history

A reconstructed history of my general purpose blog(s).

February 26, 2011

Today, I found and recovered my very first blog post – and have posted it here on the date it was originally published, September 14, 2004. It was recovered from the Internet Archive’s WayBackMachine.

As best as I can tell, I abandoned Skedaddle’s Log after only a very few blog posts. During the next month, I established 3 niche blogs and North Farnham Freeholder, with all but that very first post moved to it.

I had been trying to make some income online for a while. At the time there was no way to place ads on blogspot (which was also known as blogger). After looking at several different blogging platforms, I decided to self-host and use WordPress, moving North Farnham Freeholder to the web host I had been using for a while.

A couple of years later, Exit78 was established, with many of the old posts being moved to exit78.com/weblog. Then, in early 2009, my blogging at Exit78 was moved to the root directory, exit78.com. Unfortunately, I made a change that wouldn’t let me access the original Exit78 location and, when I tried to fix that, I ended up losing many of the older posts.

I’ve been able to recover quite a few over time and, yesterday, found that many that hadn’t been recovered were available on the Internet Archive WayBack Machine. I’ll be recovering those, republishing them here on Exit78 at their original publish date.

Do remember when you first started blogging?

Do you still have or can you find your very first blog post?

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Images from Bannack–006

January 25, 2011

Masonic Lodge and School House

The first schools in Bannack were subscription schools – essentially private schools with parents paying tuition for their children to attend.

In 1874, Bannack Masonic Lodge No. 16 built a combination lodge and school building. The school was a public school serving students in K through 8th grade. It finally closed in the 1950s. The school was on the bottom floor and the lodge on the second.

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Bannack, Montana was founded in 1862 after a major gold discovery. It served as the capital of Montana Territory briefly during the civil war. The last residents left in the 1970s.

“Images from Bannack” are from July 30, 2010, our third visit to Bannack.

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From Stanley to May Creek

December 12, 2010

On July 29, 2010, we started heading east towards Yellowstone National Park, where we had a reservation at the Fishing Bridge RV Park. Our first camping stop along the way was May Creek Campground in Montana.

$Bighorn sheep A\along the Salmon River, Idaho$

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Custer, Idaho

December 9, 2010

Searching a hillside across the Yankee Fork, three prospectors stumbled upon what would become the most famous mine on the Yankee Fork. Named after the popular military general, George Armstrong Custer, the General Custer Mine was a rich vein of ore, exposed by a snowslide. The discovery of the Custer Mine in 1876 transformed this small mining camp into a lively community and the site of the region’s most significant mining activity.

Founded in 1879, Custer flourished and what began as a tent community rapidly became a town of over 100 building lining both sides of it’s narrow main street. For 30 years, Custer experienced frenzied activity and growth as well as periods of uncertainty and decline until its final bust in 1911.

Charles Alexander Pfeiffer purchased this family home after his marriage to Ellen Louise Olson in 1890. Charles managed the Pfeiffer Store for his uncle and later worked as a gold and cleanup man at the General Custer Mill. As the family increased in size, a kitchen and bedroom were added to the family home. The roof shingles are made of flattened cans. Families in Custer were not an oddity, but certainly weren’t the norm either, as most miners and the supporting merchants were single men.

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Old bottles

December 6, 2010

These vintage bottles were in the windows of an old school house in the ghost town of Custer, Idaho. The building now serves as a museum.

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What I’ve been working on

November 30, 2010

Most of the online work that I have been doing lately has been associated with my civil war blog, adding entries that will be posted at some point in the future. The following is cross-posted from that blog.

Introduction to some of the letter, journal and diary writers from 1860 and 1861 who will appear on the pages of Daily Observations from The Civil War.

A major part of my approach to the war is to present observations made in letters, journals, and diaries by people living the war and its impacts. My hope is that this will often result in our being able to “see” the progress of events from a variety of perspectives.

In most instances, I will be including all of what was included in the published versions of their writings, no matter how mundane. Some will have entries for almost every day while, with others, there will be long lapses without writing.

I have a large number of posts already scheduled for future publication in “Daily Observations from The Civil War,” including material from the following writers:

Dora Richards Miller, "War Diary of a Union Woman in the South"

Mary Boykin Chesnut, "A Diary From Dixie"

Lincoln Administration Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Wells, "Diary of Gideon Welles"

Susan Bradford Eppes, "Through Some Eventful Years"

Horatio King, Postmaster General at the end of the Buchanan administration

Catherine Cowles Richards, "Village Life in America 1852 - 1872"

The Woolseys of New York, "Letters of a Family During the War for the Union"

DNC Chairman August Belmont, "A Few Letters and Speeches of the Late Civil War"

John Beuchamp Jones, "A Rebel War Clerk's Diaray at the Confederate States Capital." (Image is from 1845 political cartoon)

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Blogs and Diaries

November 14, 2010

I’ve been spend a bit of time working on the civil war blog, Daily Observations from The Civil War, and, as a result, have been missing from here for a bit. However, since much of what will be posted in that blog is going to be time relevant, I want to get a good handle on it before things really start happening.

It’s highly likely that I will be going back to work for another 6 month stint beginning in January which means that I’ll be working during the 150th anniversary of the run-up to and beginning of the civil war. The amount of time that I’ll have for working on the blog will, thus, be limited – which is the reason for the effort now.

I’m currently working with “Village Life in America, 1852 – 1872,” by Caroline Cowles Richards. I went ahead and back posted entries from the early days of her diary and am pre-posting entries after November 14, 1860 so each will be published on the applicable day.

Things were going fine until I discovered the e-text I was using didn’t match the text in the pdf copy I was using to check spelling and wording against. I had already run into missing text earlier, but had just assumed that an error had been made in electronic transcription.

But, then, I ran into an instance where the entry in the pdf version for a particular date had a lot more information and detail.

It turns out that the pdf version is a “new and enlarged” edition.

In looking into it a little further, it turns out that it is at least the third published edition of Miss Richard’s diary and, probably, has entries included that were left out of the previous editions.

So now I am going back and comparing editions and adding new posts where they were omitted.

Of course, if I used the e-text and pdf for the same edition, there wouldn’t have been any discrepency to be found.

I’ll be incorporating more diaries into the blog, but I’ll make sure that the text and pdf versions are from the same source document.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had joined with two others on The American Civil War page on facebook. That was 3 weeks ago and the “friend” count for the page was 1,385. Today, it went over 2,500.

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Bonanza City

November 3, 2010

Bonanza City ghost town, Idaho, July 28, 2010

Yankee Fork Historic District, Idaho, July 28, 2010.

Bonanza City, laid out in 1877, was the Yankee Fork’s first mining camp, with pack trails converging from Ketchum, Stanley, Loon Creek and Challis. At its peak, Bonanza had over 600 residents, a rectangular grid of streets, and provided city services such as community wells.

An underground water system piped water for drinking and fire protection throughout the town. Despite this foresight, fires in 1889 and 1897 devastated portions of Bonanza. The loss of business due to the fires and the increased activity at Custer encouraged many to relocate. Today little is left of Bonanza with the exception of a few buildings and the Forest Service Guard Station constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934.

Bonanza City ghost town, Idaho, July 28, 2010

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A visit to a cemetery

November 1, 2010

Bonanza, Idaho

Yankee Fork Historic District, July 28, 2010

Alice Davenport, Age 7, Jan 2, 1928 to September 2, 1935, Bonanza Cemetery, Idaho

The Bonanza Cemetery provides an example of the many ethnic groups attracted to the Yankee Fork. Despite the harsh living conditions, the promise of good times and prosperity brought immigrants from many countries. Cornish people, referred to as “cousin jacks,” worked for the English owners of the Custer mine. Austrian crews built roads and many Italians lived at Bayhorse. The Custer County census of 1890 indicates sizable populations of Canadian, German, English, Irish, Italian, and Swedish residents. The largest single ethnic group found in the Yankee Fork Mining District came from China. Though prejudice kept the Chinese from working at most mines, they worked unwanted placer claims, operated laundries, or worked as cooks…. most Chinese initially buried here were later disinterred by relatives and friends and returned to their homeland.

from sign at cemetery

Bonanza Cemetery

Sego Lily, Calochortus nuttallii, the state flower of Utah.

Sego Lily, Calochortus nuttallii, the state flower of Utah. Storm cloud

Insect getting nectar from wild rose.

Lizzie King and her husbands on Boothill

Lizzie and Richard King lived in Bonanza where Richard worked in real estate. A heated argument with a business partner left Richard dead and Lizzie alone.

Lizzie and close friend Charles Franklin purchased the gravesite for Richard and two more next to it, presumably for themselves. Soon, Charles and Lizzie began courting and a wedding seemed eminent.

To everyone’s surprise, Lizzie married Robert Hawthorne, a newcomer to Bonanza. Six days later, both were found shot to death. Soon after, Franklin left the area for a secluded cabin near Stanley where, years later, he was discovered dead. Clutched in his hand was a locket which held the picture of Lizzie King.

Due to the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Lizzie King, Bonanza residents chose to bury their loved ones elsewhere, leaving Lizzie and her husbands alone on Boothill.

from sign on Boothill

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I’m part of a facebook “fan” page

October 24, 2010

Yesterday, I was invited to join two other bloggers on The American Civil War page on facebook. We’re following the history of the war as it unfolds day by day.

1,385 people like The American Civil War page. Winking smile