Posts Tagged ‘history’


What? You mean there's more to Gettysburg than just the Civil War battle?

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     I have a new e-book available on Kindle called Beyond the Battlefield: Stories from Gettysburg’s Rich History and it happens to be coming out around the same time I’m beginning a new history column for the Gettysburg Times with the same theme.      Gettysburg is best-known for the epic Civil War battle that was fought there in 1863. It tends to overshadow many of the other interesting and important stories that have taken place in Gettysburg and the vicinity. Gettysburg was home to one of the first tank training camps in the country during World War I that was located on a portion of the Civil War battlefield. This also brought a young army officer to Gettysburg who would play a very important role in town but also the world. His name was Dwight David Eisenhower. Gettysburg was also home to Read more…

Mystery of the Hindenburg fire solved

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When the Hindenburg burst into flames over Lakehurst, N.J., on May 6, 1937, so did the dreams of large-scale air travel by dirigible. A recent article in the UK Guardian called the Hindenburg “the Concorde of its day – able to cross the Atlantic in about three days, twice as fast as going by sea.” Since then, the Hindenburg has become nearly as famous as the Titanic, in part because of the mystery that surrounds the cause of the fire and also because of the pictures and movie clips that exist of the disaster. People are still curious about it even 76 years later. My 11-year-old was even talking to me about it recently. Now a group of researchers have said that they know how the Hindenburg caught fire. Jem Stansfield, a British aeronautical engineer at the South West Research Read more…

King Richard III's skeleton found under a parking lot

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King Richard III’s skeleton was found under a Leicester, England, parking lot. When I read this story the first time, I was amazed. For all the importance placed on royalty in England, how could this happen with an English king? I mean, how do you misplace a king? The skeleton was discovered in August 2012 when the ground was excavated in a city council parking lot. The bones were taken to the University of Leicester where they underwent DNA testing to confirm that they matched that of members of the Royal Family. With the confirmation, the bones will be reinterred in the Leicester Cathedral. The bones were carbon dated to between 1455 and 1540 and were from a man in his late 20s or early 30s. The skeleton also had 10 injuries with two that were potentially fatal. Richard III Read more…

Take a look at the oldest known baseball card

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I’ve been working on a couple articles about the Blue Ridge Class D Baseball League and I came across this story while doing research. Baseball has its origins in America to the 18th Century. The earliest mention that has been found so far is a 1791 ordinance in Pittsfield, MA. As the game gathered fans, people sought ways to capitalize on the popularity. One of those ways was baseball cards. The first dated baseball card, according to the Library of Congress is an 1865 team photo of the Brooklyn Atlantics. Unlike baseball cards of today, this one is an original picture mounted on a card. “None of the players (or the skipper) have been identified by individual name. The Brooklyn team created the card as a promotional stunt and because it was a frequent league champion,” David Brown wrote in Read more…

Get the "Between Rail and River" e-book FREE Jan. 22-24

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To celebrate Canawlers coming back into print in paperback, I’m offering the second book in the Canawlers series, Between Rail and River, for free on you Kindle from Jan. 22-24. Between Rail and River picks up where Canawlers ends. As the Fitzgerald family struggles to make it through the winter of 1862-1863 and what has been a poor boating year on the C&O Canal, the Civil War is drawing ever closer to being fought aboard the Freeman. George Fitzgerald’s unexpected return from the war pits him against David Windover, an ex-Confederate spy, who now works and lives with the Fitzgeralds. Alice Fitzgerald struggles to hold her family together as a vindictive sheriff and a haughty doctor’s wife work to tear them apart. Tony, the street urchin from Cumberland, has found a life aboard the Freeman, but Sheriff Lee Whittaker has Read more…

"Canawlers" back in print!

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It’s been a couple years since I allowed Canawlers to go out of print. I still kept getting requests from bookstores and some individual buyers to get copies, though. I went back and forth about it, but since I’m hoping to bring the third book in the trilogy out around Christmas time, I figured I would need to have the first book available, too. So I gave in and brought the book back in print. It is available today and it is still only $17.95. You can order a copy from Amazon and if it’s not in your favorite bookstore yet, they should probably be able to order it. Canawlers is a family saga set on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal during the Civil War. Hugh Fitzgerald proudly calls himself a “canawler.” He works on the C&O Canal transporting coal Read more…

The Man Who Made Personalized Movies

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Sometimes even heroes need saving. Don Newland showed the country that everyone could be a movie star. One day a person might be driving a taxi, practicing law or simply a mother caring for her children and the next day Newland would have them in front of his movie camera saying lines and becoming a movie star. It was the classic “A Star is Born” discovery except that it wasn’t happening to Lana Turner who was discovered at a soda bar in Hollywood. It was happening to John Q. Public in Cumberland and dozens of other small cities across the country.   Don Newland Newland was an “itinerant filmmaker,” which is a filmmaker who traveled from city to city shooting a film with local actors before moving on to the next city. He is known to have filmed dozens of Read more…

Saving Shallmar: Christmas Spirit in Coal Town

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If you’re looking for a great Christmas gift, consider getting a copy of my latest book, Saving Shallmar: Christmas Spirit in a Coal Town. It’s a true story that will also give you a picture of what living in a coal company town was like in the mid-20th Century. In fall turned to winter in 1949, the residents of Shallmar, Maryland, were starving. The town’s only business, the Wolf Den Coal Corp. had closed down, unemployment benefits ended and few people had cars to drive to other jobs. When children started fainting in school, Principal J. Paul Andrick realized the dire situation the town was in and set out to help. He set out to try and get help for the town’s residents and succeeded beyone his wildest dreams just in time for Christmas. You can order a copy here.

Rare "Lost" Book Turns Out to Be Simply Forgotten

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Earlier this year, a rare 270-year-old book was found in a Charleston, South Carolina, library. Dissertation Upon Parties by Henry St. John Lord Bolingbroke was published in 1743. It was one of 800 books that John Mackenzie, a planter and diplomat, donated to the College of Charleston in the 1700’s. However, this book, one of 15 known to still exist, never made it to the college. When Mackenzie made the donation, the library at the college wasn’t ready for it. While a new library was being built, the books were stored at the Charleston Library Society. A 1778 fire nearly destroyed the Library Society and only 77 books were thought to have been saved. Dissertation Upon Parties makes 78 books. It was found after a multi-year search through the Library Society’s collection, which contains thousands of books. “We have lists Read more…

Zodiac Killer identified?

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In another case of 20/20 hindsight, there’s a retired California Highway Patrol officer, who says he knows who the infamous Zodiac Killer is. The Zodiac Killer was linked to five murders in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960’s and 1970’s, though he claimed to have killed 37. He sent coded messages that used symbols to the police, which is where his moniker came from. Lyndon Lafferty, the former CHP officer, says that the killer is now 91 years old and is a recovering alcoholic who lives in Fairfield, CA. He won’t name the man, though. To me, this says he’s probably not totally confident of his identification of the killer. Lafferty has written a book that say, the killer was enraged by his cheating wife. Because of this, a judge who was having an affair with the wife, Read more…