Almost 100 years ago, there was a great explosion in the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, that wrecked the city. It was near the middle of the fourth year of World War I and, while the US had been in the War for only 8 months, Canada, as a British Dominion, had sent soldiers…

As the frontier pushed west past Chicago in the 1840s, a problem appeared with the change from forest to prairie: the need for fencing. Farther east, wood for fencing was easy to come by, but the prairie was nearly treeless. The most common kind of fencing on the Illinois frontier was a large bush…

At Eastertime, Christians are reminded of the story that Jesus was betrayed for ‘thirty pieces of silver’. Big pieces…little pieces…we aren’t told. What is money and what is it worth? Almost two millennia later this is a question that, in the US, was largely settled in the Civil War. The unexpected Union loss…

In 1832, a son, Octave, was born to the Chanut family in Paris. When Octave was six, his father, estranged from his wife, took him and sailed to New Orleans to teach at the newly-created Jefferson College. The deepening financial crisis following the 1837 Crash led to his soon losing his job, so he…

A Story for Labor Day In these days of ‘gig’ employment and lots of home delivery options, we may forget why there is a day dedicated to those who work for a living—that is, most of us. In the late 1800s, there was a lot of labor unrest, in part because of long…