Previous: Lafayette Prepares To Enter The Greater Western New York Region
WNY portion of 1825 map published by H.S. Tanner, 177 Chestnut St. Philadelphia.
Remember how excited you were when you began a new school year, started a new job, or moved to a new place? Life fills you with promise and anticipation. You can’t wait to wake up and start the next day. Everything is sunshine and roses.
Then reality inevitably interrupts. Things get overwhelming. Despair and sometimes desperation set in. It seems as if you’re trapped. You can’t see a way out.
But, somehow, you find a way. You get over that hump. (Because, when you get over things, what once seemed like an overbearing mountain now appears as nothing more than a mere bothersome bump.)
Again, you look forward to tomorrow with an enthusiasm you thought you’d never again have.
Such was the state of Greater Western New York. It began as an enthusiastic rush into the Continue Reading “Lafayette’s Farewell Tour: The State Of Greater Western New York In 1825”
A European Tug Of War
Why, then, would the powers of the day go through all the trouble of pretense?
Well, first, it was all pretend. Europeans did come to this New World. Some explored. Some conquered. Many settled. Still, their activities covered only a small fraction of their claims.
But it was the claim itself that rendered prestige. It was a symbol of potency, a symbol of Continue Reading “A European Tug Of War”