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The strategic importance of forts at the mouth of Niagara River is shown graphically here: during the War of 1812 it was extremely difficult for either British or American ships to make it past the cannons of (respectively) Fort Niagara or Fort…

Just prior to the War of 1812, British forces worked feverishly to control navigation of the Niagara River, posting batteries every mile along bluffs overlooking the gorge. The one pictured here was located close enough to the village of Lewiston…

During the War of 1812, the outpost of Buffalo, NY was scarcely populated but of geographically of strategic importance. As Benson J. Lossing writes in his history, “At the time we are considering that frontier was sparsely settled. Buffalo was a…

Overview map of important settlements, forts, trails, and battles during the War of 1812 along the Niagara River.

This site at the mouth of the Niagara River always has had a strategic importance: prior to European contact as the beginning of a portage around impassable rapids and falls; then as the French Fort Conti built in 1678; then as a reconstructed Fort…

Short story by F. St. Mars adopts centers upon a black kite--that is, the migratory predator--who as the narrative opens is hunting in the Southern Downs of England. A series of events take it across Europe and eventually to Africa, engaging in…

Joseph Biel (1891-1943) was a Jewish immigrant who had witness the pogroms of Bialystock, Russia; Lena Gurr (1897-1992), born in New York, was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. Both were painters committed to social justice who appear to…

Promotional brochure from the motor age--"There is no Automobile Road Through the Gorge"--was created by an electric railway company started in the early 1890s. Capt. John M. Brinker, a Buffalo businessman, had the perseverance to capitalize a…

The titular protagonists of Four Girls at Chautauqua are pictured here prior to their two-week spiritual journey in the popular novel written by "Pansy," the pen name of Isabella Macdonald Alden. Founded in 1874, the Chautauqua Institution…