#november 1856

[ltwilliammowett]

Mary Patten Captain of a Clipper

A remarkable woman, Mary Patten temporarily took command of a clippership in the 1850s. In July 1856, Neptune's Car left New York City for San Francisco. Captain Joshua Patten was in command and accompanying him was his wife, Mary, nineteen years old and pregnant. She had married at sixteen and had already been to sea on several voyages during which her husband had taught her how to navigate.

Mistrusting the first mate, the captain removed him from his position and took on his duties. As the ship was rounding Cape Horn, Captain Patten fell ill, his hearing and eyesight failing. Next in line for command was the second mate, but he could not navigate. Mary Patten assumed command, with the second mate's help and the support of the crew. Navigating and caring for her husband filled every moment; for fifty days she was unable to change clothes. The ship arrived in San Francisco November 1856. The insurers of the vessel rewarded her with one thousand dollars. Mary Patten and her husband returned to New York where she gave birth to a son. Sadly, her husband died three months later

Source

[byjove]

writing fictional Wikipedia articles as outlines for my historical fiction characters and having so much fun. dude look at this:

Daniel Ivey Clairville (3 May 1856 - 5 December 1941) was a prominent figure in the field of animal husbandry, early adopter of germ theory, animal behaviorist, cattle drover, diarist and Quaker theologian. Born in Philadelphia, Clairville apprenticed as a farrier until the death of his father in 1871 caused him to relocate to Texas to seek employment along the Chisholm Trail. Clairville was known for his ability to slow and halt the spread of disease among cattle using sanitation methods he pioneered, reducing cattle loss by up to 60% in herds under his care.

After retiring from the cattle industry in the late 1890s, he attended Cornell University, becoming an adjunct professor at Elgin Polytechnic Institute and publishing several texts on bovine husbandry and behavior.

Clairville was a relatively obscure scientific figure before his private writings about his sexuality, faith and experiences in the waning days of the Wild West were published posthumously.

^ Personal life

Clairville was gay and in a committed relationship with Joseph “Shortie” Alcott (14 November 1860 - 17 July 1906) until the latter’s mysterious death in Texas. Alcott was a train robber, outlaw, gambler, duelist and suspected serial killer. The couple met in the mid-1880s after Alcott was released from Utah Territorial Penitentiary and joined a trail drive lead by Clairville. Their relationship was described as inseparable but contentious by John Matthew Robertson-Clairville, Clairville’s adopted son, who often wrote about the couple’s relationship in his trail diary.

Having worked side by side for over a decade, Alcott initially followed Clairville east when he retired from the cattle industry in the 1890s but became embroiled in legal trouble in Pennsylvania and returned to Texas where he embarked on a crime spree that ended in a fatal two day shootout with a number of Texas rangers.

The details of Clairville’s private life and his connection to notorious criminal Shortie Alcott were largely forgotten until the 1970s when a box of personal letters and diaries was discovered in the attic of his former residence. The diaries of Clairville and Robertson-Clairville along with the correspondence between Clairville and Alcott in the latter’s final months form the basis of the book published by his great granddaughter in 1996.

Analysis of his writings and first hand accounts of his behavior suggest he had autism and OCD.

[juniepops]

seeing a lot of confusing music opinions lately so i wanted to check something for my own curiosity

[snobbishkitsch]

Alexandre de Riquer i Ynglada, 7th Count of Casa Dávalos (3 May 1856 - 13 November 1920), versatile artist intellectual and Catalan designer, illustrator, painter, engraver, writer and poet.

'Retrat Joventut' / A drawing of a man with a beard (1880-1885).

[royalty-nobility]

Queen Alexandra (1844-1925)

Artist: François Flameng (French, 1856-1923)

Date: 1908

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Royal Collection Trust, United Kingdom

Alexandra of Denmark

Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia; 1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 22 January 1901 to 6 May 1910 as the wife of Edward VII.

Alexandra's family had been relatively obscure until 1852, when her father, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was chosen with the consent of the major European powers to succeed his second cousin Frederick VII as King of Denmark. At the age of sixteen, Alexandra was chosen as the future wife of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the son and heir apparent of Queen Victoria. The couple married eighteen months later in 1863, the year in which her father became king of Denmark as Christian IX and her brother William was appointed king of Greece as George I.

Alexandra was Princess of Wales from 1863 to 1901, the longest anyone has ever held that title, and became generally popular; her style of dress and bearing were copied by fashion-conscious women. Largely excluded from wielding any political power, she unsuccessfully attempted to sway the opinion of British ministers and her husband's family to favour Greek and Danish interests. Her public duties were restricted to uncontroversial involvement in charitable work.

On the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, Albert Edward became King-Emperor as Edward VII, with Alexandra as queen-empress. She became queen mother on Edward VII's death in 1910, at which point their son George V acceded to the throne. Alexandra died aged 80 in 1925.

Painting Description

This strikingly sophisticated and composed portrait of Queen Alexandra was painted by the French artist François Flameng in 1908. It is one the highlights of early 20th century royal portraiture. The Queen sits upon a stone step, gazing directly at the viewer; dressed in a white silk dress, diaphanous gauze suggested about her arms and shoulders. She is wearing Queen Victoria's small crown, the riband and star of the Order of the Garter, her collier résille necklace, made by Cartier in 1904, and the Koh-i-nûr in its brooch setting. A wooded landscape and suggestion of a building or castle in the background.

[mass-monumentalist]

This one is more somber than most (despite the sunny locale). When I set out to photograph cemeteries in Massachusetts, I imagined sprawling hills of death's head graves and a famous grave (or two).

But we cannot discount those that have been forgotten.

This is "Cemetery Hill" in Northampton, MA - it is the final resting place of the unclaimed bodies of those that died at the Northampton State Hospital, a mental institution that ran from 1856-1993.

The records seem to indicate that these people were buried on Cemetery hill: John A. L. Adams (Dec 1852-15 Feb 1905), Annie Bazzell (unknown - 19 November 1904), Kate Benton (unknown - 13 Sep 1903), Jennie Johnson Bregquist (4 Dec 1875 - 1926). Sarah Chapin Brundage (1842 - 27 Mar 1906), Thomas Grove Chaffee (19 Sep 1837 - 26 Jan 1912), Miles B Hicks (1821 - 21 Feb 1898), William Kuhn (1847 - 6 Dec 1884), Catherine Lockerly (1830 - 6 Jul 1884), Francis Alden Loud (10 Oct 1825 - 19 Mar 1885), Elizabeth Lowe (14 Oct 1880 - 12 Oct 1905). Nancy Sage Main (Oct 1813 - 26 Apr 1903), Josephine Villancoeur Monier (unknown - 19 April 1905), John O'Brien (1832 - 21 Sep 1883), Emma Patterson Petterson (unknown - 10 Feb 1905), Melvin C. Stone (unknown - 3 August 1906), and Michael Tool (unknown - 24 January 1905).

Cemetery Hill - Northampton, MA

[whencyclopedia]

Great Sioux War

The Great Sioux War (also given as the Black Hills War, 1876-1877) was a military conflict between the allied forces of the Lakota Sioux/Northern Cheyenne and the US government over the territory of the Black Hills and, more widely, US policies of westward expansion and the appropriation of Native American lands.

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 had established the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, and promised this land to the Sioux in perpetuity. When gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874, the treaty was ignored by the US government, leading to the Black Hills Gold Rush of 1876. The Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho responded with armed resistance in raids on wagon trains, skirmishes, and five major battles fought between March 1876 and January 1877:

Battle of Powder River (Reynolds Battle) – 17 March 1876

Battle of the Rosebud (Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother) – 17 June 1876

Battle of the Little Bighorn (Battle of the Greasy Grass) – 25-26 June 1876

Battle of Slim Buttes – 9-10 September 1876

Battle of Wolf Mountain (Battle of Belly Butte) – 8 January 1877

In between these, were so-called minor engagements with casualties on both sides but, after June 1876, greater losses for the Sioux and Cheyenne. The final armed conflict of the Great Sioux War was the Battle of Muddy Creek (the Lame Deer Fight, 7-8 May 1877), by which time the Sioux war chief Crazy Horse (l. c. 1840-1877) had already surrendered and the chief Sitting Bull (l. c. 1837-1890) and Sioux war chief Gall (l.c. 1840-1894) and others had fled to the region of modern-day Canada. Although the war was over by May 1877, ending in a victory for the US military, some bands of Sioux and Cheyenne continued to struggle against reservation life until the Wounded Knee Massacre of 29 December 1890 broke their resistance.

Background

Although the first armed conflict between the Plains Indians and Euro-Americans was in 1823, problems between the Sioux and the US military began on 19 August 1854 with the Grattan Fight (Grattan Massacre), when 2nd Lieutenant John L. Grattan led his command of 30 soldiers to the camp of Chief Conquering Bear (l. c. 1800-1854) to demand the surrender of a man they claimed had stolen a cow from a Mormon wagon train.

Conquering Bear refused to surrender anyone, offering compensation instead, and, as the negotiations broke down, Grattan's men fired on the Sioux, mortally wounding Conquering Bear, and the Sioux warriors retaliated, killing Grattan and all of his command. The US military responded with campaigns against the Sioux in the First Sioux War of 1854-1856, which also included actions against their allies, the Cheyenne and Arapaho.

Tensions escalated after the opening of the Bozeman Trail in 1863, the establishment of forts to protect white settlers using the trail, and the Sand Creek Massacre of 29 November 1864. Red Cloud's War (1866-1868) was launched in response to the construction of these forts and the policies of the US government, concluding with the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which established the Great Sioux Reservation (modern-day South Dakota and parts of North Dakota and Nebraska), including the Black Hills – a site sacred to the Sioux – which was promised to them for "as long as the grass should grow and the rivers flow."

When Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer (l. 1839-1876) discovered gold in the Black Hills in 1874, the Fort Laramie treaty was broken as over 15,000 white settlers and miners streamed into the region during the Black Hills Gold Rush of 1876. The US government offered to purchase the Black Hills, but the Sioux would not sell. More settlers arrived, the government ignored Sioux demands that the 1868 treaty be honored, and the Great Sioux War began in March of that year, with the Reynolds campaign on the Powder River.

Continue reading...

[make-friends-with-the-rats]

Newsies Birthdays (according to me):

part one?

Jack Kelly: 10 July 1882 Reasoning: Jack is a summer baby. I also feel like it makes sense that Jack is newly 17 when the strike begins. His life is rapidly changing and he's rapidly trying to adapt. He feels trapped in New York largely because he knows he's not a kid anymore and he's going to soon be on his own. He was born on the 10th because 10 was Pulitzer's lucky number and I love myself some irony.

Sarah Jacobs: 18 May 1881 Reasoning: In the original Hard Promises script, Sarah is 18. Later iterations of the story tend to put her and Jack as the same age, but I prefer Sarah being born in 1881 because then she's more likely to have been born in Poland before her family immigrated. I feel like May fits her, and May 18th is also the birthday of my own older sister who Sarah reminds me of.

David Jacobs: 14 November 1882 Reasoning: November just fits him and November 14th also happens to be David Moscow's birthday. Irritatingly, David and Les don't have reliable canonical ages across the different scripts and the Newsies novel. The 1991 script made David 15 and Les 8, however we can assume that Les was 9 in the film. So if Les gained a year, it's at least reasonable to assume that David did too and was 16 in July of 1899. (David Moscow was also 16 while filming Newsies.) Making David a fall/winter birthday, but born in 1882, satisfies my assumption that David was 16 during the strike. Jack milks the few months he has over David as much as he possibly can.

Les Jacobs: Late Summer/Fall of 1889 Reasoning: In July of 1899, Les is "near ten." In child logic, this could mean either that he's just passed nine and a half or that he really is turning ten in a month or two. I think he fits as an August or September birthday but I haven't quite decided on a date yet. Also, Les either shares a birthday with Michael Sullivan, or his birthday falls on the day that Michael died because the world is cruel.

Esther Jacobs: May/June of 1861 Reasoning: The year is canonical because the film scripts put Esther at 38. Queen Esther's Hebrew name was "Hadassah," which means "myrtle tree." Myrtle trees bloom in late Spring so I think May/June is fitting.

Mayer Jacobs: 18 July 1856 Reasoning: This one is actually canonical and it is so, so funny. "Happy Birthday, Papa! I'm going on strike!" - David Jacobs, 1899.

[portrait-paintings]

The Carmencita

Artist: John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925)

Date: 1890

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: M.S. Rau, New Orleans, Louisiana

La Carmencita

Carmen Dauset Moreno, better known simply as Carmencita (1868–1910), was a Spanish-style dancer in American pre-vaudeville variety and music hall ballet.

Born in Almería, Andalusia, Spain, Carmencita took dancing lessons in Malaga and first danced professionally at Malaga's Cervantes Theatre in 1880. In 1882 she toured Spain and later traveled to Paris and Portugal. She returned to Paris during the Exposition Universelle (1889) and danced at the Nouveau Cirque where theatrical agent Bolossy Kiralfy saw her performance and subsequently induced her to come to the United States under his management.

She debuted in New York on August 17, 1889, dancing in the ballet of "Antiope." Her association with Kiralfy ended in early 1890, and she rose to fame under the management of John Koster and Albert Bial, who put her in their 23rd Street Concert Hall commencing 10 February 1890. Over the next several years Carmencita performed in major cities across the country. She appeared in Koster & Bial's new Music Hall in November and early December 1894 before selling her possessions and returning to Europe.[6] She performed at the Palace Theatre, London in February 1895 and then periodically at the Théâtre des Nouveautés in Paris.

According to film historian Charles Musser, Carmencita was the first woman to appear in a modern motion picture made for commercial purposes and may have been the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film she is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City since February 1890.

[deadpresidents]

Have any Vice Presidents later run for Governor or other office besides President after their terms?

Yes. Not counting those who served as President or ran for President following their time as Vice President, or the seven Vice Presidents who died in office (George Clinton, Elbridge Gerry, William R. King, Henry Wilson, Thomas A. Hendricks, Garret Hobart, and James S. Sherman), here are the VPs who sought other offices post-Vice Presidency:

•Aaron Burr (1801-1805): Lost race for Governor of New York in 1804 during his Vice Presidency. •Daniel D. Tompkins (1817-1825): Lost race for Governor of New York in 1820 during his Vice Presidency. •John C. Calhoun (1825-1832): Resigned the Vice Presidency to join in the U.S. Senate from South Carolina (1832-1843); Served as Secretary of State (1844-1845) in the last stretch of the Tyler Administration; Elected again to the U.S. Senate from South Carolina (1845-1850) after serving as Secretary of State.

•Richard M. Johnson (1837-1841): Lost race for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky in 1842; Served two separate terms in the Kentucky House of Representatives (1841-1843; 1850) after his Vice Presidency. Died two weeks into his second post-Vice Presidential term in the state legislature.

•John Tyler (1841): After serving as Vice President and President, and following Virginia's secession from the Union in 1861, Tyler was elected as a delegate to the Provisional Confederate Congress. Tyler was also elected to a full term in the Confederate House of Representatives but died just before taking his seat in February 1862.

•George M. Dallas (1845-1849): Appointed U.S. Minister to Great Britain (1856-1861) by President Pierce and served under Presidents Pierce and Buchanan before being replaced early in the Lincoln Administration.

•John C. Breckinridge (1857-1861): Elected to a U.S. Senate seat from Kentucky while still Vice President. After administering the oath of office to his successor as Vice President, Hannibal Hamlin, Breckinridge was immediately sworn into the Senate by Hamlin. Although Kentucky remained neutral during the Civil War, Breckinridge supported the Confederacy and joined the Confederate military while still a sitting Senator, resulting in treason charges in November 1861 and, a month later, unanimous expulsion from the Senate. Breckinridge became a general in the Confederate Army and served as Confederate President Jefferson Davis's final Secretary of War.

•Hannibal Hamlin (1861-1865): Briefly served as Collector of the Port of Boston (1865-1866) after being appointed by President Andrew Johnson. Elected U.S. Senator from Maine (1869-1881). Served as U.S. Ambassador to Spain (1881-1882) under Presidents Garfield and Arthur.

•Andrew Johnson (1865): After his brief Vice Presidency and nearly four years as President, Johnson lost races for the U.S. Senate (1869) and U.S. House of Representatives in Tennessee. Elected as U.S. Senator from Tennessee in 1875 and died in office.

•William A. Wheeler (1877-1881): Wheeler was considered as a candidate for the U.S. Senate from New York on several occasions following his Vice Presidency but never made a serious bid for election.

•Levi P. Morton (1889-1893): Served as Governor of New York (1895-1896).

•Adlai E. Stevenson (1893-1897): Lost race for Governor of Illinois in 1908.

•Charles W. Fairbanks (1905-1909): Fairbanks was the Republican nominee for Vice President on a ticket alongside Presidential nominee Charles Evans Hughes in 1916 but they lost to incumbent President Woodrow Wilson and Vice President Thomas R. Marshall.

•Charles G. Dawes (1925-1929): Served as U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain (1929-1931), appointed by President Hoover.

•Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945): After being dumped as Vice President in favor of Harry Truman when Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for a fourth term in 1944, FDR appointed Wallace Secretary of Commerce where he served from 1945-1946 under Roosevelt and Truman

•Alben W. Barkley (1949-1953): Elected to the U.S. Senate from Kentucky after his Vice Presidency and served from 1955 until dying in office in 1956.

•Richard Nixon (1953-1961): After losing his first bid for the White House in 1960, Nixon also lost a race for Governor of California in 1962 after leaving the Vice Presidency before making a remarkable comeback to win the Presidency in 1968.

•Hubert H. Humphrey (1965-1969): Elected to his former seat in the U.S. Senate from Minnesota and served until dying in office (1971-1978).

•Walter Mondale (1977-1981): U.S. Ambassador to Japan (1993-1996), appointed by President Clinton. In 2002, Mondale lost a race for U.S. Senate from Minnesota when he was the last-minute replacement on the ballot after Senator Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash.

[mckinleygirl98]

tell me everything you know about edwin booth. Everything

Edwin Thomas Booth was born November 13 1833 to famous and renowned tragedian Junius Brutus Booth and Mary Ann Booth (neé Holmes)

as a boy, Edwin went on tour with his father. It was not a pleasant experience for him. Junius was often drunk and out of his mind. He practically had to be babysat, and Edwin had to make sure that he sent money home to the family. He also had to stand in for his father sometimes, because the old man frequently missed performances. Edwin once said that his ��childhood died” on tour with his father. Luckily, Junius contracted something on a riverboat and croaked in 1852, leaving Edwin to fend for himself in the acting world. Unluckily, now Edwin’s family was starving

luckily, Edwin had hit big bucks, big fortune, and probably some sexy girls (and guys… foreshadowing) in CALI! And came home to Tudor Hall in 1856 with like. Those guns that shoot money and bags of money and cool sunglasses and a white tiger on a gold chain and a Maserati and a Hawaiian shirt and a coconut with pina colada in. and he was like “wwwwoaaah…. What the hell happened while I was gone!?” And brought his mother and siblings to live with him in Baltimore!

Edwin had several siblings, most notably being his younger brother John Wilkes, who assassinated US President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 after the conclusion of the civil war. Wilkes was a Confederate sympathizer, and Edwin for Union, even voting for Lincoln in 1864. Edwin was not blamed for his brother’s crime, and though he briefly retired from the stage in the aftermath, he came back to applause just as thunderous, and adoration just as renowned.

John Wilkes and Edwin never had gotten along. They only appeared together on stage several times. When they lived together, they argued politics incessantly, and Edwin often kicked John Wilkes out of the house to go live with their sister, Asia, who was much more merciful. Wrongfully so. Maybe if John Wilkes stayed with Edwin a little longer he wouldn’t have killed Lincoln.

Strangely enough, Edwin rescued one very important person in late 1864 or early 1865…. Robert Todd Lincoln. The president’s son had stumbled onto thw tracks and was literally gonna die if not for Edwin’s quick thinking. Robert knew who it was, but Edwin didn’t realize, and it wasn’t until some time later when he was sent a letter of thanks by General Ulysses S Grant or something because Robert was a soldier

speaking of Union soldiers… Adam Badeau is long rumored to have been Edwin’s lover. Badeau was on the staff of Grant, and was a theatre critic and writer who first met Edwin in the late 1850s after seeing a spectacular performance . They became very close, often writing each other… he even recuperated from a severe injury received at Port Hudson at Edwin’s house. Adam writes in his 1858 book The Vagabond all about Edwin in the chapter “A Night With the Booths” where he and Adam spend the evening together in his father’s home Tudor Hall , unfinished after he died. Adam even fell asleep on his shoulder while Edwin was reading to him.

Edwin invited Adam to his honeymoon, and he was the best man at Ned’s wedding. Speaking of wedding, he was marrying Mary Devlin in 1860. He loved her a lot. She was a talented actress, and bore him one daughter. whom he named Edwina.

Then Mary Devlin DIED in 1863 :(. and Edwin was devastated . It took the will of his friends and I don’t know what else to keep Edwin from drinking, which he had kinda been addicted to, a trait he’d inherited from his not-so-dear old dad. He recovered from this death, and, in 1864, took on a feat that wasn’t broken for another 58 years. For 100 nights, at the winter garden theatre (now the booth theatre after it burned down in 1867), Edwin booth performed Hamlet . It was a sensation, never done before! And helped Edwin seal his spot as the most well known actor of the booth family. Right?

I kinda have to go but that was part one… I’ll follow it up with his later life and stuff with a reblog if you’re still interested in more (like his death and his statue in Gramercy park and his ALMOST ASSASSINATION. THATS RIGHR, stay tuned if you WANNA HEAR HOW EDWIN BOOTH WAS ALMOST ASSASSINATED IN THE 1870s by MARK GRAY!)

[davidhudson]

George Bernard Shaw, July 26, 1856 – November 2, 1950.

On the set of Gabriel Pascal’s Major Barbara (1941) with Rex Harrison.

[eddy25960]

Joakim Frederik Skovgaard (Danish,1856-1933)

Still Life of a Water Glass and Fresh Herbs

Joakim Frederik Skovgaard (18 November 1856 – 9 March 1933) was a Danish painter. He is remembered above all for the frescos which decorate Viborg Cathedral.

[heinrichheineee]

Nathaniel Hawthorne writing about Herman Melville. Journal entry date: November 12, 1856

“It is strange how he persists — and has persisted ever since I knew him, and probably long before”

Source: Jay Leyda, The Melville Log, A Documentary Life of Herman Melville: 1819-1891, vol. II

[scotianostra]

On February 1st 1865 the Highland Railway was formed from the amalgamation of Inverness and Perth Junction and the Inverness and Aberdeen Junction Railways.

Back in the day every region had it’s own local railway company covering the different areas around the country. The Highland Railway ran from Perth in Central Scotland north to Inverness and then on up the east coast to Wick and Thurso. From Dingwall, the railway ran west to Kyle of Lochalsh to serve Skye and the Western Isles. From Inverness, another line ran east to Keith, where it connected with the line to Aberdeen. Several branches were built from this core network to serve nearby towns.

This is a longer post than I normally put together but hope you get an idea of how all these wee companies ran, and ended up becoming the one company, before of course the bigger companies ate them all up. Some of the stations are now gone, but others mentioned, like Kingussie, Nairn, Keith and Dunkeld survive to this day, and I often pass through them on my travels north. It also gives us an insight intothe infamous Beeching cuts in the 60’s which butchered the rail network, if Beeching had his way there would be no railways beyond Inverness!!

Inverness was always the centre of the Highland Railway. It was the company’s headquarters and principle station. All trains led to Inverness.

The original proposals to construct railways to Inverness were made in the mid-1840s. Rival routes were proposed from Perth and Aberdeen . The Perth & Inverness Railway was considered too hilly for the locomotives of the day, but the Great North of Scotland Railway (GNSR) from Aberdeen was authorised. The GNSR struggled to raise capital in the post-railway mania period and eventually started construction as far as Huntly in 1852, opening that line in 1854.

The people of Inverness then stepped in and started building their own line from the Inverness end, initially as far as Nairn, the Inverness & Nairn Railway (I&N) was opened on 6th. November 1855 but by then plans were being made to extend this railway to meet the GNSR. After some discussion, the Inverness & Aberdeen Junction Railway (I&AJ) was promoted to build the line from Nairn to Keith where it met the GNSR extension from Huntly. The I&AJ was completed on 18th. August 1858,when it took over the working of the I&N.

The people of Inverness were never satisfied with the long journey round via Aberdeen , especially as the GNSR’s station was half a mile from that of the line from the south and connections were not always maintained. Thus was born the Inverness and Perth Junction Railway (I&PJR) which ran from Forres via Grantown, Kingussie and Drumochter summit to Dunkeld where it met with end on with the Perth and Dunkeld Railway which had opened in 1856. The I&P was authorised in 1861 and opened just two years later, being worked from the outset by the I&AJR. The two companies amalgamated on 1st. February 1865 to form the Highland Railway.

Meanwhile construction northwards from Inverness had already started, with a line to Dingwall (1862), Invergordon (1863), Bonar Bridge (1864), Golspie (1868), Helmsdale (1871) and Wick and Thurso (1874). Westward from Dingwall, the Dingwall & Skye Railway was opened to Strome Ferry in 1870.

In the 1890s, two additions were made to the main network. The direct line from Aviemore over Slochd to Inverness was completed in 1898, a year after the Skye line was extended to the present terminus at Kyle of Lochalsh. Several branches were opened from these main lines over the next 40 years, taking the final length of the system to some 242 route miles.Tourist traffic has always been a major source of income for the railways in the Highlands . The Highland Railway developed its own hotels at Inverness , Dornoch and Strathpeffer. It offered combined tours in conjunction with the steamer services of David MacBrayne. Each August it had to contend with the annual migration north for the ‘glorious twelfth.’

The railway played a major part in the First World War, when the Grand Fleet was stationed at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands . Worn down, like many other railways in the country, it became part of the London , Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923. The LMS continued to develop the lines, introducing dining cars and speeding up services. The Second World War again imposed a considerable strain on the lines.

On the nationalisation of the railways, the Scottish Region of British Railways took over. Soon the development of road transport made a significant impact on the use of the railway. The closure of branch lines, which had started in the 1930s, continued. The Beeching Plan of 1963 envisaged the closure of all lines north of Inverness , but this was not approved because those lines still provided a lifeline in winter. The old route from Aviemore to Forres and a number of intermediate stations on the main lines, were closed. Otherwise the main system remained intact, as it does today. Currently operated by ScotRail, the lines continue to provide a vital link to locals and bring many tourists to the area.

The Highland Railway was well known for its locomotives. Working the steep gradients of the main line, in particular, was always a challenge. Add strong winds and snow and the problems became even worse. The railway introduced the first 4-6-0s to the British Isles, commemorated in the preserved No.103 at the Glasgow Transport Museum . In the 1930s, the LMS Black 5s, locally always called “Hikers”, immediately proved their worth. The isolated nature of the country led British Railways to implement complete dieselisation early in the modernisation plan.

Today class 158 and 170 diesel multiple units work most of the trains, but you can still retire to bed in a sleeper on the line out of London Euston and wake up to the sound of a Class 67 struggling up Drumochter.

[prommytheus]

tgaa main cast birthday headcanons

gina: march 14, 1881

kazuma: september 26, 1875

barok: august 11, 1866

iris: june 17, 1888

yujin: february 7, 1856

ryunosuke: july 6, 1875

susato: november 20, 1882

herlock: december 2, 1864