can feed.” He had thought about increasing how much he gave to the four kitchens he had set up. He was not doing as much as the churches, and still between him, the churches and some few others who tried to help the hungry, they were failing. “What is a worse problem though then food for those who can not afford it, is shelter. We have had a mild spring season, and summer is generally easy to take care of those without homes, but when we reach late fall and winter, there will be trouble. I hope his majesty’s ministers realize this. I know that the priests work on this.”

Areas of the city, outside the second wall, where those who had no permanent place to live, were becoming the filthiest part of Firtoskin. Jac knew that the population of the city had nearly doubled since they had built the first real steam twirler and begun to change things. He did not take credit for change. The city was a village without even a castle six hundred years before. It had become a city with two walls and what would be several villages on the outside of the second wall through none of Jac’s doing or changes.

Advances had been made in agriculture for some man had created a plow at one point, though it was dragged behind oxen or horses. The horse collar, was surely a creation. Creationism had existed before the steam twirler. The steam twirler accelerated change. It had opened minds to more ideas, more quickly. It had increased the pace of all society. But still many could not see that change was evolving all across Hornik.

Jac began to think that the rest of the world was beginning to see it, and thus the marriage price for Princess Annaxier was increasing rapidly as well. Just as Mikonal had said.

Annaxier said, “These are all things we should discuss, for you are correct. His majesty and some few men of his council, the priests, I believe, do speak to the need to do something, while the nobles seek to allege blame.”

“If I am to blame through my devices, I hope I do what is right to alleviate some of this problem,” Jac said. He reflected that it sounded very noble.

“I believe that you do what is right, but I am not the King and can not say that you do for sure. I also do not know that the problems that you create are entirely of your doing. You may have created many of these devices, but you did not force anyone to use them. If a lord had not wanted to make more Guildens, he need not have adopted your machine in his fields but could have still tilled his field the way it has been done for centuries. His peasants then would have been well employed throughout the year as their parents and grandparents had so been .”

“The Makories, should a peasant find his way to being employed at one, offer a better future though for many peasants. They became freemen. The lord would have to offer his peasants freedom, and pay them more then he does now.” Jac did not say that he felt the lords could easily afford to do that. Far too many lords have lived far above their peasants in one room, dirt floored hovels. Some lords would have freed their people, and some even had done so. They had been a minority in the kingdom, and amongst the King’s council. The thought occurred to Jac to learn who those lords were. They might help with understanding the transition that the kingdom underwent.

Annaxier said, “The lords are against that.”

Jac did not say a word to her response. The lords were as much a problem as the many peasants flooding the Firtoskin. Jac thought to help by building some Makories in other cities as well. That sent those who would do well working in the Makories to other cities, but they too had more peasants looking for work than there was work.

“We do have some real problems,” Jac finally said.

Annaxier said, “Yes, so let us review it, but let us do so in a fashion that builds upon the knowledge, for it all did not happen in one night. It happened from one action to the next. Let us look how it all came to be, and if we record enough of what we see, as we study when it happened, perhaps we can also see new solutions now, that we did not see while this was becoming our present.” That was a unique way of looking at the problem. Jac liked the idea, for generally he had no time to look at a situation as it had developed.

He and the other masters had just looked to their creations to provide solutions. They saw that an answer was needed and would work on a solution for it. Never looking at the entire plight of the kingdom and how ideas now might be found, or must be found before things became truly bad. After a round, Annaxier and he had talked their way through the adoption of the steam twirler and how it had begun to help the miners by pulling water from the deeper levels of mines and keeping all drier.

Mines were now able, after improvements to the twirler to go three and four times deeper and further then ever before, and perhaps further still. Those lords who owned the mines had found the purchase of the steam twirlers led them to wealth quicker then many another lord. The king had given license to several lords to mine, and those licenses now were more valuable then many great estates devoted to farming.

Jac left that day thinking that he and the Princess might actually make progress with problems that the kingdom had not yet solved. That he, a commoner and Annaxier, a princess, could work on such together was so far beyond what he had ever thought would happen in his life, Jac did not think the adventure of his life could grow any further.

A Regency Era Timeline 1820 in progress

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorling Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1820:

Year

Month Day

Event



1820

29-Jan

On January 29, George III dies, but Prinny will not be crowned until July 19, 1821.



1820

Jan 12

Royal Astronomical Society was founded in England.



1820

Jan 20

Anne Clough, promoter of higher education, was born.



1820

Jan 20 to Jan 29

As George IV was about to become King of England, his wife Caroline (the German princess of Brunswick) returned to claim her rights. She had been living on the continent and was rumored to have had as lovers such men as: the politician George Canning, the admiral Sir Sydney Smith, the painter Sir Thomas Lawrence. The House of Lords introduced a Bill of Pains and Penalties, which sought to strip Caroline of her title of Queen on the grounds of her scandalous conduct. George had previously married Maria Anne Fitzherbert in secret. A trial ensued, but witnesses refused to speak against the queen and the bill had to be amended.



1820

Jan 29

Britain’s King George III (b.1760) died insane at Windsor Castle at age 81, ending a  reign that saw both the American and French revolutions. He was succeeded by his son George IV (1762-1830), who as Prince of Wales had been regent for 9 years during his father’s insanity. In 2005 scientists reported high levels of arsenic in the hair of King George III and said the deadly poison may be to blame for the bouts of apparent madness he suffered. In 2006 Stella Tillyard authored “A Royal Affair: George III and His Troublesome Siblings” and Jeremy Black authored “George III: America’s Last King.”



1820

Jan 30

Edward Bransfield discovered Antarctica and claimed it for the UK.



1820

Jan

A large fire in Savannah, Georgia wiped out 463 buildings.



1820

January

January: John Keats publishes “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” “Ode to a Nightingale,” and “To Autumn” in his collection Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems.



1820

January

January: King George III dies. The Prince Regent succeeds as King George IV.



1820

January

January: The Duke of Kent dies, leaving his infant daughter Victoria one step closer to the throne.



1820

Feb 6

The American Colonization Society sent its 1st organized emigration of blacks back to Africa from NY to Sierra Leone.



1820

Feb 6

US population announced at 9,638,453 including 1,771,656 blacks (18.4%).



1820

Feb 7

Samuel Adams Holyoke (57/58), composer, died.



1820

Feb 8

General William T. Sherman (d.1891), Union general in America’s Civil War, was born. His famous “March to the Sea” changed the face of modern warfare.



1820

Feb 15

American suffragist Susan B. Anthony (d.1906) was born in Adams, Mass. Her middle name was Brownell. Her biography by Lynn Sherr was titled: “Failure Is Impossible.”



1820

Feb 15

Pierre-Joseph Cambon (63), member of Committee of Public Safety (French Revolution), died.



1820

Feb 17

Henri Vieuxtemps, composer, teacher (Brussels Cons), was born in Verviers, Belgium.



1820

Feb 28

John Tenniel (d.1914), illustrator of “Alice in Wonderland,” was born. He was an English caricaturist.



1820

Feb

The Cato Street Conspiracy, organized by revolutionary Arthur Thistlewood, was the.  assassination of the entire British Cabinet.  Earlier, in 1816, Thistlewood helped plan the Spa Fields Riots, during which the Bank of England and Tower of London were to be seized. In February, 1820, Thistlewood learned the entire British Cabinet planned to dine at the Earl of Harrowby’s house in London’s Grosvenor Square. His plot for murder was revealed to the police, who apprehended Thistlewood and a number of accomplices as they prepared to leave a room on Cato Street for Grosvenor Square. Thistlewood was tried for high treason and hanged, along with four others.



1820

Feb

Five surviving crew members in 2 boats of whale ship Essex were picked up by 2 ships. [see Owen Chase in 1819, 1821]



1820

February

February: The Cato Street Conspiracy is uncovered, in which a group of radical Spenceans, angered by the Peterloo Massacre and the Six Acts, plan to assassinate the prime minister and all his cabinet ministers. Their hope is to overthrow the government and oversee a radical revolution, similar to the French Revolution. One of the conspirators happened to be an agent of the Home Office, who insured that the operation was foiled by a group of Bow Street Runners. Most of the conspirators were convicted of treason and hung.



1820

Mar 3

The Missouri Compromise was passed by Congress. It allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state and Maine to enter as a free state. [see Mar 6]



1820

Mar 5

Dutch city of Leeuwarden forbade Jews to go to synagogues on Sundays.



1820

Mar 6

The Missouri Compromise, enacted by Congress, was signed by President James Monroe. This compromise provided for the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave state, but prohibited slavery in the rest of the northern Louisiana Purchase territory. The compromise was invalidated in the 1856 Scott vs. Sanford case. [see Mar 3]



1820

Mar 9

Congress passed the Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion.



1820

Mar 9-11

Philippines chased out foreigners and about 125 died.



1820

Mar 14

Victor Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia (1849-61) and Italy (1861-78), was born.



1820

Mar 15

Maine, a province of Massachusetts since 1647, became the 23rd state. Maine entered the Union as a free state and helped maintain the balance in the US Senate, that would have been disrupted by the entrance of Missouri Territory into the Union as a slave state.



1820

Mar 22

The Decatur-Barron Duel. U.S. naval hero Stephen Decatur (b.1779) was killed in a duel with Commodore James Barron near Washington, D.C.



1820

Mar 30

Anna Sewell, English novelist, was born. Her “Black Beauty” has become the classic story about horses.



1820

March

March: Sir Thomas Lawrence is named president of the Royal Academy upon the death of Benjamin West.



1820

Apr 15

Evander McNair, Brig General (Confederate Army), died in 1902, was born.



1820

Apr 17

Alexander Cartwright, sportsman, was born. He developed baseball.



1820

Apr 20

Arthur Young, author (Annals of Agriculture), died.



1820

May 4

Joseph Whitaker, bookseller and publisher, was born. He founded Whitaker’s Almanac.



1820

May 12

Florence Nightingale (d.1910), Crimean War British nurse known as “Lady with the Lamp,” was born in Florence, Italy. She is also known as the founder of modern nursing.



1820

May 13

The opera “Die Jearsbraut” was completed.



1820

May 15

The US Congress designated the slave trade to a form of piracy.



1820

May 23

James Buchanan Eads, engineer of the Eads Bridge in St. Louis, was born.



1820

May

May: John Keats first publishes “La Belle Dame sans Merci” in the May issue of the Indicator



1820

Jun 14

John Bartlett, editor, compiler of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, was born.



1820

Jun 19

Joseph Banks, English natural historian (Cook, Australia), died.



1820

Jun 28

The tomato was proven to be non-poisonous.



1820

June

June: British naturalist and botanist Sir Joseph Banks dies at age 77, having served as president of the Royal Society since 1778.



1820

June

June: Princess Caroline (now Queen Consort) returns to England. Her husband refuses to acknowledge her as Queen and riots break out in support of her.



1820

Jul 10

Captain Jairus of the USRC Louisiana captured four pirate ships off Belize.



1820

Aug 2

John Tyndall (d.1893), British physicist, was born. He was the first scientist to show why the sky is blue. “It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink (at) facts because they are not to our taste.”



1820

Aug 6

M.A. Elisa Bonaparte (43), Corsican monarch of Lucca, died.



1820

Aug 7

The 1st potatoes were planted in Hawaii.



1820

Aug 12

Oliver Mowat, a founder of the Canadian Confederation, was born.



1820

Aug 13

George Grove, biblical scholar, musicographer (Grove’s Dictionary), was born in London, England.



1820

Aug 14

The 1st US eye hospital, the NY Eye Infirmary, opened in NYC.



1820

August

August: Regent’s Canal opens after a decade of construction to link the Grand Junction Canal’s Paddington branch around the city to Limehouse. The eight-and-a-half-mile waterway has cost £772,000 (twice the original estimate), has two tunnels, 12 locks, and in its first year carries 120,000 tons of cargo.



1820

August

August: The Pains and Penalties Bill is introduced in Parliament at the request of George IV, with the aim of dissolving his marriage to Caroline and depriving her of the title Queen. After a hearing in the House of Lords lasting through November, the bill is thrown out. (The following July, Caroline is barred from the king’s coronation, and dies 3 weeks later.)



1820

Sep 2

China’s Emperor Jiaqing (b.1760) died.



1820

Sep 4

Czar Alexander declared that Russian influence in North America extended as far south as Oregon and closed Alaskan waters to foreigners.



1820

Sep 20

John Fulton Reynolds, Major General (Union volunteers), was born. He died in 1863 on first day at Gettysburg.



1820

Sep 26

The legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone died quietly at the Defiance, Mo., home of his son Nathan, at age 85.



1820

Sep 28

Friedrich Engels, socialist who collaborated with Karl Marx on The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, was born.



1820

Sep

John Keats and the young painter Severn started for Italy aboard the cargo boat Maria Crowther.



1820

Sep

William Moorcroft, East India Co. head of 5,000 acre horse farm at Pusa, India, arrived in Ladakh, while enroute to Bukhara, Uzbekistan, to trade for horses. He spent 2 years here before continuing his journey.



1820

Oct 6

Jenny Lind (d.1887), soprano, was born. She was known as the “Swedish Nightingale.”



1820

Oct 11

Sir George Williams, founder of the YMCA, was born.



1820

Oct 12

John James Audubon boarded the steamboat Western Engineer in Cincinnati, Ohio, and embarked on a 5-year journey along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers collecting and painting birds.



1820

Oct 15

Florence Nightingale (d.1910), English hospital reformer and nursing pioneer, was born. “Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.”



1820

Oct 20

Spain sold a part of Florida to US for $5 million.



1820

Oct

Argentina’s Jose de San Martin blockaded Lima, Peru, and urged the people of Peru to join in the uprising against Spain.



1820

Nov 18

U.S. Navy Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer discovered the frozen continent of Antarctica.



1820

Nov 28

Friedrich Engels (d.1895), German social philosopher; Marx’s collaborator, was born.



1820

Dec 6

James Monroe, the 5th US president, was elected for a 2nd term.



1820

Dec 7

Peru’s army, after sweeping out the Spanish, swore in the first mayor of the Peruvian Republic, in Chaupimarca plaza, the central district of Cerro de Pasco. By 2010 the town faced destruction due to industrial mining.



1820

Dec 20

Missouri imposed a $1 bachelor tax on unmarried men between 21 and 50.



1820

Dec

Franz Schubert composed his String Quartet No. 12 in C Minor (Quartettsatz). It was only introduced to the public in 1867.



1820



American writer Washington Irving publishes The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent , which includes the stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.”



1820



An attempt to assassinate the cabinet ministers of England fails in what becomes known as the Cato Street conspiracy.



1820



Bristol’s Royal York Crescent is completed.



1820



Britain’s George III dies at age 81, and is succeeded by George IV, who is corpulent and 57 years old. He will rule until 1830.



1820



Congress of Troppau convenes to consider the revolt in Naples.



1820



Francisco de Goya paints Saturn Devouring His Children.



1820



George III dies; George IV becomes king.



1820



George IV’s official wife, Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, whom he detests, demands to be recognized as Queen. The king offers her £3000 to stay abroad, never take a royal title, and not to attempt to exercise any royal rights. In the meantime, the King tries to arrange a divorce and postpones his coronation upon its outcome. The House of Commons and House of Lords pass a bill to grant the divorce and deprive Caroline of her “Queenship”, but the common people rally to her side. Due to public pressure the bill is dropped, and in celebration the cities of London, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Dublin, to name a few, illuminate their cities for 3 days.



1820



John Constable paints The Hay Wain.



1820



Percy Bysshe Shelley publishes Prometheus Unbound: A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts, With Other Poems. “To a Skylark” is one of the poems published here for the first time.



1820



Revolutions by liberals occur in Spain, Italy, and Portugal.



1820



Teacher Maria Becraft, 15, opens the first black girl’s boarding school in Washington, D.C.



1820



The Book of Job in the Old Testament is published with illustrations by William Blake.



1820



The Egyptians begin the conquering of the Sudan.



1820



The Hay Wain by John Constable. It is revered today as one of the greatest British paintings of the 19th century, but when it was originally exhibited at the Royal Academy it failed to find a buyer. It was better received in France, where it caused a sensation when it was exhibited with other works by Constable at the 1824 Paris Salon. It was singled out for a gold medal awarded by King Charles X of France.




1820



The Missouri Compromise comes to play, which admits several states into the Union, including the slave state of Missouri.



1820



The Royal Astronomical Society is founded by, among others, inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage and astronomer Sir John Frederick Herschel.



1820



The Venus de Milo is discovered in the Greek Island of Melos.



1820



Walter Scott publishes The Monastery and The Abbot, and is made a baronet by George IV.



1820





1820



From August to November, Prinny seeks to divorce Queen Caroline, whom he finds detestable, by having her tried by Parliament



1820



Death of George III. Accession of The Prince Regent as George IV. The House of Lords passes a bill to grant George IV a divorce from Queen Caroline, but due to public pressure the bill is dropped, John Constable begins work on The Hay Wain. Cato Street Conspiracy fails. Royal Astronomical Society founded. Venus de Milo discovered.



1820



The combined area of Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi and Alabama has six times the number of people of European heritage that it had in 1800.



1820



A liberal uprising begins in Spain. It starts with soldiers and is joined by others who want a constitutional monarchy or a republic. A few who are poor and illiterate attack and set fire to churches.



1820



The U.S. has becomes the world’s biggest cotton producer of raw cotton.



1820



Per capita world Gross Domestic Product (according to today’s economic historian Angus Maddison) is $667, measured in 1990 dollars. This (according to Maddison) is up from $435 in the year 1000. Western Europe, which was lower than the world in general in the year 1000, at $400, is at $1,232.



1820



Anne Bronte (d.1849), younger sister of Charlotte and Emily, was born. Her novels included “Agnes Grey” and “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”



1820



Lola Montez, cabaret singer and countess, was born Eliza Gilbert and grew up in India as a military brat. She was later involved with King Ludvig of Bavaria and he made her Countess of Landsfeld. She later traveled to California. Her biography by Bruce Seymour is titled: “Lola Montez: A Life.”



1820



Constable made his painting of Salisbury Cathedral.



1820



Keisai Eisen, Japanese artist, pictured an intricately coifed woman that later appeared on the cover of a French magazine and inspired Van Gogh’s 1887 “Courtesan.”



1820



Mary Shelley wrote her children’s story “Maurice, or the Fisher’s Cot. ” It did not get published until 1998 when Claire Tomalin published an edition with an extensive editorial preface.



1820



Helen Keller’s grandfather built the Ivy Green House in Tuscumbia, Alabama.



1820



The Mexican government granted Luis Peralta (1759-1851) the 44,800-acre Rancho San Antonio in the East Bay of northern California, for his military services. The rancho ran from San Leandro Creek to a rise known as El Cerrito. Peralta settled in San Jose, while his four sons took over the land grant. The Peralta Hacienda in Oakland was built in 1870.



1820



In New Jersey a county poorhouse farm was established on 200 acres of land in what later became Hudson County, directly across the river from Manhattan. Be the end of the century it had become the sprawling Snake Hill complex with isolation hospitals and 3 burial grounds. In the 20th century it was renamed Laurel Hill. The institutions steadily emptied after the Depression and in 1950 the new New Jersey Turnpike ran through the site. In 2002 the New Jersey Turnpike Authority purchased the eastern burial ground of Snake Hill. Research soon revealed an estimated 3,500 burials on the purchased property, which became known as the Secaucus Potter’s field site. In 2003 the last burial was disinterred for a total of 4,571 sets of human remains from 2686 graves.



1820



In Tennessee an iron forge was established by settler Isaac Love on the Little Pigeon River at the foot of the Great Smokey Mountains.



1820



Congregational missionaries from New England arrived. The brig Thaddeus delivered the first missionaries and Lucy Thurston taught the native women to sew calico patch work. James Michener later used their story as the focus of his historical novel “Hawaii.”



1820



Thomas Jefferson wrote of slavery: “We have a wolf by the ears and can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.” Although a slaveholder himself, Jefferson had expressed hopes that in the wake of the American Revolution, slavery in the South would wither and die.



1820



Eliphalet Snedecor rented land on Long Island, NY, and established a tavern. It became popular among fisherman and bird shooters.



1820



Norwich Univ. began as a private military college in the Green Mountains of Vermont.



1820



American cotton exports reached 400,000 bales a year.



1820



An American whaling ship from Brighton, Massachusetts, was later believed to be the first to enter Japanese waters.



1820



In the Antelope seizure, a Spanish flag vessel was involved at a time when Spain still sanctioned the slave trade.



1820



The industrial force exceeded the number of people engaged in agriculture in Great Britain.



1820



There are more than a thousand ships engaged in transporting timber from the North America to the British Isles. Human cargo filled the return journey.



1820



US census takers on the Virginia-Tennessee border at Stone Mountain labeled the local Melungeons as “free persons of color.” The people were of a mixed ancestry, neither all black, nor all white, nor all Indian. In 1997 some 500 Melungeon descendents still lived in the area. Later N. Brent Kennedy wrote: “The Melungeons… An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America.”



1820



Hans Christian Oersted, Danish physicist, discovered that an electric current creates a magnetic field around a conductor.



1820



The Greek Venus de Milo statue of marble was found in 1820 on Melos and is now in the Louvre. It was sculpted about c200BC. [2nd source says 2,500 years old]



1820



Scotsman Gregor MacGregor (1791-1845), later known as His Serene Highness Gregor I, Prince of Poyais, returned to London from Venezuela and began selling land in the fictional kingdom of Poyais. He served 8 months in jail after English and French expeditions revealed the hoax. In 1839 he returned to Venezuela. In 2004 David Sinclair authored “The Land That Never Was: Sir Gregor MacGregor and the Most Audacious Land Fraud in History.”



1820



Some 4,000 British colonists, the Albany settlers, settled in the eastern coastal region of the Cape of Good Hope.



1820



In London Thomas Hancock sliced up a rubber bottle from the Americas to create garters and waistbands.



1820



In India the Prince of Baroda was forbidden to increase his daily number of canon salutes by the British Raj, so instead he had his fort’s canons made from solid gold at 28 pounds each.



1820



In southern Poland Jan Kutschera opened the Sczcawnica Zdroj health resort. He sold it in 1929 to the Hungarian Szalay family, which turned it into a fashionable place. Josef Szalay bequeathed it to Krakow’s Academy of Arts and Sciences, which sold it to Count Stadnicki in 1909. Stadnicki (d.1982 at 99) was ousted by the communists in 1948. By 2008 his heirs had regained control of the spa and invested $4.5 million in restoration.



1820



Nguyen Du (b.1766), author of “The Tale of Kieu,” died. His Vietnamese epic tells the story of woman who sells herself into prostitution to pay off her father’s debt.



1820



Grain prices collapsed in Britain.



1820



Renegade Zulus rebelled against King Chaka, but were crushed. Descendents of the renegade Zulus are of the Ndebele tribe, which forms a 5th of Zimbabwe’s 11 million people, the majority of which are of the Shona tribe.



1820



The Garinagu, descendants of African slaves and Caribbean Indians, fled to Belize from the Bay Islands of Honduras.



1820-1825



In India Ghulam Ali Khan painted his gouache and watercolor: “Assembly of Ascetics and Yogins around a Fire.”



1820-1891



George Hearst, later businessman and politician, was born.



1820-1903



Herbert Spencer, nineteenth-century British thinker and early upholder of the theory of evolution, regarded human progress as “not an accident but a necessity.” Spencer was born in England believed that every aspect of reality must be viewed in terms of a continuing development from lower to higher stages. His naturalistic philosophy had a great influence on the development of biology, psychology, anthropology and sociology. Spencer published his idea of the evolution of biological species before Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Spencer coined the phrase “survival of the fittest in his 1864 work Principles of Biology. “Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.”



1820-1904



Christian Nestell Bovee, American author: “Doubt whom you will, but never doubt yourself.”



1820-1910



Felix Nadar, French photographer, was born in Paris as Gaspard-Felix Tournachon. He is known for photographing such people as George Sand, Alexandre Dumas, Gioacchino Rossini, Eugene Delacroix, Sarah Burnhardt, Charles Baudelaire and Gerard de Nerval. He was the first photographer to experiment with electric lighting, and explored the realm of aerial photography.

A Regency Era Timeline 1819 in progress

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorling Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1819:

Year

Month Day

Event



1819

Jan 17

Simon Bolivar the “liberator” proclaimed Colombia a republic.



1819

Feb 8

John Ruskin (d.1900), writer, critic, artist, Gothic Revivalist (Pre-Raphaelite), was born. His work included “Modern Painter” and “The Stones of Venice.”



1819

Feb 9

Lydia E. Pinkham, patent-medicine maker and entrepreneur, was born.



1819

Feb 14

Christopher Latham Sholes, inventor of the first practical typewriter, was born.



1819

Feb 22

James Russell Lowell (d.1891), American essayist, poet, critic, diplomat, abolitionist, was born: “He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson of statecraft.”



1819

Feb 22

Spain signed the Adams-Onis Treaty with the United States ceding eastern Florida. Spanish minister Do Luis de Onis and U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams signed the Florida Purchase Treaty, in which Spain agrees to cede the remainder of its old province of Florida. Spain renounced claims to Oregon Country. [see 1821]



1819

Mar 2

Territory of Arkansas was organized. [see Jul 4]



1819

Mar 2

US passed its 1st immigration law.



1819

Mar 3

An Act to protect the commerce of the United States and punish the crime of piracy became a federal statute. It was amended in 1820 to declare the slave trade and robbing a ship to be piracy as well. The last execution for piracy in the United States was of slave trader Nathaniel Gordon in 1862 under the amended act.



1819

Mar 3

The Civilization Fund Act was created by the United States legislature to encourage activities of benevolent societies in providing education for Native Americans and also authorized an annuity to stimulate the “civilization process.”



1819

Mar 6

The US Supreme Court ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that the state could not impose a tax on the notes of banks not chartered in the state. Luther Martin represented Maryland in the landmark case.



1819

Mar 26

Louise Otto, German feminist author, was born.



1819

Mar 29

Edwin Drake (d.1890), the man who drilled the first productive oil well (1859), was born.



1819

Mar 29

Isaac Mayer Wise, rabbi, founder (American Hebrew Congregations), was born.



1819

Mar 29

Edwin Drake, the man who drilled the first productive oil well, was born.



1819

Apr 14

Charles Halle, pianist, conductor, founder (Halle Orch), was born.



1819

Apr 18

Franz von Suppa, composer (Light Cavalry Overture), was born in Spalato, Dalmatia.



1819

Apr 19

The USS Alabama and Louisiana destroyed a pirate base at the Patterson’s Town Raid on Breton Island, Louisiana.



1819

Apr 26

The first Odd Fellow lodge (Independent Order of Odd Fellows or IOOF) was established in the U.S. in Baltimore, Md. They started in Great Britain with the purpose: “to relieve the brethren, bury the dead, and care for the widow and orphan.”



1819

24-May

May 24 – The future Queen Victoria is born and shortly becomes the heir apparent.



1819

May 15

Thomas Leonidas Crittenden, Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1819

May 21

The 1st bicycles (swift walkers) in US were introduced in NYC.



1819

May 23

Bolivar’s revolutionary commanders met in the deserted village of Setenta, Venezuela, and planned a march across the Andes to attack Spanish forces in New Granada (Colombia).



1819

May 24

Queen Victoria (d.1901) was born in London. Her reign (1836-1901) restored dignity to the British crown. She had nine children. “Great events make me quiet and calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.”



1819

May 26

The first steam-propelled vessel to attempt a trans-Atlantic crossing, the 350-ton Savannah, departed from Savannah, Ga., May 26 and arrived in Liverpool, England, Jun 20. [HNQ set May 24 for the departure]



1819

May 27

Julia Ward Howe, writer of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” was born.



1819

May 31

Poet Walt Whitman (d.1892) was born in West Hill, N.Y. He became America’s national poet with vibrant works such as 1855’s Leaves of Grass. He poems included: “When Lilacs Last in the Doorway Bloomed.” Some of Whitman’s poems were inspired by his Civil War experience as a hospital volunteer in Washington. Although a staunch supporter of the Union cause, Whitman comforted dying soldiers of both sides, as described in one of the poet’s wartime newspaper dispatches: “I stayed a long time by the bedside of a new patient…. In an adjoining ward I found his brother…It was in the same battle both were hit. One was a strong Unionist, the other Secesh; both fought for their respective sides, both badly wounded, and both brought together after a separation of four years. Each died for his cause.”



1819

May

May: Princess Victoria (later to reign as Queen Victoria) is born to the Duke and Duchess of Kent.



1819

Jun 10

J.D. Gustave Courbet (d.1877), French realist painter (Demoiselles the la Seine), was born. His realistic landscapes were marked by bold shadows and compositions fragmented by the play of natural light. This technique was pursued more fully by the impressionists. His work included “Rock at HautePierre.”



1819

Jun 20

Jacques Offenbach (d.1880), French composer (Tales of Hoffmann), was born in Cologne. His work included the comedy opera “Barbe-Bleue” (Blue Beard).



1819

Jun 20

The paddle-wheel steamship Savannah arrives in Liverpool, England, after a voyage of 27 days and 11 hours–the first steamship to successfully cross the Atlantic.



1819

Jun 26

Abner Doubleday (d.1893), Civil War General, was born. He was incorrectly credited with inventing American baseball.



1819

Jun 26

The bicycle was patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr. of New York City. [see May 21]



1819

June

June: The first steamship to cross the Atlantic arrives in Liverpool.



1819

Jul 4

The Territory of Arkansas was created.



1819

Jul 4

William Herschel (1738-1822), German-born English astronomer, made his last telescopic observation of an 1819 comet. His son, Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1792-1871), was also an astronomer.



1819

Jul 9

Elias Howe (d.1867), inventor of the sewing machine, was born in Spencer, Mass. Howe, a machinist, developed his sewing machine in 1843-45 and patented it in 1846. Although Howe’s machine sewed only short, straight lines, tailors and seamstresses saw it as a threat to their jobs. Unable to market his machine in America, Howe took it to Britain where he sold the rights to an English manufacturer in 1847. Upon his return to the United States, Howe discovered that his patent had been infringed upon by other sewing machine manufacturers, such as Isaac Singer. After a lengthy court battle, Howe’s patent was upheld and royalties from sewing machine sales made him a wealthy man.



1819

Jul

Stephen Long joined Gen. Henry Atkinson’s Yellowstone Expedition bound from St. Louis to the Rockies on the steamboat Western Engineer. This was the first steamboat to travel up the Missouri River into the Louisiana Purchase territory. Edwin James, a medical doctor, botanist and ethnologist, also served on the expedition.



1819

July

July: Lord Byron publishes the first two Cantos of Don Juan.



1819

16-Aug

Peterloo Massacre. Princess Alexandrina Victoria (future Queen Victoria) is christened in Kensington Palace. Ivanhoe by Walter Scott is published. Sir Stamford Raffles, a British administrator, founds Singapore. First steam-propelled vessel (The Savannah) crosses the Atlantic and arrives in Liverpool from Savannah, Georgia.



1819

Aug 1

Herman Melville (d.1891), American novelist, author of Moby Dick, was born. In 1996 part one of a 2-part biography was published by Hershel Parker: Herman Melville: 1819-1851. In 1951 Leon Howard wrote a biography. Melville wrote 5 books between 1845-1850. They included “Typee,” “Omoo,” and “White-Jacket.”



1819

Aug 2

The first parachute jump from a balloon was made by Charles Guille in New York City.



1819

Aug 7

South American liberator Simon Bolivar defeated Spanish forces under Gen. Jose Barreiro in New Granada (Colombia) at the Battle of Boyaca. The revolutionary army entered Bogota Aug 10.



1819

Aug 9

William Thomas Green Morton (d.1868), American dentist who 1st used ether on a patient (1846), was born.



1819

Aug 16

English police charged unemployed demonstrators at St. Peter’s Field in the Manchester Massacre. 11 people were killed in the Peterloo massacre. The press responded with a volley of attacks that included “The Political House that Jack Built” by William Hone and illustrator George Cruikshank.



1819

Aug 23

Oliver Hazard Perry, naval hero, died on his 34th birthday.



1819

Aug 25

Allan Pinkerton (d.1884) was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He fled Scotland in 1842 to avoid capture for his involvement with the revolutionary group called the Chartists. He later founded a Chicago detective agency and worked as Abe Lincoln’s bodyguard.



1819

Aug 25

Scotsman James Watt (b.1736), Scottish inventor, died. His 1775 improved steam engine advanced coal mining and made the Industrial Revolution possible.



1819

Aug 26

Albert “Bertie” von Saxon-Coburg-Gotha (d.1861), husband of queen Victoria, was born at Schloss Rosenau, near Coburg, Bavaria.



1819

Aug 31

A naval battle took place between United States Revenue Cutter Service cutters and one of Jean Lafitte’s pirate ships off southern Florida.



1819

August

August: At what becomes known as the Peterloo Massacre. eleven are killed and over 500 injured when the calvary charges into a large public meeting in St. Peter’s Fields in Manchester, which had been organized to protest the Corn Laws and agitate for radical political reform.



1819

August

August: Radical reformer Henry Hunt, who was supposed to address the St. Peter’s Fields meeitng but never got the chance, is charged along with others with holding an “unlawful and seditious assembling for the purpose of exciting discontent,” found guilty, and is sentenced to 2½ years’ imprisonment



1819

Sep 6

William Starke Rosecrans, Maj. General (Union volunteers), was born.



1819

Sep 6

Thomas Blanchard (b.1788) patented the lathe.



1819

Sep 13

Clara Josephine Schumann, [nee Wieck], pianist and composer, was born in Leipzig, Germ.



1819

Sep 16

Dr. John Jeffries, who crossed the English Channel (1785) with Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard for the first time in a hydrogen balloon, died in Boston.



1819

Sep 17

Jean-Bernard-Leon Foucault, physicist (pendulum proved Earth rotates), was born. [see Sep 18]



1819

Sep 18

Leon Foucault, French physicist, was born. [see Sep 17]



1819

Oct 6

Willem A. Scholten, Dutch potato flour manufacturer, was born.



1819

Oct 20

Daniel Edgar Sickles (d.1914), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1819

Oct 22

The 1st ship passed through Erie Canal (Rome-Utica).



1819

October

October: Richard Carlile, another speaker at the St. Peter’s Fields meeting who had begun publishing a radical newspaper, The Republican, shortly after the Peterloo Massacre, is found guilty of blasphemy and seditious libel and sentenced to 3 years imprisonment. He will continue publishing The Republican from prison.



1819

Nov 22

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist who wrote “Adam Bede,” was born.



1819

Nov

Nantucket whalers lost their ship to an 80-ton bull sperm whale and attempted to make landfall in 3 boats on the coast of South America. 8 crewmen survived after they consumed 7 of their mates. [see Owen Chase in 1821] 5 men in 2 boats were picked up after 90 days. In 1960 cabin boy Thomas Nickerson wrote an account of the tragedy. In 2000 Nathaniel Philbrick authored “In the Heart of the Sea, The Tragedy of the Whale Ship Essex.”



1819

Dec 14

Alabama was admitted as the 22nd state, making 11 slave states and 11 free states.



1819

December

December: In the wake of the Peterloo Massacre, Parliament passes the Six Acts to prevent further distrubances. They are: the Training Prevention Act (or Unlawful Drilling Act), the Seizure of Arms Act, the Misdemeanors Act, the Seditious Meetings Prevention Act, the Blasphemous and Seditious Libels Act (or Criminal Libel Act), and the Newspaper and Stamp Duties Act.



1819



A customs union (Zollverein) begins in Germany under Prussian influence.



1819



British explorer John Franklin undertakes a new expedition to locate the Northwest Passage on behalf of the Admiralty. The Arctic expedition is poorly prepared, its boats are too heavy to be portaged and too small to hold all the necessary supplies, the sailors know nothing about survival techniques. Most died of starvation, but there was also at least one murder and suggestions of cannibalism. Franklin is one of the few to survive, and he is lionized at home as “the man who ate his boots”



1819



German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer publishes The World as Will and Representation in which he builds upon Kant’s metaphysical system of transcendental idealism and than rejects it in favor jhis own philosophy of the human will as the essense of exerience.



1819



Germany suppresses political activity with its Carlsbad Decrees.



1819



Hawaii’s Kamehameha dies at the age of 82 on May 8. He had ruled for 28 years. His Amazonian favorite wife, Kaahumanu, succeeds him as co-ruler with the new king, a young boy of 22 and his mother Keopuloani. Eventually the new king will rule as Kamehameha II until 1824.



1819



Ivanhoe is published by Walter Scott. It’s heroine, Rebecca, is modeled on Philadelphia philanthropist Rebecca Gratz, who as a young woman had nursed Washington Irving’s dying fiancée.



1819



John Constable paints The White Horse and is elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (though he was not elected to full membership until 1829). .



1819



Portuguese princes Maria Leopoldina gives birth on April 4 to Maria da Glória, who will later rule Portugal as Maria II.



1819



Prime minister Lord Liverpool bolsters Britain’s monetary system by restoring the gold standard.



1819



Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault in 1819 .The monumental painting depicts the aftermath of a shipwreck that occurred in 1816 in which the captain and officers took the life boats and abadoned the rest of the crew to a makeshift raft. Only 15 of the 149 raft passengers survived. The painting is not only an allegorical indictment of a corrupt establishment, but also dramatizes man’s struggle with nature. The classical compositon combined with the turbulent subject marks the painting as a bridge between neo-classicism and romanticism. 




1819



Simón Bolivar, a Latin American revolutionary, gains the independence of Greater Columbia.



1819



Singapore comes under British occupation under Sir Stamford Raffles.



1819



Sir Stamford Raffles, a British administrator, founds Singapore.



1819



Soldiers fire on a political meeting in Manchester, England, killing several people. It becomes known as the Peterloo Massacre.



1819



Spain cedes Florida to the United States.



1819



Stanford Raffles founds Singapore.



1819



The Burlington Arcade opens in London.



1819



The country of Kashmir is conquered by Ranjit Singh, a Sikh leader.



1819



The Peterloo Massacre; cavalry charge unarmed people holding a meeting; eleven people are killed.



1819



The Prado Museum (Museo del Prado) opens in Madrid.



1819



The stethoscope is invented by French physician René-Théophile-Hyacinthe-Laënnec, 38: a roll of paper, it avoids the indelicacy of having the physician place his ear to the bosom of a female patient.



1819



The world’s first eating chocolate to be produced commercially goes on sale at in Switzerland: François-Louis Cailler introduces the first chocolate to be prepared and sold in blocks made by machine. (Until this time, chocolate had primarily been used for beverages.)



1819



Théodore Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa is exhibited at the Paris Salon.



1819



Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe is published.



1819





1819



From August to November, Prinny seeks to divorce Queen Caroline, whom he finds detestable, by having her tried by Parliament.



1819



In England, 60,000 gather in a field and listen to a call for universal suffrage. A magistrate sends a force to arrest the main speaker, Henry Hunt. People riot. Eleven are killed and others injured. A movement for reform gathers strength.



1819



Theodore Chasseriau (d.1856), artist, was born in Semana, Dominican Republic. He was the son of a French diplomat and French-Creole mother.



1819



Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), German Romantic painter, created his “Two Men Contemplating the Moon.” He painted it as part of a series of 3 (1824,1830). The 3rd had the same title, the 2nd was titled “Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon.”



1819



J.M.W. Turner (44), English artist (1775-1851), visited Venice for the 1st time. He returned in 1833 and 1840. His 1st oil painting with a Venetian setting was done in 1833.



1819



Spain’s Prado opened as the Real Mueso de Pintura y Escultura.



1819



John Vanderlyn depicted the Versailles gardens in a panorama later transferred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.



1819



Washington Irving published “The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon,” which included “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.”



1819



Johann Wilhelm Klein of Vienna, Austria, published a book on training dogs for the blind.



1819



The opera “La Donna del Lago,” by Gioacchino Antonio Rossini premiered in Naples. It was based on the Walter Scott romance “The lady of the Lake.”



1819



William Jay age 22, English architect, built several fine homes in Savannah, Georgia. These included the Scarbrough House and the Owens-Thomas House.



1819



The American Geological Society was founded at Yale College. The membership included the illustrious Benjamin Silliman  (1779–1864). The Society was short-lived, going out of existence in 1828.



1819



Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) almost single-handedly created the University of Virginia and served as its first president. The university opened for classes in 1825.



1819



Hannibal, Missouri, the small Midwestern city and boyhood home of Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), was settled by Moses Bates on land belonging to Abraham Bird.



1819



In Savannah Chatham Artillery Punch was served to Pres. James Monroe. It was a concoction of Catawba, rum, gin, brandy, rye whiskey, strong tea, brown sugar, Benedictine, juices of oranges and lemons, Maraschino cherries and champagne.



1819



Chief Justice John Marshall in Dartmouth College v. Woodward described the corporation as “an artificial being, invisible, intangible.” Among its properties “are immortality; and if the expression be allowed, individuality.”



1819



In Philadelphia Dr. Thomas W. Dyott, (druggist, patent-medicine vendor, and physician) purchased the Kensington Glass Works. He expanded the business and changed the name to the Dyottville Glass Works. He was forced out of the firm in 1838, but the glassworks continued operating until about 1923.



1819



Caffeine was isolated by this year. Its pure form turned out to be a bitter powder readily soluble in boiling water.



1819



Hans Christian Oersted discovered that an electric current will deflect the needle of a compass pointing to the unity of the electromagnetic force.



1819



In Sidney, Australia, convict labor built the Hyde Park Barracks and the state Parliament.



1819



Johann Baptist von Spix discovered the Spix macaw of Brazil (Cyanopsitta spixii). The last wild Spix macaw disappeared in 2000.



1819



The British burned the Arab port of Ras al Khaymah in response to attacks by Arab “pirate” ships. Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad of the emirate of Sharjah publishes a book in 1987, The Myth of Arab Piracy in the Gulf, claiming the Arabs were defending their native waters.



1819



Bogota became the capital of Colombia.



1819



The government of Egypt formally presented the obelisk of Alexandria as a gift to Great Britain. It was first erected in Heliopolis in 1461 BC. The Romans had moved it to Alexandria in 14BC and it had lain prone since an earthquake soon after 1300.



1819



In Hawaii monarchists defeated traditionalists at the battlefield of Kuamoo. 300 warriors perished along with the old Hawaiian religion.



1819



William Moorcroft, East India Co. head of 5,000 acre horse farm at Pusa, India, set out for Bukhara, Uzbekistan, to trade for horses.



1819



In India a British hunting party discovered the painted caves at Ajanta that dated from c200BC-650AD.



1819



In France a silver soup tureen was manufactured by Jean-Baptiste Claude Odiot. It fetched over a million dollars in a 1997 auction.



1819



Hawaii’s King Kamehameha II abolished the brutal kapu system of laws. Temples and sacred sites associated with the system began to fall into disrepair. Queen Kaahumanu, helped overturn the kapu belief system by sharing a meal with Kamehameha II following the death of King Kamehameha.



1819



Russia declared Odessa to be a free port.



1819



Singapore was declared a free port after it was taken over by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, an officer of the British East India Co. Sultan Hussein was enthroned by the British but he never ruled. Raffles laid out the city into ethnic zones.



1819-1820



The James Long Expedition was an attempt to take control of Spanish Texas. Long successfully established a small independent government, known as the Republic of Texas (distinct from the later Republic of Texas created by the Texas Revolution). The expedition crumbled later in the year, as Spanish troops drove the invaders out. Long returned to Texas in 1820 and attempted to reestablish his control.



1819-1861



Prince Albert of Britain, consort to Queen Victoria.



1819-1880



George Eliot, English writer, was driven out of England with her companion, G.H. Lewes, for a while for not being married. Her books tore away the curtain of Victorian life and revealed its bitter small-mindedness for anyone to see. “The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.”



1819-1891



Donn Piatt, American journalist: “There is no tyranny so despotic as that of public opinion among a free people.”



1819-1898



Theodor Fontane, German author: “Happiness, it seems to me, consists of two things: first, in being where you belong, and second — and best — in comfortably going through everyday life, that is, having had a good night’s sleep and not being hurt by new shoes.” His work included practical hiking guides to Brandenburg, poetry theater criticism, foreign correspondence and novels. His novels included “Effi Briest” and “L’Adultera.” In 1998 a biography by Gordon Craig was scheduled to be published.



1819-1910



Julia Ward Howe, US writer and reformer. She wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

A Regency Era Timeline 1818 in progress

Timeline

Each time I start a year, I have already compiled a list, months ago with about 6000 entered of what happened from 1788 to 1837. My first step now (It took several trials to get this down to a science) is to cut out the specific year I will work on and paste it into its own spreadsheet to work with. When I worked on the entire spreadsheet, sometimes inserting a line, with all the graphics I had begun to place, took a long time. Working on each year alone, is a lot faster.

With the year separated out, I now turn to my book sources,

The Timetables of History by Grun and Stein

Chronology of CULTURE by Paxton and Fairfield

What Happened When by Carruth.

, History of the World. A beautiful Dorling Kindersley book.

I now and diligently look through each of these to find entries that I did not come across on the internet, and other printed lists. It is possible that there are places that have more listings for each year. I have not found them. And when you go to the Timelines at the Regency Assembly Press page, there you will see all the graphical references as well. Something that I did not find anywhere else.

Here is the start of 1818:

Year

Month Day

Event



1818

Jan 1

An official reopening of the White House took place after being repaired from burning by British during War of 1812.



1818

Jan 1

The novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851) was published anonymously. It was an attack on industrialization. The work stemmed from a contest in 1816 at Byron’s Villa Diodati in Geneva, between Byron, Shelley and Mary to produce a ghost story. In 1998 Joan Kane Nichols published “Mary Shelley: Frankenstein’s Creator.” In 2006 Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler authored “The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein.” In 2007 Susan Tyler Hitchcock authored “Frankenstein: A Cultural History.”



1818

Jan 2

Lord Byron completed “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” (4th canto).



1818

Feb 7

The first successful U.S. educational magazine, Academician, began publication in New York City.



1818

Feb 11

In Louisiana sugar plantation owner Levi Foster sold to his in-laws the slaves named Kit (28) for $975 and Alick (9) for $400. In 2000 Gwendolyn Midlo Hall and LSU Press published a CD-ROM database on Louisiana slave transactions: “Databases for the Study of Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1699-1860: Computerized Information from Original Manuscript Sources.”



1818

Feb 12

Chile officially proclaimed its independence, more than seven years after initially renouncing Spanish rule [see Feb 12, 1817].



1818

February

February: Sweden’s King Karl XIII dies and is succeeded by Karl XIV Johan.



1818

Mar 28

Wade Hampton (d.1902), Confederate general, was born.



1818

Mar 28

Giuseppe Antonio Capuzzi (62), composer, died.



1818

March

March: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is published.



1818

Apr 4

Congress decided the flag of the United States would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.



1818

Apr 7

Gen. Andrew Jackson captured St. Marks, Fla., from the Seminole Indians.



1818

Apr 14

The US Medical Corp. formed.



1818

Apr 16

U.S. Senate ratified the Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed U.S.-Canada border. The Rush-Bagot Agreement between Great Britain and the U.S. had to do with mutual disarmament on the Great Lakes. In the exchange of notes between British minister to the U.S. Charles Bagot and Richard Rush, Acting Secretary of State, the countries agreed to limits on their inland naval forces. A sequel to the Treaty of Ghent, the agreement was approved by the U.S. Senate on April 16, 1818.



1818

Apr 18

A regiment of Indians and blacks was defeated at the Battle of Suwanna, in Florida, ending the first Seminole War.



1818

Apr 28

President Monroe proclaimed naval disarmament on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.



1818

Apr 29

Alexander II, Tsar of Russia (1855-1881), was born.



1818

Apr

Dr. John William Polidori published “The Vampyre,” a novel based on an unpublished story fragment by Lord Byron. Polidori was Byron’s personal physician.



1818

April

April: The first known two-wheeled, rider-propelled vehicle goes on display at Paris. Developed by German inventor Karl Drais, it has a seat and handlebars but no pedals. Called a Draisienne, it becomes a popular novelty throughout Europe. The following summer, a Covent Garden coachman, Denis Johnson, patents his own version of the contraption that he calls a “pedestrain curricle.” But most people will call it a “hobby horse.” It will disappear into oblivion after a few years, but it ultaimtely led to the invention of the pedal-driven bicycle in 1863.



1818

May 5

Karl Marx, German philosopher, was born in Prussia. He argued that history was marked by various stages of class struggle and capitalism which had overcome feudalism would in turn be overcome by socialism and the elimination of private property. He and Friedrich Engels founded Communism (1847). Together they wrote “The Communist Manifesto” and “Das Capital.”



1818

May 10

Paul Revere (b.1735) American patriot, died in Boston. Revere, best known for his midnight ride, fathered 16 children-eight by his first wife Sarah Orne and eight by his second wife, Rachel Walker. Born to Apollos Rivoire and Deborah Hitchbourne, Paul Revere was one of 13 children.



1818

May 20

William George Fargo, one of the founders of Wells, Fargo & Co., actor, was born.



1818

May 24

Gen. Andrew Jackson captured Pensacola, Florida.



1818

May 25

Jacob Christoph Burckhardt (d.1897), Swiss cultural historian, was born. “The people no longer believe in principles, but will probably periodically believe in saviors.” “Neither in the life of the individual nor in that of mankind is it desirable to know the future.”



1818

May 27

Amelia Jenks Bloomer (d.1894), American reformer who popularized the “bloomers” garment that bears her name, was born in Homer, N.Y. Amelia Jenks Bloomer, Seneca Falls, N.Y., was the editor of The Lily, a periodical “devoted to the interests of women. “Along with her support of woman suffrage and temperance, Bloomer was an advocate of dress reform. Believing that restrictive corsets and cumbersome skirts were injurious to the health of women, in the 1850s Bloomer designed and often wore a comfortable costume of a short skirt worn over baggy trousers drawn tight at the ankle. Bloomer’s costume, portrayed in this Currier and Ives print, became so controversial that any reasonable talk of dress reform was drowned out by the jeers. Finally, Elizabeth Cady Stanton advised bloomer advocates to abandon the costume. It was not until the 1930s and 40s that women began wearing pants, although bloomers were the inspiration for early bicycling and beach apparel.



1818

May 28

P.G.T. Beauregard, Confederate general, was born. He first fired on Fort Sumpter and fought at First Manassas, and Shiloh.



1818

May

May: Author Matthew “Monk” Lewis dies at age 42.



1818

Jun 1

Mathematician James Camak demarcated the border between Georgia and Tennessee. Due to a faulty sextant and bad astronomical charts he drew the line a mile south of the intended boundary, the 35th parallel.



1818

Jun 2

The British army defeated the Maratha alliance in Bombay, India.



1818

Jun 10

Pesaro opera theater opened with Rossini’s “La Gaza Ladra.”



1818

Jun 16

An ice-dammed lake in the Val de Bagnes above Martigny broke through its barrier causing many deaths. This event led Jean de Charpentier to focus on Swiss glaciers and then influence Louis Agassiz with his ideas regarding glacier development.



1818

Jun 17

Charles Francois Gounod, opera composer of “Faust” and “Romeo et Juliette,” was born in Paris, France.



1818

Jul 1

Ignaz Semmelweis (d.1865), Hungarian gynecologist, was born. He later connected childbed fever to doctors who spread of germs due to their failure to wash their hands. In 2003 Sherwin B. Nuland authored “The Doctors’ Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis.”



1818

Jul 30

Emily Bronte (d.1848), English author of “Wuthering Heights,” was born. She was the younger sister of Charlotte Bronte and died of tuberculosis.



1818

July

July: Edward, Duke of Kent, 4th son of George III, enters the race to secure the succession and marries Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. (Like his elder brother William, he had never married but instead had kept long-term mistresses.)



1818

July

July: William, Duke of Clarence (who would later reign as William IV) marries Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. After Princess Charlotte’s death, the 53-year old duke is third in line to the throne after his brothers, the Prince Regent and the Duke of York. Since neither of his brothers have legitimate children, William is sure to inherit the throne, and marries to insure the succession. He and Adelaide will have two children who die in infancy.



1818

Aug 1

Maria Mitchell (d.1889), the first female astronomer in the U.S., was born. She discovered a comet in 1847 and was the first prof. of astronomy at Vassar College. In 1869 she was the first woman elected to the American Philosophical Society.



1818

Aug 7

Henri Charles Litolff, French composer, pianist, was born.



1818

Aug 13

Suffragist Lucy Stone, women’s rights activist, founder of Woman’s Journal, was born in West Brookfield, Mass.



1818

Aug 22

Warren Hastings (85), 1st governor-general of India (1773-84), died.



1818

Aug 28

Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, trader, founder of Chicago, died.



1818

Sep 12

Richard Gatling (d.1903), American inventor, was born. The Gatling gun, an early type of machine gun, was named after him.



1818

September

September: England’s Queen Charlotte dies at age 74.



1818

Oct 8

2 English boxers were 1st to use padded gloves.



1818

Oct 15

Irvin McDowell (d.1985), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.



1818

Oct 19

US and Chickasaw Indians signed a treaty.



1818

Oct 20

The United States and Britain established the 49th Parallel as the boundary between Canada and the United States.



1818

Oct 22

Leconte de Lisle, writer, was born.



1818

Oct 24

Felix Mendelssohn (9) performed his 1st public concert in Berlin.



1818

Oct 28

Abigail Adams, wife of former Pres. John Adams, died. In 1975 some 200 letters of Abigail Adams were published as “The Book of Abigail and John.”



1818

Oct 28

Ivan Turgenev (d.1883), Russian novelist, poet, playwright (Fathers & Sons), was born. [see Nov 9]



1818

October

October: Sir Thomas Lawrence travels to Aix-la-Chapelle to paint the sovereignas and diploats gathered for the Congress.    



1818

October

October: The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle is a gathering of the four allied powers (Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia) to decide the question of the withdrawal of the army of occupation from France and the nature of the relations of the four powers towards each other, and collectively towards France. Occupation troops begin to leave France before winter.



1818

Nov 1

James Renwick, architect, was born. His work included St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC.



1818

Nov 5

Benjamin Butler (d.1893), later Union Civil War general, was born in New Hampshire.



1818

Nov 9

Ivan Turgenev, Russian author, was born. His work includes “Fathers and Sons” and “A Month in the Country.” [see Oct 28]



1818

Nov 21

Frenchman Hipolito Bouchard and Englishman Peter Corney led a 2-ship attack against the presidio at Monterey, Ca. Gov. Pablo de Sola and his soldiers and families fled as some 400 rebels pulled to shore. The presidio was ransacked and burned. Bouchard and Corney days later plundered Mission San Juan Capistrano and the rancho at El Refugio.



1818

Nov 21

Russia’s Czar Alexander I petitioned for a Jewish state in Palestine.



1818

Dec 3

Illinois was admitted as the 21st state.



1818

Dec 13

Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln, was born.



1818

Dec 14

The pirate Hippolyte Bouchard demanded gunpowder and other supplies from the padres at Mission San Juan Capistrano, Ca. The padres refused and the pirate sent 140 men to destroy the mission and the town was stripped of its provisions.



1818

Dec 21

Lewis H. Morgan, US ethnologist (Systems of Consanguinity), was born.



1818

Dec 24

James Prescott Joule, physicist , was born. He discovered the principal of the conservation of energy.



1818

Dec 24

“Silent Night” was composed by Franz Joseph Gruber.



1818

Dec 25

“Silent Night” by Franz Gruber was performed for the first time, at the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorff, Austria.



1818



Also published this year: Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometeus by Englishwoman Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley at the age of 21. She is the wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and daughter of women’s rights activist Mary Wollstonecraft and philosopher William Goodwin.



1818



At the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, France joins the four Great Powers: Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia.



1818



Britain’s Institution of Civil Engineers is founded.



1818



Britain’s Queen (Sophia) Charlotte dies in September at age 74, after having borne 15 children to George III.



1818



Chile gains independence from Spain.



1818



Hannah Mather Crocker, 46, daughter of Increase Mather, publishes Observations on the Real Rights of Women, with Their Appropriate Duties, Agreeable to Scripture, Reason, and Common Sense in Boston.



1818



In medicine, a surgeon for the first time presses his ear against a woman’s corset and hears a fetal heartbeat, inaugurating the first steps in investigating embryonic development.



1818



Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey is published postumously.  



1818



Jane Austen’s Persuasion is published postumously.



1818



John Keats’ epic poem Endymion is published.



1818



John Nash begins work on the new Regent’s Park area, with its neighbouring streets, terraces and crescents of elegant town houses and villas.



1818



Lord Byron completes the 4th and final canto of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.



1818



Queen Charlotte dies.



1818



Scottish explorer John Ross commands an Arctic expedition organised by the Admiralty, the first of a new series of attempts to solve the question of a Northwest Passage, ie going around the extreme northeast coast of America and sailing to the Bering Strait. His expedition fails to dscover anything new, and is later discredited.



1818



Susan Ferrier’s first novel, Marriage, is published.  



1818



The border between Canada and the United States are fixed along the 49th parallel, while both countries occupy Oregon.



1818



The Pedestrian Curricle, or Hobby Horse. It is propelled by the rider striking his heels to the ground, as though running. Denis Johnson, who patented the vehicle in England, opened a riding school in London, where gentlemen were instructed in the fine art of riding these new contraptions. Even so, they caused so many accidents that many municipalities banned them.



1818



The Royal Coburg Theatre that opens in Lambeth to stage popular melodramas and other productions. It will later be known as the Old Vic.



1818



The third Anglo-Maratha War ends in India as British troops crush all resistance. Having destroyed the Maratha confederacy, the British annex its territories. India’s Rajput states (Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Udaipur), Poona, and the Holkar family of Indore come under British control, ending the independent kingdom of the Maharashtra that was established in 1674. Rajasthan had surrendered in 1817. The British now control most of India.



1818



The Zulu Empire in Africa is found by the great Chaka Zulu, their military chieftain.



1818



Third Anglo-Maratha War ends with the East India Company in control of almost the whole of India.



1818



Thomas Love Peacock’s Nightmare Abbey is published.



1818





1818



Queen Charlotte dies at Kew. Manchester cotton spinners’ strike. Riot in Stanhope between lead miners and the Bishop of Durham’s men over Weardale gaming rights. Piccadilly Circus constructed in London.



1818



Before the Season, the wild and wicked Chas Prestwick brings excitement to the life of the demur Anne Fairchild in more ways than one in The Unflappable Miss Fairchild.



1818



Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are published posthumously.



1818



The Third Anglo-Maratha War ends with the break-up of the Maratha Empire and the British in control of most of India.



1818



For the Ottoman Empire, Egyptians are taking control of the Arabian Peninsula. They destroy the mud-brick town of Diriyah (thirteen miles from the center of what today is Riyadh) which had been the home base of the Saud family and Wahhabis. 



1818



Theophile Bra, French academic sculptor, won the Prix de Rome.



1818



Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), German Romantic landscape artist, creating his painting “Wanderer Above a Sea of Clouds.”



1818



The “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” (1706-1790), an unfinished record of his life, was published posthumously in London. An earlier French edition had appeared in 1791.



1818



John Keats published his poem “Endymion.”



1818



David Young, poet, teacher and astronomer, began publishing a Farmer’s Almanac.



1818



The Epistles of John were published by the American Bible Society in the language of the Delaware Indians.



1818



People began wearing left and right shoes. Shoes were made identical for either foot prior to this.



1818



Henry Sands Brooks began H. & D.H. Brooks & Co. in mostly rural Manhattan. It became a key military supplier during the Civil War. A 2nd store opened in 1928 and operations grew to the well known chain known as Brooks Brothers.



1818



A handful of Cherokee emigrated to Oklahoma 20 years before the Trail of Tears. They are known as the Old Settlers.



1818



Franciscan priests established the Santa Ysabel Mission to convert the Kumeyaay Indians in San Diego County.



1818



Illinois became the 21st state of the US.



1818



The Libbey Glass Co. of Toledo, Ohio, was founded as the New England Glass Company by Edward Drummond Libbey. Libbey collected glass “through the ages” in a museum for the inspiration his workers. In 1999 it was a division of Owens-Illinois.



1818



Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH) was founded in Philadelphia as John A. Brown and Company, an importer of linen. On January 1, 1931, Brown Brothers And Company merged with Harriman Brothers & Company, an investment company started in 1912 with railway money.



1818



Abigail Adams, wife of former Pres. John Adams, died.



1818



Dr. James Blundell (1791-1878), a British obstetrician, performed the first successful transfusion of human blood, for the treatment of postpartum hemorrhage.



1818



Grozny was established in the northern Caucasus as a Russian fortress.



1818



In Russia the Smirnoff family went into the vodka business.



1818



In Spain the last prosecution of the Spanish Inquisition was held.



1818



In Spain an annual national Christmas lottery was begun.



1818-1820



John Keats (d.1821), English poet, lived in Hampstead and wrote “The Eve of St. Agnes,” “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and “Ode to a Nightingale.”



1818-1883



Karl Marx, German writer and theorist for socialism. Marx called his own philosophy dialectical materialism, and claims to start philosophically from a point of view opposite to Hegel. Marx asserts that he starts from concrete reality and not from an idea, as does Hegel. Knowing history as well as he hid, he claimed to be able not only to explain why things happened as they had, but also to predict what was going to happen in the future.



1818-1885



Henry Wheeler Shaw, “Josh Billings,” American author: “As scarce as truth is, the supply is always greater than the demand.”



1818-1889



James Prescott Joule, English experimental physicist, measured the mechanical, or energy, equivalent of heat itself.