In the 1840s, northern abolitionist Charles T. Torrey had had enough of intellectual debates and meetings, so he headed south and teamed up with Thomas Smallwood to free hundreds of slaves in the D.C. area. Following his arrest in 1844, Torrey was imprisoned in the Maryland Penitentiary where he would become a martyr for his cause.
"By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes!" Who is the mysterious man who visits Edgar Allan Poe's grave to leave a yearly offering of roses and cognac to the poet Baltimore claims as its own?
What was the first message telegraphed to the Capitol in 1844? If you answered "What hath God wrought?" you're wrong! Read about the long road to Samuel Morse's most famous telegraphed words, and the messages that preceded it.
In 1910 Maryland Democrats planned to bar all African Americans from voting, forever. But Black men and women were ready to fight for their place in the state.
April 14th, 1865 marks the date of one of the most shocking and memorable events in Washington and American history: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. By 10:30 p.m. that night, the President’s death was looking imminent, and after hearing this news just two blocks over at 7th and D Streets NW, Gustave Lansburgh, owner of Lansburgh & Bros. Fancy Goods Agency, decided to start decorating his store in mourning black. It was this small decision that would transform Lansburgh’s dry goods store into one of the most prosperous Washington department stores for the next 113 years.
Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency on November 6, 1860, was the catalyst for vehement anger in the South, where the wave of secession had already begun to stir. The anger at the president-elect became so great that several conspirators vowed he would never reach the capitol to be inaugurated.
By many accounts, Lincoln was aware but unmoved by the threats that rose around him in early 1861 as he prepared to relocate from his home in Springfield, Illinois to the White House. He planned a grand 2,000-mile whistle-stop tour that would take his train through seventy cities and towns on the way to his inauguration. He was sure to be greeted by thousands of well-wishers, but a more sinister element was also gathering.
