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This 8-minute film is a fascinating summary of how radar guided B-29 Flying Fortresses to their targets in Japan during the last months of World War II.
Tags:
radar
bomb
B-29
flying
fortress
japan
1945
Added: 19th August 2007
Views: 161
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Posted By: Admin |
 
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Blenheim Covered Bridge
The Old Blenheim Bridge is located in the Town of Blenheim on State Route 30 in North Blenheim, Schoharie County, New York. It spans the Schoharie Creek and is "double-barreled" or has two separate lanes. At 232 feet in length between the stone abutments, this bridge has the unique distinction of being "the longest covered single span wooden bridge in the world" and one of only six remaining bridges in the world with two separated lanes. It is constructed of Long truss with a center arch. The bridge was built in 1854-5 by Nicholas M. Powers under contract for the Blenheim Bridge Company (inc. 1828) as a toll bridge and retired from use in 1931, and was listed as a National Historic Landmark on January 29, 1964; placed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966; and is now a National Historic Engineering Landmark, 1984.
It's interesting to note that the bridge was not originally built in place over the Schoharie Creek as most folks would imagine, but rather was assembled at a site nearby, to insure the pieces all fit together correctly. Afterwards it was disassembled and erected in its present location across the creek. Ninety-four thousand board feet (127 tons) of lumber, 3,600 pounds of bolts and 1,500 pounds of washers were used in its construction. Nicholas Powers was paid $7.00 a day ($2,000 total) and the workmen received $1.00 a day. When the bridge was completed in 1855 it cost $6,000. During construction scoffers said that the bridge would fall due to its own weight with the removal of the falsework (falsework being the temporary scaffolding, also called "bents", made of heavy logs, which were used to support the bridge during construction). When the day came, Powers climbed to the roof and said, "If the bridge goes down, I never want to see the sun rise again!" People then said that the bridge would sag so much as to be useless. Powers replied that if this happened he would jump off. When the falsework was taken away the bridge settled only slightly, even less than Powers had calculated.
Local lore has it that while the stone abutments were being built one of the masons was sent to fetch a jug of rye whiskey. Before they got a chance to open the jug and imbibe the president of the bridge company, J. Dickinson, who was a "teetotaller" (it's an archaic term by today’s standard, a tetotallar being someone who practices and promotes the complete abstinence from alcoholic beverages) arrived unannounced to inspect the progress of the bridge. The masons were forced to hastily hide the jug in the first available spot which happened to be a niche in the abutment. As work proceeded at a quicker pace under the eagle eye of the company president, who wouldn't leave, the masons were forced to build up the stonework around the jug before it was rescued, and supposedly, it remains there to this day.
"The picturesque old bridge has had many adventures. It has been afire three times and is now insured like any ordinary house. Twice the roof caught fire from windblown sparks and embers from burning buildings in the village. And once, many years ago, when traveling tinkers went about mending pots and pans, carrying a small charcoal stove to heat their soldering irons, one of these tinkers went so sleep in the bridge and tipped his stove over. The hot coals ignited the wooden bridge but someone happened along in time to put the fire out and to sober up the "tinker" in the nearby river." – Schenectady Union-Star: Feb. 26, 1930
Old Covered Bridge - North Blenheim, NY
(Click Photo Above For More Images of Bridge)
Tags:
Blenheim
Bridge
Schoharie
Creek
Covered
Bridge
Historic
Marker
Added: 8th September 2007
Views: 227
Rating: 
Posted By: Ohlhous |
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Jane McCrea was a Loyalist during the American Revolutionary War whose reported death at the hands of Algonquin allies of the British became a motivating event for the American rebels. This Site is three Miles south of Fort Edward on the west side of Route 4. The Historic marker reads as follows:
ORIGINAL BURIAL PLACE OF
JANE McCREA
JULY 28, 1777
N.Y. STATE
HISTORICAL
MARKER
1927
(See story - keyword: McCrea)
Tags:
Jane
McCrea
Burial
Grave
Site
Added: 9th September 2007
Views: 189
Rating: 
Posted By: Ohlhous |
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During the American Revolutionary War, in 1777, Jane McCrea was a 17 year old Loyalist living at the farm of her older brother, Col. John McCrea at Fort Edward, NY to be close to her fiancé, Lt. David Jones, a loyalist serving with British General Burgoyne's army. On July 27th of that year, while she was visiting the home of Mrs. McNeil, the two women were captured by Indians allied to the British. Since both women were under the protection of General Burgoyne, they were reasonably sure nothing would happen to them. Their captors separated into two bands, each with one of the women. When Mrs. McNeil, a cousin of General Simon Fraser's, arrived with her captors at the British camp, she wondered where Jane was, since she had departed ahead of Mrs. McNeil. Shortly thereafter, the first party of Indians returned to the camp with a fresh scalp lock. It seems an argument had ensued over Jane McCrea, and to settle the argument, she had been killed. Other reports however state she was accidentally killed by friendly fire as the Indians made off with her. She was buried three miles south of Fort Edward. Though a Tory sympathizer, her death, and those of others in similar raids, inspired some of the resistance to Burgoyne's invasion leading to his defeat at the Battle of Saratoga. But the effect expanded later as reports of the incident were used, almost as propaganda, to excite rebel sympathies during the war, especially before the Sullivan Expedition in 1779. The story had become a part of American folklore when James Fennimore Cooper described some similar events in his novel "The Last of the Mohicans". Later on, 1852, McCrea's remains were removed and re-interred at the Union Cemetery in the Town of Fort Edward. McCrea's remains were exhumed in 2003 and researchers were surprised to find that McCrea's skull was missing, and her bones were commingled with those of another Revolutionary-era woman, Sara McNeil, a landowner and a cousin of British Gen. Simon Fraser. The bodies were exhumed again in 2005 in order to provide separate graves for both women.
This Marker is posted outside the Broadway (Route 4) entrance to the Union Cemetery in Fort Edward.
Tags:
Jane
McCrea
Fort
Edward
Added: 9th September 2007
Views: 427
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Posted By: Ohlhous |
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On the morning of Saturday, July 28, 1945 a B-25 bomber flying toward Newark airport in heavy fog struck the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors.
If disappointed by the quality of the images, remember that this isnt a re-enactment; and the people arent actors.
Tags:
empire
state
building
airplane
crash
1945
B-25
Added: 9th September 2007
Views: 344
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Posted By: sdado4 |
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This twenty minute documentary starts slowly, but dont give up on it: It finishes well! If you're in a hurry, fast forward to about the midpoint.
Tags:
watchmaking
hamilton
1947
Added: 13th September 2007
Views: 110
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Posted By: sdado4 |
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The area west of the Genesee River (which flows from Pennsylvania generally northward across New York State to Lake Ontario at Rochester) was then the 3.3 million acre tract known as the "Holland Land Purchase" (HLP). It's headquarters was housed in a building that's only a few hundred feet from this sign in downtown Batavia, NY (keyword "holland")
Tags:
Genesee
county
holland
land
purchase
Added: 14th September 2007
Views: 82
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Posted By: MarkHoward |
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