30 January 2012

War of 1812

Just a review of 'happenings'
On my blog http://walkingwithjim.blogspot.com/ I posted on 18 Dec 'Walking with Joseph'
He is my gr gr grandfather, Joseph Stanzel, and is walking around Europe in the years leading up to 1812.
On 19 Jan I posted 'Walking with Andrew'. He is Andrew Spearman a Sgt in 100th Regiment and he is walking around 'Canada' before the war started 18 June 1812. Both settled in Goulbourn Twp
Each will have two more posts, alternating monthly, around the 18th of the month.
Feb is a slow month as most Armies went into Winter Quarters and planned their activities for the next 'season' of conflict. My next post will be about the adventure of the 104th Regiment as they marched from Fredericton, NB to Quebec and eventually to Niagara area.

An excellent source of info on War of 1812 is Canada's Legion Magazine and their web site
www.Legionmagazine.com The last issue, Jan/Feb 2012, has three articles, the main one is by Donald E Graves.
Under Features click on '1812 The war that Saved Canada' Their Mag is the best bargain one can find, six issues a year, bi monthly, for $7.00. At end of above article is this quote
"As public interest in the War of 1812 continues to build, Legion magazine and its website will be a solid source of information on the war and its 200th Anniversary commemorations.
So please check us out!"

Anyone finding this font hard to read?? If your mouse has a wheel in middle, press Control and roll wheel away from you. This enlarges the font. Suggest you roll it back as the controls on right side disappear

29 January 2012

Timeline Jan 29 to 31

Jan 29
1796  Yonge Street officially opened, running from the town of York up to Lake Simcoe.
1820  King George III of England died at Windsor Castle.
1835  The Bytown Mechanics Institute and Athenaeum was founded.
1856  Alexander Dunn (Canadian) awarded Victoria Cross for gallantry at the 1854 Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War.
1894  A major winter storm hit Ottawa with a snowfall of 61 cm, paralyzing traffic (???).
1897  Lady Aberdeen, wife of the Governor General, helps found the Victorian Order of Nurses (VON).
1963  Robert Frost, American poet, died in Boston at age 88.

Jan 30
1649  England's King Charles I was beheaded.
1837  The population of Bytown was about 1,300.
1839  Lord Durham completed his report on the conditions in British North America.
1882  Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, was born in Hyde Park, N.Y. Died April 12, 1945.
1933  Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany.
1991  The Hudson's Bay Company announces it is selling its fur business; the HBC was originally founded as a fur trading company in 1670.
2007  Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system went on sale.

Jan 31
1606  Guy Fawkes, convicted for his part in the Gunpowder Plot against the English Parliament and King James I, was executed.
1851  Hamilton Gas Light Company installs First street lamps.
1863  Chief Justice Sir Beverley Robinson died in Toronto.
1907  Timothy Eaton, founder of the T. Eaton Company of Canada, dies
1957  Canadian Government makes Thanksgiving Day a statutory holiday, to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October.
1971  Astronauts Alan B. Shepard Jr., Edgar D. Mitchell and Stuart A. Roosa blasted off aboard Apollo 14 on the third successful manned mission to the moon.

27 January 2012

Timeline Jan 26 to 28

Jan 26
1679  The keel was laid for La Salle's Griffon, the first ship built above Niagara Falls.
1788  The first European settlers in Australia landed in present-day Sydney.
1836  John Colborne assumes his new post as Commander-in-Chief of British forces in British North America.
1857  Kemptville was incorporated as a village.
1961  Wayne Gretzky was born in Brantford.

Jan 27
1832  Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who wrote "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" under the pen name Lewis Carroll, was born in Cheshire, England.
1832  Lewis Carroll, English logician, mathematician, photographer and novelist, was born.
1854  The Great Western Railway line was opened between London and Windsor.
1859  The official announcement was made that Ottawa would be the capital of the United Canadas.
1870  Manitoba and the Northwest Territories incorporated.
1880  Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
1938  The Honeymoon suspension bridge erected in 1898 between Niagara Falls, Ontario and New York, collapsed.
1945  Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.

Jan 28
1547  England's King Henry VIII died.
1596  English navigator Sir Francis Drake died off the coast of Panama.
1850  The Municipal Council of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville assembled at Brockville for its first meeting.
1885  Nile Expedition - Frederick Denison reaches the northern outskirts of the city of Khartoum with his Canadian Nile Voyageurs on the expedition led by General Garnet Wolseley, who had led the Red River Expedition of 1870; they will be too late to rescue British General Charles Gordon, who had been trapped and killed during a Muslim uprising; Canada's First overseas military expedition.
1905  Ellen Fairclough, the first woman to be appointed to a federal cabinet, was born in Hamilton.

24 January 2012

Timeline Jan 24 to 25

Jan 24
1848  James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutter's Mill in northern California, sparking the gold rush of '49.
1848  Reformers led by Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine sweep elections in both Canada East and Canada West; will lead to the achievement of Responsible Government on March 11.
1908  The first Boy Scout troop was organized in England by Robert Baden-Powell.
1924  The Russian city of St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad in honor of the late revolutionary leader.
1952  Vincent Massey (1887-1967) was appointed the first Canadian-born Governor General of Canada.
1955  A plan was announced to build the first Canadian atomic energy power plant at Rapides des Joachims near Pembroke on the Ottawa River.
1965  Winston Churchill died in London at age 90.

Jan 25
1627  Louis Hébert dies of a fall, after ten years in Québec; body later reinterred in church attached to the Québec General Hospital; Canada's First doctor, apothecary, settler.
1627  Robert Boyle, Anglo-Irish chemist, was born.
1759  Robert Burns, Scottish national poet, was born in Alloway.
1791  British Parliament approves bill splitting the old province of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada, each with its own assembly.
1822  William McDougall, a father of Confederation, was born near Toronto.
1915  The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated U.S. transcontinental telephone service.

22 January 2012

Timeline Jan 22 & 23

Jan 22
1690  The Iroquois signed a peace treaty with the British and Great Lakes tribes.
1812  British forces crossed the Detroit River at Amherstburg and defeated American troops at Frenchtown.
1901  Queen Victoria died at age 81 after 63 years on the British throne.
1944  Allied forces began landing at Anzio, Italy, during World War II.

Jan 23
1737  John Hancock, American Revolutionary statesman, was born.
1828  Sir John Carling was born on London Township. He was minister of agriculture for Canada 1885-92 and established the first Dominion Experimental Farm.
1836  Sir Francis Bond Head arrived in Toronto to replace Sir John Colborne as lieutenant governor of Upper Canada.
1869  The passing of the Mining Act opened crown and private lands to licensed prospectors.
1888  Natural gas was discovered at Kingsville.
1973  President Richard Nixon announced an accord had been reached to end the Vietnam War.

19 January 2012

Timeline Jan 19 to 21

Jan 19
1736  James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, was born in Scotland.
1813  War of 1812 - Brig. Gen. James Winchester captures Frenchtown, 40 km south of Detroit; defended by handful of Canadian militia and Iroquois.
1824  The Welland Canal Company was incorporated by an act of the Ontario legislature.
1943  Princess Juliana of the Netherlands gave birth to a daughter, Margriet, at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. The Canadian Government declared the delivery room to be Netherlands territory for the day.
1950  Inaugural flight of the Avro Canada CF-100 military jet. Malton, Ontario.

Jan 20
1936  King George V of Britain died.

Jan 21
1793  France's King Louis XVI was executed on the guillotine.
1891  Calixa Lavallée, composer of O Canada, dies at age 48 in Boston, Massachusetts.
1919  The Canadian Engineering Standards Association (now known as the Canadian Standards Association) was established in Toronto.
1936  Edward, Prince of Wales, proclaimed King Edward VIII, one day after the death of his father, George V.
1941  Placido Domingo, Opera singer, was born.

17 January 2012

Bytown or Bust

Ottawa Branch member Allan Lewis has a large web site for history and genealogy in the Ottawa area. It is located at www.bytown.net and consists of about 1,600 web pages (so far). The site has a dedicated Google search engine on every page, where visitors are able to search for surnames, geographic locations or subject matter. It also covers immigration from the U.K and Ireland as well as emigration from Ontario to the United States and Western Canada in the 1800’s. Visitors are able to contact others who fall within their circle of family research and, by e-mail to me, can post inquiries and interact with other researchers. This web site is free.

Timeline Jan 17 & 18

Jan 17
1706  Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Mass.
1839  Sir John Colborne took the oath of office as Governor General of British North America.
1850  Elizabeth Simcoe, wife of John Graves Simcoe, first governor of Upper Canada, died at Wolford Lodge, England.
1899  Al Capone, American Gangster, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Jan 18
1788  The first English settlers arrived in Australia's Botany Bay.
1854  Thomas Watson, American telephone pioneer and shipbuilder, was born.
1912  English explorer Robert F. Scott and his expedition reached the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had gotten there first.
1919  The World War I peace conference opened in Versailles, France.

15 January 2012

Timeline Jan 15 to 16

Jan 15
1879  Mazo de la Roche, author of The Whiteoaks of Jalna, was born in Toronto.
1892  James Naismith, published the rules of basketball for the first time, in Springfield, Mass.
1908  Nuclear physicist Edward Teller was born in Budapest.
1961  Bruce Kidd of Toronto, at age 17, won the two mile indoor race in Boston in world record time.
1973  Richard Nixon, U.S. President, announced the suspension of all U.S. offensive action in North Vietnam.
1996  The Corel Centre, the new home of the Ottawa Senators, was opened in Ottawa.
2004  The NASA Spirit rover rolled onto the surface of Mars.
2009  US Airways Capt Chelsey Sullenberger guided a jetliner disabled by a bird strike just after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport to a safe landing in the Hudson River.

Jan 16
1859  Henry Mill Pellatt, the builder of Casa Loma in Toronto, was born in Kingston.
1874  Robert Service, Canadian verse writer, was born.
1920  U.S. Prohibition began as the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect.
1965  The Auto Pact was signed by Prime Minister Lester Pearson and US President Lyndon Johnson.
1973  Ottawa born actor Lorne Greene stars in the last episode of TV western Bonanza.
1991  The US White House announced the start of Operation Desert Storm to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

11 January 2012

Timeline Jan 11 to 14

Jan 11
1815  Sir John A Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland.
1939  Anne Heggtveit was born in Ottawa. She won a gold medal in skiing on 1960.
1935  Aviator Amelia Earhart began a trip from Honolulu to Oakland, Calif., becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.
1952  British Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited Ottawa for four days.

Jan 12
1588  John Winthrop, Massachusetts Bay Colony founder, was born. Died March 26, 1649. (O.S.)
1860  British Columbia - Governor James Douglas issues a proclamation allowing preemption of land, not to exceed 160 acres, by any British subject. It makes available unsurveyed land in the Lower Mainland for farms to feed the gold mining camps. Legislative Council passes a land ordinance which claims all lands within the Colony's boundaries for the Crown.
1995  Toronto-born rock superstar Neil Young inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
2010  The Beaver magazine changes its name to Canada's History.

Jan 13
1838  William Lyon Mackenzie evacuates Navy Island under heavy artillery fire from British troops; he had settled there after his failed rebellion against the British in Upper Canada.
1908  Alexander Graham Bell and his Aerial Experiment Association makes its first trial of a bamboo biplane hang glider, which evolves into the June Bug and Silver Dart powered planes. Baddeck, Nova Scotia.
1964  Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, was appointed archbishop of Krakow, Poland, by Pope Paul VI.
1999  Toronto calls in the Canadian Army to help dig its way out of a snow dump. Toronto, Ontario.

Jan 14
1741  Benedict Arnold, American patriot/traitor, was born.
1784  The United States ratified a peace treaty with England ending the Revolutionary War.
1830  The Rapids settlement on the St. Clair River, was officially named Sarnia.
1861  Province of Canada census taken on this day.
1948  Barbara Ann Scott of Ottawa won the European ice-skating championship in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

08 January 2012

War of 1812

Battle of New Orleans 8 Jan 1815
Details of this battle are told in Jon Latimer's "1812 War with America" pages 369 - 388
A map of the battle is on page 382. We have probably all heard of the song by Johnny Horton singing "We took a little bacon and we took a little beans and we caught the bloody British near the town of New Orleans" to quote a few lines.

Pierre Burton in "Flames..." describes the engagement on pages 423-429

Battle of the River Raisin 22 Jan 1813
Latimer details the battle and the massacre which followed on pages 117-120.
It was not pleasant.

Above are the engagements for January, disregarding the year.
Not suitable for outside activities in the great white north

Timeline Jan 8 to 10

Jan 8
1642  Astronomer Galileo Galilei died in Arcetri, Italy.
1815  U.S. forces led by Gen. Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans.
1879  The first issue of La Gazette d'Ottawa was published.
1935  Rock 'n' roll singer Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Miss. Died Aug. 16, 1977.
1948  William Lyon Mackenzie King established the record for being prime minister longer than any other government leader in the British Commonwealth.
1954  The world's longest crude-oil pipeline reached Sarnia after stretching 2,850 km. from the province of Alberta.

Jan 9
1885  An international bridge crossing the St. Mary's River at Sault Ste Marie opened.
1886  T.P. "Tommy" Gorman, one of the five men involved in the birth of the National Hockey League in 1917 was born in Ottawa.
1889  The Niagara Suspension bridge collapsed during a bad storm.
2001  Apple Computer Inc. introduced its iTunes music management software at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco.
2007  Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone.

Jan 10
1776  Thomas Paine published the pamphlet "Common Sense."
1842  Sir Charles Bagot arrived in Upper Canada to take up his post as Governor General of British North America.
1923  John Cunningham McLennan of Ingersoll successfully produce a significant quantity of liquid helium. He received the KBE for discovering cosmic rays.
1935  Ronnie Hawkins, Rock singer and musician, was born in Huntsville, Arkansas.
1964  The Beatles' first album in the United States, "Introducing the Beatles," was released.

05 January 2012

Timeline Jan 5 to 7

Jan 5
1838  Col. Anthony Van Egmond was apprehended by the militia following the failed insurrection. He died a month later at age 67 in a hospital.
1856  Dr. Elizabeth Rabb Beatty, one of the first medical graduates from Queen's University, was born in Leeds County.
1870  The first issue of Le Courier d'Ottawa went on sale.
1943  Educator and scientist George Washington Carver died in Tuskegee, Ala., at age 81.

Jan 6
1492  According to tradition, Joan of Arc was born in Domremy, France.
1838  Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrated his telegraph, in Morristown, N.J.
1896  An earthquake shook Ottawa.

Jan 7
1610  Astronomer Galileo Galilei sighted four of Jupiter's moons.
1789  The first U.S. presidential election was held. Americans voted for electors who, a month later, chose George Washington to be the nation's first president.
1827  Sir Sandford Fleming, originator of "standard time" and designer of the first Canadian postage stamp, was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland.
1955  The opening ceremonies of the Canadian Parliament were broadcast on television for the first time.

02 January 2012

Timeline Jan 2 to 4

Jan 2
1492  The leader of the last Arab stronghold in Spain surrendered to Spanish forces loyal to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I.
1727  James Wolfe, English general who captured Quebec, was born.
1832  William Lyon Mackenzie scored a convincing victory in a by-election in the town of York.
1869  The first bridge across the Niagara gorge opened.
1908  The Royal Mint was opened in Ottawa.
1920  Isaac Asimov, the popular science fiction writer, was born.

Jan 3
1521  Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
1777  Gen. George Washington's army routed the British in the Battle of Princeton, N.J.
1892  J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa.
1918  The first draftees were called up under the WW I Military Service Act (Canada).
1961  The United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Jan 4
1643  Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist and father of modern science, was born.
1800  Attorney General John White of Upper Canada died after being shot in a duel the preceding day. The duel was with John Small, clerk of the Executive Council.
1809  Louis Braille, French educator and inventor of Braille, was born.
1813  Sir Isaac Pitman, English educator and inventor of shorthand, was born.
1838  William Lyon Mackenzie, while visiting Buffalo, was arrested for violating American neutrality laws. He had planned and invasion of Canada from Navy Island in the Niagara River.

01 January 2012

Timeline January 1st

1855  Ottawa, with a population of 10,000, was incorporated as a city.

1892  The Ellis Island Immigrant Station in New York opened.
1901  The Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed.
1907  The municipality of Toronto and 18 other municipalities in southwestern Ontario voted to join the newly established Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario.
1959  The Ontario Hospital Care Insurance Plan, with costs shared equally by the federal and provincial governments, came into existence.
1994  The North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect.