In Echoes of Purple and Gold, Jack Keefe stacks local history like cordwood, telling forgotten tales and making odd connections that people no longer suspect.What school kid hasn't heard--or heard about--the story of Ichabod Crane in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"? He was both fictional and real. The fictional Crane is the one everyone knows about. But there were also two real ones. One was a military man in the nineteenth century; the other had a lot of influence on central Illinoi...

Stories from fishing on the Labrador coast to the fire in Nain in 1921, enjoy tales from a bygone era in Labrador.

"[A] vital investigation of Forsyth’s history, and of the process by which racial injustice is perpetuated in America." —U.S. Congressman John LewisForsyth County, Georgia, at the turn of the twentieth century, was home to a large African American community that included ministers and teachers, farmers and field hands, tradesmen, servants, and children. But then in September of 1912, three young black laborers were accused of raping and murdering a white girl. One ...

"Leave now, or die!" Those words-or ones just as ominous-have echoed through the past hundred years of American history, heralding a very unnatural disaster-a wave of racial cleansing that wiped out or drove away black populations from counties across the nation. While we have long known about horrific episodes of lynching in the South, this story of racial cleansing has remained almost entirely unknown. These expulsions, always swift and often violent, were extraordinarily widesp...

A genealogical study of the Doty and Kelly families originally done by John Hubert Doty and updated by MaryAnn Doty Rizzo. Includes historical information and documentation. The Doty family goes back to the Mayflower. The Kelly family are Irish Canadians. Other families include: King, Miller, Force, Logue, Logsdon, Cavanee, and Dial. Some of these families have connections to George Washington.

Allendale on the Savannah - Revisited is based on an earlier work and is a historical account of the settlement and development of Allendale County, SC from the days of early Spanish explorers through 1970.It is based on the work of my Great Aunt, Alexania Easterling Lawton and Mrs. Minnie Reeves Wilson which was published in 1970. This work attempts to correct some of the mistakes in the original work and will be followed with another updated, and more in-depth sequel "Allendale C...

Wayne Countys Lost River Settlements is a history of six hamlets in southeastern Missouri that were destroyed by the government to clear the landscape for development of Lake Wappapello on the St. Francis River in the late 1930s. Several of the profitable river bottom homesteads had been in the families for well over 100 years, but with nothing else to do the evicted farmers moved on reluctantly in what became the greatest upheaval in the history of the county.With so much of Wayne...

Located near the convergence of the Choccolocco Creek, the Blue Eye Creek, and the Coosa River, whose Native American names pay tribute to the Muskogee who once populated the town, Lincoln attracted early settlers after the Cusseta Treaty was signed with the Creek Indians on March 24, 1832. Andrew Jackson passed through Lincoln on his way to the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, when the town was still known as Kingsville and before it was renamed in 1856 for a famous soldier who fought in the War...

Did you know that an estimated 5,000 blacks were an early and integral part of the California Gold Rush?Did you know that black history in California precedes Gold Rush history by some 300 years?Did you know that in California during the Gold Rush, blacks created one of the wealthiest, most culturally advanced, most politically active communities in the nation?Few people are aware of the intriguing, dynamic often wholly inspirational stories of African American argo...

Founded in 1896 by pension attorney P. H. Fitzgerald as a colony for Union veterans escaping the drought-stricken Midwest, Fitzgerald has built on the spirit of unity exhibited by its early Union and Confederate founders. The town produced such notable citizens as Gen. Ray Davis, assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps; U.N. ambassador Morris Abram; author Frances Mayes; Chief Justice Norman Fletcher; and folk artist Ulysses Davis. The inherent sense of citizen investment in the comm...

Located on the Southwest Trail that connected St. Louis to Texas, the town of Washington was established in 1824 in the southwest corner of Arkansas. Named after the first president of the United States, Washington is an example of a true American town with the city streets bearing the names of famous countrymen. American icons such as James Bowie, Sam Houston, and Davy Crockett all passed through this unique community. One of its citizens, a local blacksmith, made a knife for Bowie, which...

A Way West, R.P. McAlister Family History and Genealogy, encompasses the history and genealogy of eight families: Brittain, Gibbs, Humble, Keller, McAlister, Perkins, Powers and Steinmetz. These are ancestral links to Raymond Powers McAlister (Ray) and Minnie Gay Humble McAlister (Gay).As a child, I was told stories of connections to passage on the Mayflower, and roles ancestors played in the American Revolutionary War.I learned how a great-grandfather fought in the American ...