The Stupid Cow Burned Down My City, a Serial Killer Named Holmes & Other Fantastic Tales
(Of The Last Global Reset?)
Once again, I am simply presenting information here and a few random observations. Feel free to use it or ignore it as you see fit. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions.
Part One
Chapter One: Chicago & Other Cities
As if we needed reminding, it’s 2020 and much of the nation is on fire or otherwise immersed in divisive unrest, violence and social chaos. A funny thing happened about 150 years ago. Much of America if not the world was on fire, seemingly rising out of a wasteland of ashes (see Phoenix, AZ, Chapter Two. A future post.)
What in the Wild West was happening in the 1800s? Magnificent Old World architecture. Bizarre fires across America. The destruction of the South courtesy of the last great Civil War. Orphan trains and gold rushes and a mysterious outbreak of insanity; atrocious human slavery and the genocide of Native Americans. There is so much emphasis on living in the now. Don’t live in the past. Don’t look back. Is this more programming? Few people these days give a rat’s ass about history. Well, perhaps they should . . .
This may be a bit of a stretch, I don't think so, but bear with me as I explore a few disturbing possibilities, or at least numerous strange anomalies presented to us regarding the ever more slippery slope of our so-called mainstream American history narrative, but which certainly is not isolated to this nation, alone. The next great global population and history “reset” may be upon us once again, these effects quite frightfully felt here in the United States and the rest of North America, if not more so around the world.
My efforts here are but a precursory introduction, barely scraping the iceberg of this deep and fascinating subject, and I encourage everyone to investigate further, starting with the work of Michelle Gibson, Jon Levi, Jay Weidner, Howdie Makoski, Graham Hancock, Miles Mathis and Matt McKinley of quantumofconscience.com, all of whom are referenced throughout this material.
Like most things—chemtrails, geoengineering, GMOs and vaccines--this appears to be a never ending, inter-connected series of rabbit holes which I will continue to pursue until I lose interest.
Consider the following set of remarkable coincidences.
Countless immense and very intricate (ancient-looking) structures around the world during the 1800s are said, we have been taught, to have been constructed, or even more impressive, to have been destroyed and amazingly rebuilt within a few short years.
City after city, country after country, such amazingly similar stories.
From roughly the mid-1800s to early 1900s, a wave of mysterious fires began wiping out many of America’s major metropolitan and mid-sized cities, sometimes more than once. These include Detroit (1805), Baltimore (1904), New York (at least twice, 1835, 1845), San Francisco (numerous times, to be examined in Chapter 2), Pittsburgh (1845), Denver (1863), Chicago (1871), Boston (1872), St. Louis (1849), Philadelphia (1850), both Portlands, Dallas (1860), Seattle (1889), Minneapolis (1893), Peshtigo, Wisconsin and several in Michigan (the very night before Chicago and well into the following days) as well as Urbana, Illinois, (the very next day), just to name a few. (This particular region of the Midwest, from Wisconsin to Illinois, back up through Michigan, happened to be a long-established stronghold of the Sioux Indians, by the way.)
And these are just the ones we've been told about . . .
Here’s an interesting link on the Great American Fires:
Here’s an interesting coincidence:
The Solar Eclipse of December 12, 1871.
A total solar eclipse occurred on December 12, 1871. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partly obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is larger than the Sun's, blocking all direct sunlight, turning day into darkness. Totality occurs in a narrow path across Earth's surface, with the partial solar eclipse visible over a surrounding region thousands of kilometres wide.
(Nearly a century earlier, two rounds of great fires conspired to destroy the French Quarter of New Orleans, in 1788 and 1794, respectively. These incidents perhaps completely unrelated to the rest but nothing's off the conspiracy table at this point.)
Detroit, Michigan
On the morning of June 11, 1805, the city of Detroit caught fire, presumably due to some wayward pipe ashes that set a barn ablaze.
“With the exception of one stone fort and the brick chimneys of wooden houses, the city was leveled to the ground by that afternoon. Shockingly, no one died in the Great Fire of 1805.”
And here we have this touching bit of prose from the Detroit Historical Society:
John Harvey the village baker harnessed his pony to drive to the mill for the next day's supply of flour. As he mounted the cart, he stopped to knock the ashes from his pipe. The wind caught the ashes and whirled them back through the open door of the shed bard into a pile of hay. The fire alarm spread quickly, and men came down Sainte Anne Street with all the fire equipment they could muster. In three hours the fire fighters were driven back until they were forced to escape. All the labor, love and hope that had gone into the making of old Detroit were gone without leaving a trace
What a touching tale of woe, indeed . . .
And thus we have Detroit’s apropos city motto: And so like a Phoenix from the ashes we shall rise again. Paraphrasing here, but close enough. (We'll explore Phoenix later, in Chapter 2.)
So, where did all the people go? Did they just live in tents for the next two years while the city was being rebuilt?
The Burning of Washington, D.C. (1814)
“The burning of Washington, D.C., in 1814 was one of America’s darkest hours. The new republic that had been created by the Founding Fathers less than a half-century earlier was in peril. Culminating in a flurry of disastrous British-American interactions that resulted in war - the War of 1812 acted as a pseudo-Revolutionary War that further solidified the United States’ legitimacy as a new nation independent from the British Empire.”
New York City doesn't have many buildings from the colonial period, and there's a reason for that: an enormous fire in December 1835 destroyed much of lower Manhattan. A huge portion of the city burned out of control, and the blaze was only stopped from spreading when Wall Street was literally blown up. The buildings purposely collapsed with gunpowder charges created a rubble wall that protected the rest of the city from the oncoming flames.
The St. Louis Fire of 1849 was a devastating fire that occurred on May 17, 1849 and destroyed a significant part of St. Louis, Missouri and many of the steamboats using the Mississippi River and Missouri River. This was the first fire in United States history in which it is known that a firefighter was killed in the line of duty.
The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, reportedly first caught fire in 1868, causing massive damage, and would burn at least 11 more times over the next century.
Wow, America certainly appears to have had some bad fire karma. This is uncanny. I guess every great city needs its great fire story. Although if you ask me, most of these are pretty hokey so far. Just wait until we get to Chicago, the granddaddy of them all.
But it's still a long way to Chicago . . .
Sacramento, California, 1852
Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 80, Number 109, 26 December 1890
“I I COLONEL AHDEEWS WAS IN IT AND j NOW TELLS ABOUT IT. , One of the M. ruorable Incident* in the History ot Sacrament j— A Costly Christmas Dinner. Many of the present residents of Sacramento were here in 1852, when a great fire swept out of esister.ee the greater portion of the city, and they will no doubt read with interest the following brief recital ol incidents connected therewith. Colonel A. Andrews, of San Francisco—like many othera of the prominent and wealthy men of that city—wes then a resident of Sacramento, and he thus relates bis experiences of thai (ioie ttuough the columns of the Examiner: While everyone else is describing his first Christmas in California, I will pass over to what some people would Bay was aiy worst Christmas in the State. This was in 1852, just after the preat Sacramento fire, and jast be'ore the great Sacramento flood cf 1853 .November 2, 1852.”
Here is the story behind the massive 1860 fire in Dallas. Roughly 700 people lived in Dallas in 1860 with more than 90 of them being black. (The Civil War will begin in nine months.) On the day of the fire, July 8th, it is thought that temperatures reached 110 degrees F. Add to this volatile mix the utter lack of a fire department – not even a volunteer one.
The Night Denver Burned: The Great Fire of 1863
“Environmental conditions were primed for a dangerous fire. The preceding weeks had been especially dry. A steady breeze blew throughout the night, constantly shifting direction and spreading the fire throughout the city. Moreover, there were few fire regulations, and citizens were often criticized for their lax attitude towards fire safety.”
Shame on them!
“The fire began in the heart of the downtown business district, starting at the back of the two-story Cherokee House, a saloon and hotel at the southwest corner of 15th and Blake. Some would later claim that the fire had been deliberately set - a number of fires in 1862 were started by people protesting the presence of brothels in Denver. Miscreants and robbers were often blamed as well . . . “
In 1918 Denver would go on to suffer a terrible flu pandemic, but that’s another story for some other time . . .
I guess if something happens enough times, we’re bound to believe it.
From Wikipedia, Great Boston Fire of 1872 (There was a previous fire in 1824).
Largest fire in Boston
The Great Boston Fire of 1872 was Boston's largest fire, and still ranks as one of the most costly fire-related property losses in American history. The conflagration began at 7:20 p.m. on Saturday, November 9, 1872, in the basement of a commercial warehouse at 83–87 Summer Street.
“The fire spread rapidly, producing tremendous heat. Even though many of the buildings in the fire's path were made of stone or brick, most of them had wooden signs, windows, or other wooden features, which caught fire. The flames were so hot that some structures actually melted in addition to burning.
Portland, Maine
Portland's Great Fire of 1866
The fire began on the afternoon of July 4th, 1866 as Portlanders celebrated Independence Day. Accidentally ignited, the fire was likely started by a firecracker or a cigar. It began on Commercial Street near the present-day location of Hobson’s Landing (until it closed in 2016, the Rufus Deering Lumber Yard) and spread to John Bundy Brown’s sugarhouse on Maple Street.
Like a Phoenix the City Arises from the Ashes!
Portland, Oregon
The Great Fire of 1873
. . . a major fire which swept through the downtown of Portland, Oregon on August 2, 1873, destroying twenty-two blocks on the west side of the Willamette River, including along Yamhill and Morrison Streets. A mix of mansions, tenements, and commercial property were destroyed.
And here we have Portland on fire again, in 2020.
(1880) The deadliest day for Cincinnati firefighters
On December 11, 1880 a fire at the J. P. Gay bucket factory at 7th and Culvert killed 5 Cincinnati Firefighters. This remains the single deadliest day for Cincinnati firefighters.
This one didn’t destroy the entire city at least. I included it as it struck me odd this was a bucket factory, which was apparently an indispensable tool at the time for fighting fires.
The Great Seattle Fire of 1889
The Great Fire of June 6, 1889 was a significant turning point in Seattle's history and changed both the physical and political landscapes of the City. The fire started at 2:30 p.m. in a paint and woodwork shop at Front and Madison and over the course of the next 18 hours swept a southward across 100 acres of Seattle's business district and waterfront. The fire left little standing in its wake, consuming buildings, docks, wooden sidewalks, and anything else combustible. Losses from the conflagration were estimated at $20 million.
(1889)The Great Spokane Fire—
Known locally as The Great Fire—was a major fire which affected downtown Spokane, Washington (called "Spokane Falls" at the time) on August 4, 1889. It began just after 6:00 p.m. and destroyed the city's downtown commercial district.[1] Due to technical problems with a pump station, there was no water pressure in the city when the fire started.[2] In a desperate bid to starve the fire, firefighters began razing buildings with dynamite. Eventually winds died down and the fire exhausted of its own accord. As a result of the fire and its aftermath, virtually all of Spokane's downtown was destroyed, though only one person was killed.[1]
The cause of the fire was never determined. Theories included a cooking fire in a lunchroom, a curling iron being heated in a kerosene lamp, and a spark from a passing train.[3] (All the usual suspects . . .)
Three cities in Washington had "great fires" in the summer of 1889. The Great Seattle Fire destroyed the entire central business district of Seattle on June 6, 1889. The Great Ellensburg Fire resulted in the city's bid to become the state capital ending in failure.
Other fires that summer in the U.S. included the Santiago Canyon Fire around Orange County, California and the Great Bakersfield Fire of 1889.
Salt Lake City, Utah (June 21, 1883)
Park City, Utah (1898)
Oklahoma!
Muskogee's Great Fire of 1899
.
Baltimore, Maryiand, 1904.
Jacques Kelly: The Great Fire of Baltimore will not die out
Jacksonville, Florida.
The Great Fire Of 1901 Was One Of The Greatest Tragedies In Florida’s History
Louisville, KY, 1840.
The Great Fire of 1840
In March of 1840, the “great fire” destroyed 30 buildings on Main Street at a loss of $300,000. Fires like this were the real driver to build a Water Works.
Water Works: A History of the Louisville Water Company, 1996
Funny, no mention of this one on Wikipedia.
Great Fire of Pittsburgh 1845
Conflagration!
Detail from Nathaniel Currier print, Great Conflagration at Pittsburgh, Pa
The dawn of April 10, 1845, brought a warm, windy day. During a brief interlude in the winds just before noon, Ann Brooks, who worked on Ferry Street for Colonel William Diehl, left unattended a newly stoked fire lit to heat wash water.[7][13] A spark from this fire ignited a nearby ice shed[9] or barn.[14] The fire companies responded, but got nothing but "a weak, sickly stream of muddy water" from their hoses, and the flames quickly spread to several buildings owned by Colonel Diehl, including his home, and to the Globe Cotton Factory.[15][16][17] The bells of the Third Presbyterian Church had given the original alarm, but the church itself was only preserved by dropping its burning wooden cornice into the street. Once saved, its stone walls served as a barrier to the further spread of the fire toward the north and west.[18][19][20] Then the wind veered to the southeast and gave the fire added vigor; a witness stated that "the roar of the flames was terrific, and their horrible glare, as they leaped through the dense black clouds of smoke, sweeping earth and sky, was appalling
1862 – Troy, New York, 671 buildings destroyed.
We also have the Great Fires of Toronto (the first in 1849, “The Cathedral Fire”) and the Great Montreal Fire of 1852 and the Great Fire of St. John’s, Newfoundland, 1846.
Here’s an interesting link on the “long-forgotten” Minneapolis fire (1893):
A little Purple Rain anyone?
Of course, we’ve been taught Atlanta, Georgia, was burned to the ground in late 1864 by General William "Tecumseh" Sherman (a famous Indian fighter named after one of the most famous Indians, what are the odds?) along his Union army’s infamous “March to the Sea” during the Great War Between the States. Sherman’s ravenous forces likewise destroyed Charleston and Columbia, S.C. largely by fire in the winter of 1865. A few months later, a decimated Richmond, Virginia, was finished off by the “Evacuation Fire,” purportedly set by fleeing Confederates. Obviously, numerous other cities were destroyed throughout the South and the East: Fredericksburg and Petersburg, Virginia. Vicksburg, Mississippi. Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
Savannah, Georgia was spared, somehow. Maybe that’s where the Illuminati were hiding out. That all makes a lot of sense. Just burn it all down, General--all that valuable infrastructure, so many precious resources. We would have no use of that in the Great White North. And let's just piss off those sorry vengeful loser Rebs even more. What they gonna do, huh?
But let’s not forget the Great Savannah fire of 1820.
The Strange and Interesting Life of Ambrose Bierce
In December 1913, Bierce traveled to Chihuahua, Mexico, to gain first-hand experience of the Mexican Revolution.[16] He disappeared, and was rumored to be traveling with rebel troops. He was never seen again.
The 10th of 13th children, his brothers and sisters were Abigail, Amelia, Ann, Addison, Aurelius, Augustus, Almeda, Andrew, Albert, Arthur, Adelia, and Aurelia.
During the American Civil War, Bierce joined the Union Army’s 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment and served in several key battles. His travels and service in the military would serve as a basis for some of his subsequent works of literature.
The Devil’s Dictionary. Some serious truth-dropping here . . .
The Red Badge of Courage (1895) Stephan Crane
This reminds me of a great song by the Band:
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down . . ."
What in hell tarnation was going on with all these rampaging fires, not only in North America but elsewhere? Was there some other great secret war happening that someone forgot to tell us about?
Jon Levy has an interesting theory on the American Civil War:
Those were some mighty powerful cannons, General Sherman.
Here’s a fascinating article on Lincoln by investigative Journalist Dave McGowan, now deceased:
The Strange Case of Thomas “Boston” Corbett:
Due to his bizarre behavior and his unwillingness, or inability, to follow orders, Corbett had been court-martialed and discharged from the service. For some unexplained reason though, he was allowed to re-enlist in 1863 and he quickly thereafter rose to the rank of sergeant. In April 1865, he was assigned to the elite team that captured Booth and, in defiance of direct orders, he personally shot and killed the man who was said to be Booth. Corbett was never reprimanded or disciplined for his actions and in fact profited handsomely by touring the country for years as “The Man Who Killed Booth.”
In 1887, Corbett was appointed as the clerk/doorman of the Kansas state legislature. Things didn’t go so well for him after that. According to some reports, one day he just decided to shoot the place up, though other accounts hold that he didn’t fire his weapon but merely brandished it and issued threats. Whatever the case, he quickly found himself committed to a mental asylum. He managed to escape soon enough though and may have briefly surfaced in Texas before never being seen or heard from again.
The Strange Cases of Major Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris, the couple who were sharing the presidential box at Ford’s Theater with Abe and Mary Lincoln
Rathbone later married Harris and the two started a family and moved to Germany, where Rathbone served as the US Consul to Hanover. Things didn’t work out so well though for the Rathbones; in December 1883, Henry tried to kill his children and, when thwarted in that effort, instead shot and brutally carved up wife Clara, before turning the knife on himself. Like Corbett, he was sent off to an asylum, but unlike Corbett, Henry Rathbone spent the rest of his life there.
Mary Todd Lincoln
She also ended up in an insane asylum. Always a bit on the crazy side, Mary became considerably crazier after the assassination, exhibiting increasingly erratic behavior and suffering from vivid hallucinations. She was ultimately committed by her own son, Robert Todd Lincoln.
Robert Lincoln
To say that Robert Lincoln had some rather unusual aspects to his life story would be quite an understatement. To begin with, we could note that he had the distinction of being the only man in history with direct links to three presidential assassinations. Just twenty-one when his father was gunned down, he subsequently was present at the assassinations of James Garfield in 1881 and William McKinley in 1901. He was also the only Lincoln son to survive his childhood; brother Eddie died at age 3 in 1850, brother Willie at age 11 in 1862, and brother Tad barely made it to age 18 before dying in 1871.
According to Robert Lincoln’s own account, he was involved in a truly bizarre incident in late 1864/early 1865, not long before the death of his father. The younger Lincoln was saved from serious injury and possible death when he was pulled to safety by a stranger during a mishap on a train platform. That stranger just happened to be Edwin Booth, an older brother of John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln later maintained a long-term friendship and possible romance with Lucy Hale, the daughter of US Senator John Hale and a former paramour and fiancé of John Wilkes Booth. Small world, I guess.
Almost every individual close to the Lincoln assassination met a very strange fate—a strange death, suicide or otherwise, sickness, insanity, institutionalization. Not to mention the very strange synchronicities and coincidences that emerged. Speaking of strange, do your own research into War Secretary Edwin Stanton, one truly twisted individual, who dug up his own daughter from her grave and had her placed in a private display box. He either slit his own throat with a razor, or was murdered. True story . . .
Also, roughly following the time period of these great fires, and not long after the Civil War, numerous World’s Fairs, also known as Expositions, were organized by the global elites. These fantastical Expos featured (with much fanfare) fantastic exhibits showing off the latest advanced technologies, marvelous feats of engineering, landscaping, waterworks, architecture and other exotic entertainment, very costly to attend and thus mainly reserved for the elite populace of the day; all of this amazing stuff seemingly disappearing into thin air or likewise burned down quite suspiciously upon the celebrated conclusion of these great international affairs.These grand Expositions were held around the world on nearly every continent, most notably Europe and North America, South America, also Australia and elsewhere—in London, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis, Buffalo, and Omaha, Nebraska, among other major cities around the globe.
Something curious might be going on here. Or even sinister, and hidden in plain sight as these things usually are. Nothing to see here, people . . .
A Brief Detour: The Bizzaro World of the World’s Fairs of the 19th Century
Omaha
The Trans-Mississippi Exposition was held in North Omaha from June 1 to November 1, 1898. The exposition drew more than 2 million visitors. It required the construction of attractions spanning 100 city blocks, including a ship-worthy lagoon, bridges and magnificent (though temporary) buildings constructed of plaster and horsehair. The Exposition also featured a number of sideshows, including Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and the Everleigh House. Run by Ada and Minna Everleigh, the house continued operating until 1900, when the two women moved to Chicago.
Nashville and the Parthenon
This modest structure, a replica of both the original temple of Athens, Greece and the 1897 “temporary” structure built in only 2 years to display at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition, better known as the Nashville World’s Fair was reportedly rebuilt in 1920. How many buggies and mules and ropes and chisels, how much slave labor was required to construct this architectural monster, temporary or not? And to think, if the destruction of this old heap wasn’t so expensive, they would have torn it all down, just like the rest of the extravagant Nashville World’s Fair. Once again, people, all these buildings were temporary and made of inexpensive building materials. Got that? Nothing to see here . . .
The site of the Nashville World’s Fair covered at least 200 acres and included over a hundred buildings with special exhibits including those pertaining to Negroes, women, children, the US Government, according to Wikipedia, which doesn’t have much else to say about this world’s fair.
The Parthenon built for the Centennial was not a replica on the inside; its interior was a series of galleries for exhibiting the enormous collection of paintings and sculptures borrowed from Europe and throughout the United States for the Exposition. The permanent structure, however, was to be a compete replica and as accurate as scholarship would allow, recreating the camber of the horizontal lines, the inclination of columns and walls and the entasis of the columns. Due to various financial crises, work continued haltingly until its completion in 1931. When the doors were opened to the public, two major elements were still missing: the great statue of Athena in the naos and the Ionic frieze on the exterior. https://www.nashvilleparthenon.com/history
Further reading [edit]
· Cardon, Nathan. "The South's 'New Negroes' and African American Visions of Progress at the Atlanta and Nashville International Expositions, 1895-1897" Journal of Southern History (2014).
· Cardon, Nathan. A Dream of the Future: Race, Empire, and Modernity at the Atlanta and Nashville World's Fairs (Oxford University Press, 2018).
· Justi, Official History of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition (Nashville, 1898).
Bizarre Buffalo
Buffalo (The Pan-American Exposition)
It is remembered today primarily for being the location of the assassination of United States President William McKinley at the Temple of Music on September 6, 1901.
Here’s an interesting article on the McKinley assassination from Miles Mathis:
The exposition was illuminated at night. Thomas A. Edison, Inc. filmed it during the day and a pan of it at night.[
The newly developed X-ray machine was displayed at the fair, but doctors were reluctant to use it on McKinley to search for the bullet because they did not know what side effects it might have had on him. Also, the operating room at the exposition's emergency hospital did not have any electric lighting, even though the exteriors of many of the buildings were covered with thousands of light bulbs. Doctors used a pan to reflect sunlight onto the operating table as they treated McKinley's wounds.
Also featured:
· A Trip to the Moon, a mechanical dark ride that was later housed at Coney Island's Luna Park.
· Lina Beecher, creator of the Flip Flap Railway, attempted to demonstrate one of his looping roller coasters at the fair, but the organizers of the event considered the ride to be too dangerous and refused to allow it on the grounds
Demolition[edit]
When the fair ended, the contents of the grounds were sold to the Chicago House Wrecking Company[14] of Chicago for US$92,000 ($2.46 million in 2019 dollars[15]).[16] Demolition of the buildings began in March 1902, and within a year, most of the buildings were demolished. The grounds were then cleared and subdivided to be used for residential streets, homes, and park land. Similar to previous world fairs, most of the buildings were constructed of timber and steel framing with precast staff panels made of a plaster/fiber mix. These buildings were built as a means of rapid construction and temporary ornamentation and not made to last.[17] Prior to its demolition, an effort was made via public committee to purchase and preserve the original Electric Tower from the wrecking company for nearly US$30,000 ($922 thousand in 2019 dollars[15]). However, the necessary funding could not be raised in time.[16]
Further reading[edit]
· Margaret Creighton (October 18, 2016). Electrifying Fall of Rainbow City: Spectacle and Assassination at the 1901 World's Fair. ISBN 978-0521433365.
· Goodrich, Arthur (August 1901). "Short Stories of Interesting Exhibits". The World's Work: A History of Our Time. II: 1054–1096. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
· Page, Walter H. (August 1901). "The Pan-American Exposition". The World's Work: A History of Our Time. II: 1014–1048. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
· Official catalogue and guide book to the Pan-American Exposition: With Maps of Exhibitions and Illustrations. Buffalo, NY: Charles Ahrhart. 1901
St Louis
1904 World’s Fair
'Living Exhibits' at 1904 World's Fair Revisited
Geronimo: His Own Story
At the World's Fair
For the most part, this seems like a fair account until the last paragraph . . .
I am glad I went to the Fair. I saw many interesting things and learned much of the white people. They are a very kind and peaceful people. During all the time I was at the Fair no one tried to harm me in any way. Had this been among the Mexicans I am sure I should have been compelled to defend myself often.
I wish all my people could have attended the Fair.
??????
Sounds like more paltry propaganda. What new???
Now here’s a fascinating documentary on human zoos, so popular at World’s Fairs: For more than a century, people were taken from their homelands and exhibited in human zoos. They were displayed alongside animals. This little known and deeply disturbing part of colonial history played an important part in the development of modern racism. Between 1810 and 1940, nearly 35 thousand people were exhibited in world fairs, colonial exhibitions, zoos, freak shows, circuses and reconstructed ethnic villages in Europe, America and Japan. Some 1.5 billion visitors attended these events.
These horrifying ‘human zoos’ delighted American audiences at the turn of the 20th century
‘Specimens’ were acquired from Africa, Asia, and the Americas by deceptive human traffickers
Fair Representation? American Indians and the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition
David R.M. Beck
Savage Images and Indian Realities
In contrast to Cody's romanticized focus, the exhibits on the Midway Plaisance, a commercial avenue of curiosities that was part of the exposition grounds, titillated audiences by portraying Indians in a way that would strike fear into the audience, or at least make fairgoers shudder at the recent western American past. The American Indians and other Native peoples exhibited by entrepreneurs and business interests on the Midway Plaisance reflect yet another representation, that of barbaric, wild, untamed savagery. Drawings in World's Fair Puck present grotesque caricatures of the Native peoples exhibited on the Midway, including American Indians, South Sea Islanders, Arabs and Africans.24 The Indians on display on the Midway included Lakota individuals at Sitting Bull's cabin, a group of some sixty Ho Chunk (Winnebago), Potawatomi and Sioux, and a purported village of Aztecs from Mexico.
The "Esquimau Village," a display of nine to twelve Inuit families from Labrador, while located separately from the Midway, was referred to as a Midway exhibit in some histories. One, a contemporary volume written by former Virginia Governor William Cameron, referred to "The Squalid Esquimaux" as "the quintessence of the great unwashed." Referring to the inhabitants of this display, he writes, "In their race characteristics they are a decided novelty. They occupy a class all alone. Indeed, they mark the boundary of the human growth in the North just as the stunted pines do at timber line."25 The Native people of the Midway were presented to fairgoers as examples of primitive savagery. Most visitors probably did not make distinctions among various Native groups throughout and in proximity to the fairgrounds. Most simply viewed Indians generically, as Indians, not as distinctive cultural groups, despite Putnam's efforts in his ethnological village. This was not, however, the way that American Indians viewed themselves.
Interestingly, newspaper accounts of the representatives of the major tribes in Putnam's ethnological exhibit did not always report on the Indians at the fair as primitive or savage. In some cases, they presented them as advanced in western civilization and adapting well to the modern world. The Penobscots were described as Roman Catholic, speaking French and English, and being politically and economically independent in Maine based on their long history of interaction with their white neighbors. They worked in lumber camps and farms, leased their river front property to lumber barons for timber storage, and used universal suffrage to elect their own governor and lieutenant governor, their own council of chiefs, and a representative to the Maine legislature. The Penobscots who came to the fair and set up camp in Putnam's ethnological village were among the tribe's leaders.26
The Kwakwaka'wakw (known as Kwakiutl at the time of the fair), a Northwest Coast tribal group from British Columbia, were also part of the ethnological village. A Chicago newspaper described them shortly after their arrival at the fairgrounds in April 1893 as Methodist or other Protestant rather than Episcopal or Catholic. The men hunted and fished for a living, the women farmed and gathered berries. Hundreds of women worked the canneries in the summer, according to James Deans, the agent who brought them to the fair. "A more honest people never lived," he said, "and their love of home and family would put many a civilized nation to the blush." The newspaper article opines, "There is nothing about them that suggests the Indian of the plains save their copper color. Simple in their modes of life, farmers as well as hunters, religious in their tendencies, and trustful of all men as they are themselves honest, they are a strong contrast to the treacherous and wily Sioux and bloodthirsty Apaches."27 Ironically, newspapers occasionally contrasted Indian groups to each other the way that fair organizers contrasted Indians to white America, to show the differences between "savagism" and "civilization."
The Iroquois who exhibited themselves in the ethnological village were described as representatives of leading families in their various tribes. They too, like the Penobscot, were described as having long interacted politically with their non-Indian neighbors. One New York newspaper poked fun at the efforts to make the Indians seem to be from a past age. "These Indians will live in their original fashion, it is announced, the disinfectants to be supplied by the World's Fair Commission," according to a New York Herald story. But the article then went on to say, "The last observation must not be taken literally, of course, as these Indians from New York are really quite tame and very good fellows." The Herald's definition? "They read Bibles and newspapers and like true New Yorkers are ever ready to make sarcastic remarks about Chicago." A Chicago newspaper described the Iroquois evenhandedly upon their arrival, observing that "Civilized and engaged in agricultural and other peaceful pursuits they have retained their native language uncorrupted and have pride in their past achievements."28
These stories hardly describe modern Indians as peoples of a pre-Columbian epoch. Richard Henry Pratt later complained to the Secretary of the Interior about this: "Whole families of educated Indians were paid to put themselves on exhibition daily in their old tribal garb."29 Instead, these sources describe people and communities that were adapting to the massive upheavals and changes around them. They were participating in the modern economy, and interacting with the non-Indian world around them. Each of the articles also describes features of traditional value systems and practices that still infused the tribal communities.
While articles in this vein were rare, they were not the only indication that Indians' lives differed from the stereotypical images presented at the fair. Some Indians enthusiastically met new people at the fair and shared their experiences with them. A book of photos from the fair described Medicine Horse, who came as part of Buffalo Bill's cast, "different from the average Indian, [he] displays an apparent eagerness to talk. He is very interesting to listen to, and the information he gives regarding his people and the prospects of their civilization becoming more general, is of much interest and value."30 The records don't show any more than this about what Medicine Horse said, but clearly he wanted fair visitors to have a positive view of the place of American Indians, or at least Lakotas, in modern America.
Back to the catastrophic fires. Fires? Just as curious, if not more so, within decades every one of these decimated cities was somehow rebuilt, bigger and better than before, with an amazing American resolve and tenacity, despite a surprisingly modest population, seemingly scarce resources and relatively primitive nineteenth-century technology.
Prolific researcher and truther historian Michelle Gibson has an endless series of fascinating videos on the subject. Her research is tremendous and I owe her a great debt as much of this material is based on her work. She also presents some very interesting theories on the subject of the last Great Reset.
You won’t want to miss it.
Poking into Historical Fires—Parts 1-4. (Michelle Gibson)
Did all of these fires actually happen as recorded in history? Or is there something far more mysterious going on here? Are they all part of a widespread cover story, or just the opening line to a much deeper, darker part of our hidden history? Perhaps some did occur, while others did not. Why exactly?
Keep in mind the rather dubious dates, details and images shared here are only as reliable as the sources, questionable as they are, admittedly. I present many examples of the mainstream account of these events, not because I can confirm any veracity in them, but simply because these are the historical accounts, many quite strange, some rather unlikely, a few downright ludicrous, in my opinion. But that’s just the best we can do in this great, highly advanced modern-day civilization.
Before we visit Chicago, here’s an interesting rabbit hole you might want to take a quick detour into, or not . . . Great Fires of 1871, Comet Biela and 9/11.
The Day The Heavens Attacked The Earth https://youtu.be/oqLyxVk2Ytk
Item 1: The Great Chicago Fire of October, 1871.
What a wildly twisted great American tale this turned out to be.
An Amazing Prophecy
The Great Fire: Chicago 1871
From our print archive: Herman Kogan, AB’36, retells the story of the famous conflagration that destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles of the city and left more than 100,000 residents homeless.
By
Author
|
—
Nov–Dec/71
On the Saturday evening of October 7, 1871, a man named George Francis Train stood on the stage of Chicago’s Farwell Hall and, in the midst of his speech, made a statement that added to his fame as an author, world traveler, and lecturer an extra dimension of uncanny prophecy: “This,” he said, “is the last public address that will be delivered within these walls! A terrible calamity is impending over the city of Chicago! More I cannot say! More I dare not utter!” No one in that hall at Madison and Clark had any clear idea of why he said what he did or on what he based his words, but in little more than twenty-four hours after the audience trooped into the streets events were under way that would prove him a remarkable seer. Indeed, on the very night Train spoke, it seemed that he might be a day early in his prediction. Out in the West division of the city, fire broke out in a planing mill and it was so fierce that it devoured nearly every building in a four-block area, caused at least one death and many injuries, and engaged nearly half of the city’s 185 weary firemen.
Artist's rendering of the fire, by Currier and Ives; the view faces northeast across the Randolph Street Bridge
Location
Cost
$222 million (1871 USD) ($4.736 billion in 2020)[2]
Date(s)
October 8, 1871 – October 10, 1871
Burned area
2,112 acres (8.55 km2)
Cause
Unknown
Buildings destroyed
17,500 buildings
Deaths
300 killed (estimated)
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871-Before, During & After-Old Chicago Photos
Supposedly instigated by a stupid cow kicking over a haphazardly lighted lantern, fueled by a summer-long drought and a gale-force wind and aided by the mostly wooden buildings, the Great Chicago Fire remains one of the most “memorable” events in American folklore, according to the popular legend.
The roaring inferno starting at DeKoven St? and quickly advanced northward destroying three and a half square miles in the heart of the Windy City. Although there are a few vague references to some mysterious comet perhaps having something to do with the devastating fire, presumably just to confuse the issue. Dare I say fan the flames of confusion? The charges denied, of course, by the O’Learys, supposed owners of the infamous city cow. Although the O’Leary cow myth remains firmly intact (to those few historians and history lovers who even care anymore) the true cause of this historic Chicago disaster was never determined, according to numerous mainstream sources. Reportedly, between 200-300 citizens perished in the blaze which destroyed 17, 450 buildings (over 18,000 according to some sources) and caused many hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of damage. (Easily over a billion dollars by today’s inflationary standards.)
Another notable coincidence in itself, the fire likewise destroyed the “original” Chicago Historical Society building erected just a few years earlier in 1868, along with most of its irreplaceable collection.
“The 1920 acquisition of thousands of manuscripts and artifacts from the estate of Charles F. Gunther helped the historical society become a nationally known collection of decorative and industrial arts, paintings and sculpture, and costumes. The Gunther Collection's unusually rich materials in seventeenth-century, eighteenth-century, and Civil War history (including Abraham Lincoln's deathbed) also enhanced both the American history and the Chicago history collections.
Aided by an outpouring of charity from around the world, Chicagoans brought about a remarkable reconstruction; the city expanded as it rebuilt, and most visible signs of the destruction were erased . . .”
Sawislak, Karen. Smoldering City: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 1871–1874. 1995.
Smith, Carl. Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief: The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman. 1995.
Ironically, on this very same day, a strange wave of “wildfires” swept through the nearby states of Wisconsin and Michigan.
According to Wikipedia: “Still other speculation suggests that the blaze was related to other fires in the Midwest that day.” (Sounds like our first intriguing rabbit hole right here.) We’ll address this in subsequent sections.
“In 1871, the Chicago Fire Department had 185 firefighters with just 17 horse-drawn steam pumpers to protect the entire city.[1]:146 The initial response by the fire department was quick, but due to an error by the watchman, Matthias Schaffer, the firefighters were sent to the wrong place, allowing the fire to grow unchecked.[1] An alarm sent from the area near the fire also failed to register at the courthouse where the fire watchmen were, while the firefighters were tired from having fought numerous small fires and one large fire in the week before.[7] These factors combined to turn a small barn fire into a conflagration . . .”
The following includes some additional historical speculation as to the true cause.
“This (Mrs. O’Leary’s cow) story was circulating in Chicago even before the flames had died out, and it was noted in the Chicago Tribune's first post-fire issue. In 1893 the reporter Michael Ahern retracted the "cow-and-lantern" story, admitting it was fabricated, but even his confession was unable to put the legend to rest.[33] Cromie, Robert (1994). The Great Chicago Fire. New York: Rutledge Hill Press. ISBN 978-1-55853-264-9. Although the O'Learys were never officially charged with starting the fire, the story became so engrained in local lore that Chicago's city council officially exonerated them—and the cow—in 1997.[34]
Amateur historian Richard Bales has suggested the fire started when Daniel "Pegleg" Sullivan, who first reported the fire, ignited hay in the barn while trying to steal milk.[27]:127–130 Part of Bales's evidence includes an account by Sullivan, who claimed in an inquiry before the Fire Department of Chicago on November 25, 1871, that he saw the fire coming through the side of the barn and ran across DeKoven Street to free the animals from the barn, one of which included a cow owned by Sullivan's mother.[35] Bales's account does not have consensus. The Chicago Public Library staff criticized his account in their web page on the fire.[36] Despite this, the Chicago city council was convinced of Bales's argument and stated that the actions of Sullivan on that day should be scrutinized after the O'Leary family was exonerated in 1997.[34][37]
Anthony DeBartolo reported evidence in two articles the Chicago Tribune (October 8, 1997, and March 3, 1998, reprinted in Hyde Park Media) suggesting that Louis M. Cohn may have started the fire during a craps game.[38][39][40] Following his death in 1942, Cohn bequeathed $35,000 which was assigned by his executors to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. The bequest was given to the school on September 28, 1944,[39] and the dedication contained a claim by Cohn to have been present at the start of the fire. According to Cohn, on the night of the fire, he was gambling in the O'Learys' barn with one of their sons and some other neighborhood boys. When Mrs. O'Leary came out to the barn to chase the gamblers away at around 9:00, they knocked over a lantern in their flight, although Cohn states that he paused long enough to scoop up the money. The argument is not universally accepted.[41]
An alternative theory, first suggested in 1882 by Ignatius L. Donnelly in Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel, is that the fire was caused by a meteor shower. This was described as a "fringe theory" concerning Biela's Comet. At a 2004 conference of the Aerospace Corporation and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, engineer and physicist Robert Wood suggested that the fire began when a fragment of Biela's Comet impacted the Midwest. Biela's Comet had broken apart in 1845 and had not been observed since. Wood argued that four large fires took place, all on the same day, all on the shores of Lake Michigan (see Related Events), suggesting a common root cause. Eyewitnesses reported sighting spontaneous ignitions, lack of smoke, "balls of fire" falling from the sky, and blue flames. According to Wood, these accounts suggest that the fires were caused by the methane that is commonly found in comets.[42] Meteorites are not known to start or spread fires and are cool to the touch after reaching the ground, so this theory has not found favor in the scientific community.[43][44] Methane-air mixtures become flammable only when the methane concentration exceeds 5%, at which point the mixtures also become explosive, a situation unlikely to occur from meteorites.[45][46] Methane gas is lighter than air and thus does not accumulate near the ground;[46] any localized pockets of methane in the open air rapidly dissipate. Moreover, if a fragment of an icy comet were to strike the Earth, the most likely outcome, due to the low tensile strength of such bodies, would be for it to disintegrate in the upper atmosphere, leading to an air burst explosion analogous to that of the Tunguska event.[47]
The specific choice of Biela's Comet does not match with the dates in question, as the 6 year period of the comet's orbit did not intersect that of the Earth until 1872 one full year after the fire, when a large meteor shower was indeed observed. A common cause for the fires in the Midwest in late 1871 is that the area had suffered through a tinder-dry summer, so that winds from the front that moved in that evening were capable of generating rapidly expanding blazes from available ignition sources, which were plentiful in the region.[48][27]:111”
Miller, Donald (1996). City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0684831381.
Abbott, Karen (October 4, 2012). "What (or Who) Caused the Great Chicago Fire?". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
(This interesting link leads us right into the dark heart of the Smithsonian, infamous for covering up and hoarding anomalous artifacts contradicting the mainstream narrative .) The terribly dramatic account below was extracted from this website. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-or-who-caused-the-great-chicago-fire-61481977/
Late one night, when we were all in bed,
Mrs. O’Leary lit a lantern in the shed.
Her cow kicked it over, then winked her eye and said,
“There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight!”
— Chicago folksong
“There is no known photograph of Catherine O’Leary, and who could blame her for shunning the cameras? After those two catastrophic days in October 1871, when more than 2,000 acres of Chicago burned, reporters continually appeared on Mrs. O’Leary’s doorstep, calling her “shiftless and worthless” and a “drunken old hag with dirty hands.” Her husband sicced dogs at their ankles and hurled bricks at their heads. P.T. Barnum came knocking to ask her to tour with his circus; she reportedly chased him away with a broomstick. Her dubious role in one of the greatest disasters in American history brought her fame she never wanted and couldn’t deflect. When she died 24 years later of acute pneumonia, neighbors insisted the true cause was a broken heart.
Mrs. O’Leary claimed to be asleep on the night of Sunday, October 8, when flames first sparked in the barn next to the family cottage on DeKoven Street. The blaze traveled in northeast, tearing through shanties and sheds and leaping across Taylor Street, the heat so fierce that fireman Charles Anderson could hold his hose to the flames only when shielded by a door. His hat curdled on his head. All spare engines were called to the growing conflagration, prompting one fire marshal to ask another: “Where has this fire gone to?” The answer was swift and apt: “She has gone to hell and gone.” Residents noticed that a freakish wind whipped the flames into great walls of fire more than 100 feet high, a meteorological phenomenon called “convection whirls”—masses of overheated air rising from the flames and began spinning violently upon contact with cooler surrounding air. “The wind, blowing like a hurricane, howling like myriads of evil spirits,” one witness later wrote, “drove the flames before it with a force and fierceness which could never be described or imagined.”
Wow, fires don’t seem to spread like this anymore. Must have been all those flimsy old wooden building, and all that carelessly discarded timber nobody had any use for. Sounds like a likely story to me, not the least bit embellished. Just take a moment to examine a few of these supposedly authentic photographs from the great fires of Chicago and San Francisco. It looks more to me as if someone or something dropped a blitzkrieg of bombs of some sort. Mere speculation on my part . . .
Chicago in ruins. From http://greatchicagofire.org/
From Wikipedia: To protect the city from looting and violence, the city was put under martial law for two weeks under Gen. Sheridan's command structure with a mix of regular troops, militia units, police, and a specially organized "First Regiment of Chicago Volunteers."[11] Former Lieutenant-Governor William Bross, and part owner of the Tribune, later recollected his response to the arrival of Gen. Sheridan and his soldiers: “Never did deeper emotions of joy overcome me. Thank God, those most dear to me and the city as well are safe.”
General Philip H. Sheridan, who saved Chicago 3 times. Once during the Great Fire in Oct. 1871, when he used explosives to stop the spread; again after the Great Fire, protecting the city; and lastly in 1877 during the "communist riots", riding in from 1,000 miles away to restore order again.[
Rescue and Relief". The Great Chicago Fire & The Web of Memory. Retrieved January 10, 2020.
Dynamite! What a busy guy he was, back in the day . . . Good old General (Resort Hotel) Sheridan.
Here is an interesting Before and After page. The fire made quick work of the city that day.
Here’s a page briefly documenting so-called eyewitnesses to the great Chicago disaster.
So, here we have this curious tale of the careless cow and its negligent owner, the inflammatory rumors at least reportedly somehow spreading throughout the burning city before the ashes had even cooled, seemingly as fast as the roaring flames themselves. A ridiculous story, openly admitted to be a complete fabrication by the so-called reporter who invented it. This follow-up debunking, undoubtedly an entire separate level of concocted fiction in itself, further confusing and obfuscating the matter. Here, yet again, they, the unholy powers that wannabe throw it right in our collective clueless faces. A fake cover story, totally ludicrous, still considered the truth, more or less, at least a widely believed legend all these years, over a century later.
I can’t believe I fell for this stuff, even as a first-grader. No doubt I was fed the same historical malarcky as my parents, teachers and the clueless tour guides at the Museum of Science & Industry (supposedly the last surviving remnant of the wondrous White City of the Great Columbian Exposition of 1893) trying to explain those creepy exhibits. Both my seven-year-olds found the story of the careless cow quite amusing.
Hopefully those poor O’Learys at least got some decent char-broiled steaks out of the deal. All in all the whole thing seems pretty sketchy to me at first and second glance. Moving on . . .
Related events? Or more disturbing coincidences.
Also from Wikipedia:
On that hot, dry, and windy autumn day, three other major fires occurred along the shores of Lake Michigan at the same time as the Great Chicago Fire. Some 250 miles (400 km) to the north, the Peshtigo Fire consumed the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, along with a dozen other villages. It killed 1,200 to 2,500 people and charred approximately 1.5 million acres (6,000 km2). The Peshtigo Fire remains the deadliest in American history[49] but the remoteness of the region meant it was little noticed at the time, due to the fact that one of the first things that burned were the telegraph lines to Green Bay.[50]
Across the lake to the east, the town of Holland, Michigan, and other nearby areas burned to the ground.[51] Some 100 miles (160 km) to the north of Holland, the lumbering community of Manistee also went up in flames[52] in what became known as the Great Michigan Fire.[51]
Wilkins, A. (March 29, 2012). "October 8, 1871: The Night America Burned". io9. Gawker Media. Retrieved October 9,2013.
“Farther east, along the shore of Lake Huron, the Port Huron Fire swept through Port Huron, Michigan and much of Michigan's "Thumb". On October 9, 1871, a fire swept through the city of Urbana, Illinois, 140 miles (230 km) south of Chicago, destroying portions of its downtown area.[53] Windsor, Ontario, likewise burned on October 12.[54]
The city of Singapore, Michigan, provided a large portion of the lumber to rebuild Chicago. As a result, the area was so heavily deforested that the land deteriorated into barren sand dunes that buried the town, and the town had to be abandoned.[55]”
What else was happening in 1871?
v Jan 18: Second German Empire proclaimed by Kaiser Wilhelm and Otto von Bismarck
v Jan 26: U.S. income tax repealed. (What happened?)
v Jan 28: Paris surrenders to Prussians.
v Jan 31: Millions of birds fly over San Francisco, mysteriously darkening the sky
v March 3: U.S. Congress changes status of American Indian tribes from independent to dependent
v March 21: Famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley begins his expedition to Africa.
v April 10: PT Barnum introduces his 3-ring circus dubbed the “Greatest Show on Earth.”
v April 23: Blossom Rock in San Francisco Bay blown up.
v April 30: The Camp Grant Massacre of Apaches in Arizona Territory perpetrated by white and Mexican adventurers, 144 die.
v May 10: Peace declared between France and Germany ending Franco-Prussian War.
v May 12: Segregated street cars established in Louisville, Ky.
v May 17: Native American fighter and future Union general William “Tecumseh” Sherman escapes from the Comanches in an ambulance.
(Really? A Commanding General of the U.S. Army? There is no mention of this incident in Wikipedia, by the way . . .)
Here we have that wild man General Sherman popping up again, another busy busy guy who was influential in the Gold Rush and opened up a major bank in San Francisco, according to multiple mainstream sources. Let’s see what tall tales Wikipedia (the first site that pops up on Google search engine inevitably 9 times out of 10) has to tell about this fiery old guy . .
.
Born in Ohio to a politically prominent family, Sherman graduated in 1840 from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He interrupted his military career in 1853 to pursue private business ventures, and at the outbreak of the Civil War he was superintendent of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy (now Louisiana State University). Sherman distinguished himself at the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861, before being transferred to the Western Theater. Stationed in Kentucky, his pessimism about the outlook of the war led to a nervous breakdown that required him to be briefly put on leave. He recovered by forging a close partnership with General Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman served under Grant in 1862 and 1863 during the battles of forts Henry and Donelson, the Battle of Shiloh, the campaigns that led to the fall of the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River, as well as the Chattanooga Campaign that culminated with the routing of the Confederate armies in the state of Tennessee.
In 1864, Sherman succeeded Grant as the Union commander in the Western Theater. Sherman then led the capture of the strategic city of Atlanta, a military success that contributed to the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln. Sherman's subsequent march through Georgia and the Carolinas involved little fighting but large-scale destruction of cotton plantations and other infrastructure, a systematic policy intended to undermine the ability and willingness of the Confederacy to continue fighting. Sherman accepted the surrender of all the Confederate armies in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida in April 1865, but the terms that he negotiated were considered too lenient by US Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, who ordered General Grant to modify them.
When Grant became president of the United States in March 1869, Sherman succeeded him as Commanding General of the Army. Sherman served in that capacity from 1869 until 1883 and was responsible for the U.S. Army's engagement in the Indian Wars during that period. He steadfastly refused to be drawn into politics and in 1875 published his Memoirs, one of the best-known first-hand accounts of the Civil War.
Sherman's unusual given name has always attracted considerable attention.[6] Sherman reported that his middle name came from his father having "caught a fancy for the great chief of the Shawnees, 'Tecumseh'".[7] Since an account in a 1932 biography about Sherman, it has often been reported that, as an infant, Sherman was named simply Tecumseh. According to these accounts, Sherman only acquired the name "William" at age nine or ten, after being taken into the Ewing household. His foster mother, Maria Willis Boyle (Maria Ewing), was of Irish ancestry and a devout Roman Catholic. Sherman was raised in a Roman Catholic household, although he later left the church, citing the effect of the Civil War on his religious views. According to a story that may be myth, Sherman was baptized in the Ewing home by a Dominican priest, who named him William for the saint's day: possibly June 25, the feast day of Saint William of Montevergine.[8] The story is contested, however. Sherman wrote in his Memoirs that his father named him William Tecumseh; Sherman was baptized by a Presbyterian minister as an infant and given the name William at that time.[9] As an adult, Sherman signed all his correspondence—including to his wife—"W. T. Sherman".[10] His friends and family always called him "Cump
Fellow cadet William Rosecrans (There’s a suspicious name.) would later remember Sherman at West Point as "one of the brightest and most popular fellows" and "a bright-eyed, red-headed fellow, who was always prepared for a lark of any kind".[13] About his time at West Point, Sherman says only the following in his Memoirs:
Marriage and business career
An 1866 painted portrait of Sherman, by George P. A. Healy
In 1850, Sherman was promoted to the substantive rank of captain and on May 1 of that year he married his foster sister, Ellen Boyle Ewing, four years his junior. Rev. James A. Ryder, President of Georgetown College, officiated the Washington D.C. ceremony. President Zachary Taylor, Vice President Millard Fillmore and other political luminaries attended the ceremony. Thomas Ewing was serving as Secretary of the Interior at the time.[18]
Like her mother, Ellen Ewing Sherman was a devout Roman Catholic, and the Shermans' eight children were reared in that faith. In 1864, Ellen took up temporary residence in South Bend, Indiana, to have her young family educated at the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary's College.[19] In 1874, with Sherman having become world-famous, their eldest child, Marie Ewing ("Minnie") Sherman, also had a politically prominent wedding, attended by President Ulysses S. Grant and commemorated by a generous gift from the Khedive of Egypt. (Eventually, one of Minnie's daughters married a grandson of Confederate general Lewis Addison Armistead.)[20] Another of the Sherman daughters, Eleanor, was married to Alexander Montgomery Thackara at General Sherman's home in Washington, D.C., on May 5, 1880. To Sherman's great displeasure and sorrow, his oldest surviving son, Thomas Ewing Sherman, joined the religious order of the Jesuits in 1878 and was ordained as a priest in 1889.[21]
The former Lucas, Turner & Co. bank building (1854–57) at Jackson & Montgomery Sts. in San Francisco
In 1853, Sherman resigned his captaincy and became manager of the San Francisco branch of the St. Louis-based bank Lucas, Turner & Co. He returned to San Francisco at a time of great turmoil in the West. He survived two shipwrecks and floated through the Golden Gate on the overturned hull of a foundering lumber schooner.[22] Sherman suffered from stress-related asthma because of the city's aggressive business culture.[23] Late in life, regarding his time in a San Francisco experiencing a frenzy of real estate speculation, Sherman recalled: "I can handle a hundred thousand men in battle, and take the City of the Sun, but am afraid to manage a lot in the swamp of San Francisco."[24] In 1856, during the vigilante period, he served briefly as a major general of the California militia.[25]
Sherman's San Francisco branch closed in May 1857, and he relocated to New York on behalf of the same bank. When the bank failed during the financial Panic of 1857, he closed the New York branch. In early 1858, he returned to California to wrap up the bank's affairs there. Later in 1858, he moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he tried his hand at law practice and other ventures without much success
Shiloh
Detail from Sherman Memorial, Washington, D. C.
After Grant captured Fort Donelson, Sherman got his wish to serve under Grant when he was assigned on March 1, 1862, to the Army of West Tennessee as commander of the 5th Division.[51] His first major test under Grant was at the Battle of Shiloh. The massive Confederate attack on the morning of April 6, 1862, took most of the senior Union commanders by surprise. Sherman had dismissed the intelligence reports received from militia officers, refusing to believe that Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston would leave his base at Corinth. He took no precautions beyond strengthening his picket lines, and refused to entrench, build abatis, or push out reconnaissance patrols. At Shiloh, he may have wished to avoid appearing overly alarmed in order to escape the kind of criticism he had received in Kentucky. He had written to his wife that, if he took more precautions, "they'd call me crazy again".[52]
Despite being caught unprepared by the attack, Sherman rallied his division and conducted an orderly, fighting retreat that helped avert a disastrous Union rout. Finding Grant at the end of the day sitting under an oak tree in the darkness and smoking a cigar, Sherman felt, in his words, "some wise and sudden instinct not to mention retreat". In what would become one of the most notable conversations of the war, Sherman said simply: "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" After a puff of his cigar, Grant replied calmly: "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."[53] Sherman proved instrumental to the successful Union counterattack of April 7, 1862. At Shiloh, Sherman was wounded twice—in the hand and shoulder—and had three horses shot out from under him. His performance was praised by Grant and Halleck and after the battle he was promoted to major general of volunteers, effective May 1, 1862.[51]
One of Sherman's main concerns in postwar commands was to protect the construction and operation of the railroads from attack by hostile Indians. Sherman's views on Indian matters were often strongly expressed. He regarded the railroads "as the most important element now in progress to facilitate the military interests of our Frontier". Hence, in 1867, he wrote to Grant that "we are not going to let a few thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress of [the railroads]".[115] After the 1866 Fetterman Massacre, Sherman wrote Grant that "we must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children".[116]
Much of Sherman's time as Commanding General was devoted to making the Western and Plains states safe for settlement through the continuation of the Indian Wars, which included three significant campaigns: the Modoc War, the Great Sioux War of 1876, and the Nez Perce War. The displacement of Indians was facilitated by the growth of the railroad and the eradication of the buffalo. Sherman believed that the intentional eradication of the buffalo should be encouraged as a means of weakening Indian resistance to assimilation. He voiced this view in remarks to a joint session of the Texas legislature in 1875. However he never engaged in any program to actually eradicate the buffalo.[120][121] During this time, Sherman reorganized frontier forts to reflect the shifting frontier.[122]
After George Armstrong Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn, Sherman wrote that "hostile savages like Sitting Bull and his band of outlaw Sioux ... must feel the superior power of the Government".[123] He further wrote that "during an assault, the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age".[124] Despite his harsh treatment of the warring tribes, Sherman spoke out against the unfair way speculators and government agents treated the natives within the reservations.[125]
In 1875 Sherman published his memoirs in two volumes. According to critic Edmund Wilson, Sherman:
[H]ad a trained gift of self-expression and was, as Mark Twain says, a master of narrative. [In his Memoirs] the vigorous account of his pre-war activities and his conduct of his military operations is varied in just the right proportion and to just the right degree of vivacity with anecdotes and personal experiences. We live through his campaigns ... in the company of Sherman himself. He tells us what he thought and what he felt, and he never strikes any attitudes or pretends to feel anything he does not feel.[126]
This deserves yet another wow, likely story.
v May21-July 28: French regular troops attack Commune of Paris, 17,000 die.
v June 3: Jesse James and his gang rob the Obocock Bank (Corydon, Iowa) making off with $15,000.
v July 5: The trial of Kiowa Chief Satanta (White Bear) and Big Tree commences.
v July 13: World’s first championship cat show at the Crystal Palace, London.
v August 9: A major hurricane damages Hawaii.
v Oct 2: Mormon leader and founder of Salt Lake City Brigham Young arrested for bigamy.
v Oct 24: Mob in Los Angeles hangs 18 Chinese.
v November: The South Improvement Company is formed in Pennsylvania by John D. Rockefeller and a group of major United States railroad interests, in an early effort to organize and control the American petroleum industry.
v Nov 5: Wickenburg Massacre: 6 men traveling by stagecoach in the Arizona Territory reportedly murdered by Yavapai people.
v Nov28: KKK trial begins in Federal District Court, South Carolina
Item 2: The Fires that Destroyed Much of the Famous Columbian Exposition of 1893, a mere 22 years after the Devastating Apocalyptic Great Chicago Fire.
Tragedy at the 1893 World's Fair: Fire killed 16 while crowds watched! (July 10, 1893).
The tragic blaze portended the fate of the fairgrounds the following year when fires swept across the park, burning many of the empty buildings that remained. The cold storage building fire was different, however, because it occurred at the height of the fair, with visitors all around, who cried when they witnessed death and cheered when someone escaped.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-flashback-worlds-fair-1893-fire-columbian-exposition-0729-20180718-story.html
Fire licked up a large part of the remnants of the World’s Columbian Exposition last night. The South Park Commissioners will not tear down the Peristyle, nor will touch of the wrecker defile the Music Hall or the Casino. A vexed problem that touched the sentiment of the world to the quick has been solved. Today the Park Commissioners have to deal with ruins where yesterday proud stood.
(Another likely story . . .)
Insolent Tramps Suspected of Arson.
It is more than probable that the fire was started by tramps. They have been fairly swarming in the Fair grounds since the first of the month, especially around the Casino and Music Hall. There is no guard at all stationed in the Casino nor in fact anywhere nearer that point than Music Hall, where one man keeps watch. There is also a guard in the Convent of La Rabida. About 4 o’clock in tne afternoon a dozen tramps walked into Music, Hall where Guard C. Mason Was on duty. He ordered them to leave, but they made an insolent reply and refused to go. Mason succeeded in driving them out. They went in the direction of the Casino, and in an hour after the fire was discovered. No one had any right to be around the Casino and there has been no fire there for months, but there were a number of old packing cases and a quantity of excelsior in the building, and if the fire was not started by design it could easily have been started by means of a cigar stub or the ashes of a pipe carelessly emptied in the inflammable stuff that thickly covered tho floor in places.
Chicago Tribune July 6, 1894
WHITE CITY BURNED.
The Destruction Often Predicted Finally Comes to Past—The Fire Starts in the Terminal Station—Then the Administration Building Goes and in Order, the Mines, Electricity, Manufactures, and Agricultural Building and Machinery Hall—Government Building Is Saved.
Here’s an interesting, very important video on the Chicago World’s Fair by Jon Levi . . .
Beginning Our History--This little video, Beginning Our History, is about the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1893. The official narrative explains to us that over 200 buildings were built for the fair only to be torn down within years of the Chicago Worlds Fair. These photos may be a great example of our false historical narrative. (Jon Levi)
YouTube comment: reality3581 year ago
""The SMOKING GUN". So we finally have the smoking gun of the big lie. The smoking gun is that there are no pictures of the 1893 world fair buildings being built. Of all people, and I mean ""OF ALL PEOPLE", who would have used almost 70 year old technology to photographically record their creations (camera and pictures were invented in 1825-26) it would have been these people who created the world fair of 1893. Case closed--head shot!!!!!!!
The 1893 Columbian Exposition: Remembering Chicago’s White City
Covered 690 acres
Featured carnival rides, including the original Ferris Wheel
Held in tribute to Columbus, the Fair boasted life-sized representations of Christopher Columbus’s 3 ships
Also included the world’s first moving walkway or travelator
46 countries had pavilions at the exhibition
Featured 14 main “great buildings”
Nikola Tesla: Tesla himself showed up for week in August to attend the International Electrical Congress, being held at the fair's Agriculture Hall, and put on a series of demonstrations of his wireless lighting system in a specially set up darkened room at the Westinghouse exhibit.[71][72] These included demonstrations he had previously performed throughout America and Europe[73] including using a nearby coil to light a wireless gas-discharge lamp held in his hand.[74] (Wikipedia)
Celebrating its own success, the Exposition treated the public to a series of extravagant fireworks displays, the likes of which America had never seen . . .
The plot thickens!
From Wikipedia:
Assassination of mayor and end of fair[edit]
The fair ended with the city in shock, as popular mayor Carter Harrison, Sr. was assassinated by Patrick Eugene Prendergast two days before the fair's closing.[21] Closing ceremonies were canceled in favor of a public memorial service.
Jackson Park was returned to its status as a public park, in much better shape than its original swampy form. The lagoon was reshaped to give it a more natural appearance, except for the straight-line northern end where it still laps up against the steps on the south side of the Palace of Fine Arts/Museum of Science & Industry building. The Midway Plaisance, a park-like boulevard which extends west from Jackson Park, once formed the southern boundary of the University of Chicago, which was being built as the fair was closing (the university has since developed south of the Midway). The university's football team, the Maroons, were the original "Monsters of the Midway." The exposition is mentioned in the university's alma mater: "The City White hath fled the earth,/But where the azure waters lie,/A nobler city hath its birth,/The City Gray that ne'er shall die."[22]
All of these fascinating conflagration coincidences almost make one wonder if the famous book by Eric Larson isn’t just another interesting work of pure fiction . . .
On a semi-related subject, here’s an interesting article by Miles Mathis on America’s purported first prolific serial killer, “Dr. H. H. Holmes”a/k/a Herman Mudgett supposedly operating in the shadow of the historic White City right there in Chitown.
Here’s an interesting video on the Exposition, short and sweet, pointing out what a busy guy master architect Louis Sullivan was, back in the day:
Chicago World’s Fair 1893 & Old World Architecture | Tartaria
Here’s another, also short and sweet:
Here’s an interesting analysis by Chicagoan Lance Reynard, Lithography 101: Mudflood, Egyptian Lithographs, Ridiculous Chicago Architectural History. Where Was Roman Empire? https://youtu.be/DxxjhWoE71Q
Look at the immense size of the buildings, a complete ginormous city within a city, supposedly erected in a few short months, compared to the people in the images, once again, presuming they are authentic. Then they just tore this entire magnificent “temporary” city all down, no big deal. The French did the same thing a few years earlier at the Paris World’s Fair. Fair’s over, tear it all down. We’ll keep the Eiffel Tower standing, what the hell? Je ne sais quoi! The same story time and time again. Glorious immense unbelievable Exhibitions built up city after city. Paris, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco. And then quickly torn down or destroyed by some very suspicious fires. To be replaced by what, exactly? Junk, absolute junk in comparison Why?
Here are some great writings by Howdie Mickoski, Exposing the Expositions, that inspired this whole rabbit hole investigation, along with Jay Weidner and this episode of his invaluable podcast Reality Check, The Destruction of Memory .
Perhaps we will return to the Windy City someday. For now, let’s head out West, shall we? To be continued in Chapter Two . . .
First, a short detour Down Under to Australia.
The Sydney, Australia Exhibition of 1870, partially burned down.
From Wikipedia: The Garden Palace itself was used by the government until a fire destroyed the building on September 22, 1882.[3]
The 1879 Sydney International Exhibition". Powerhouse Museum. Retrieved 20 June 2016.
Expo 88 Brisbane, Australia
Before we proceed to the next chapter, presumably, a brief musical interlude . . .
This Australian classic is perhaps more appropriate.
"How can we dance while our love is turning?
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?! . . .”
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