Saturday, April 25, 2015

Today in History for April 25, 2015

Andrew Jackson Smith
April 25, 1777 – Nicholas Stallworth Sr., one of the original settlers of Conecuh County, was born in Edgefield District, South Carolina.

April 25, 1781 - British General Lord Charles Cornwallis retreated to Wilmington, North Carolina from Guilford Courthouse. He had been defeated by a militia under the command of American Major General Nathanael Greene.

April 25, 1792 - The guillotine was first used to execute highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier.

April 25, 1846 - The Mexican-American War ignited as a result of disputes over claims to Texas boundaries. The outcome of the war fixed Texas' southern boundary at the Rio Grande River.

April 25, 1861 – Store clerk Alfred Christian of Evergreen, Ala., a native of Virginia, enlisted in the Confederate army at Sparta in Conecuh County. Christian was elected Brevet 2nd Lt., and his commission expired on Oct. 9, 1862 at Raccoon Ford, Va. He was appointed 2nd Lt., and his commission expired on July 3, 1863 at Gettysburg. He was named Orderly Sgt. and was appointed 1st Lt. on Feb. 6, 1864. Christian survived the war and moved to Texas. At the time of his enlistment, Alfred lived with his brother, George Christian, who briefly served as Evergreen’s postmaster in 1856-57. When the Civil War began, George was exempted from service because he was a Justice of the Peace. George Christian is buried in the Burford Cemetery, but has no grave marker.


April 25, 1862 – During the Civil War, forces under Union Admiral David Farragut demanded the surrender of the Confederate city of New Orleans, Louisiana. Union troops officially took possession on April 29.

April 25, 1864 – During the Civil War, the Battle of Marks' Mills took place in Cleveland County, Ark. During the battle, Confederate forces under General James Fagan captured a Union wagon train attempting to supply Federal forces at Camden, Ark. Union General Frederick Steele was forced to withdraw back to Little Rock.

April 25, 1864 - After facing defeat in the Red River Campaign, Union General Nathaniel Bank returned to Alexandria, La.

April 25, 1865 – Having departed the battlefield at Blakely near Mobile, Ala. on April 14, the Federal 16th Corps under Major General A.J. Smith arrived in Montgomery, formally beginning the Union occupation of the city of Montgomery.

April 25, 1873 – Writer Howard R. Garis was born in Binghamton, N.Y.

April 25, 1884 – At the Calhoun House in downtown Huntsville, Ala., which was used as a federal courthouse, desperado Frank James was tried and found not guilty for the robbery of a government payroll near Muscle Shoals, Ala. on May 11, 1881. One of his defense attorneys was Huntsville’s LeRoy Pope Walker, first secretary of war of the Confederate States of America.

April 25, 1891 – Army Pvt. Louis Hayles of Eliska, Ala., who was killed in action during World War I on Nov. 11, 1918 (one day before the war ended), was born.

April, 25, 1892 – French explorer of the Sahara Henri Duveyrier passed away at the age of 52 in Sevres, a suburb of Paris.

April 25, 1892 – Estonian-German geologist and explorer Karl von Ditmar passed away at the age of 69 in Tartu, Livonia.

April 25, 1898 - The U.S. declared war on Spain one day after Spain had declared war on the U.S., marking the start of the Spanish-American War.

April 25, 1901 - The American League debuted at the Chicago Cricket Club. Chicago defeated Cleveland, 8-2.

April 25, 1905 - Dr. R.A. Smith of Monroeville, Ala. left for New York to accompany a patient who was to be operated upon.

April 25, 1907 - Alabama author Sara Elizabeth Mason was born.

April 25, 1909 – Pro Baseball Hall of Fame third baseman John Franklin "Home Run" Baker hit his first and only grand slam.

April 25, 1933 – The organizational meeting of the Central Alabama Baseball League was held in Greenville, Ala. on this Tuesday with four clubs as members – Evergreen, Greenville, Ft. Deposit and Luverne. League officers included Lucian Glass of Ft. Deposit, president, and Loyce Hyde of Evergreen, Merrit McLendon of Luverne, Carl Golson of Ft. Deposit and Floyd Ziegler of Greenville, league directors.

April 25, 1939 – Former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser was born in Ames, Iowa.

April 25, 1942 – Judge Chauncey Sparks, who was running for Alabama governor, was scheduled to speak from a band stand in Evergreen’s business section on this Saturday at 4 p.m. Sparks went on to serve as governor form Jan. 19, 1943 to Jan. 20, 1947.

April 25, 1944 - The United Negro College Fund was established by Tuskegee president F. D. Patterson after convincing 26 other black colleges to "pool their small monies and make a united appeal to the national conscience." Since its founding, UNCF has raised more than a billion dollars in support of its member institutions.

April 25, 1945 - Albert B. "Happy" Chandler was unanimously elected baseball commissioner.

April 25, 1949 – Poet and journalist James Fenton was born in Lincoln, England.

April 25, 1951 – Army Cpl. Terry S. McCall of Escambia County, Ala. killed in action in Korea.

April 25, 1952 – Novelist Padgett Powell was born in Gainesville, Fla.

April 25, 1954 - A television version of Alabama author Ambrose Bierce's story "Vengeance" was broadcast as part of the “Your Favorite Story” series.

April 25, 1957 – The Evergreen Courant reported that, just as they were going to press, they learned that a woman had been killed and a man and child were injured in a one-car accident two miles north of the Ray Brothers Store on Highway 31 North of Evergreen, Ala. An ID card on the man identified him as James Cannon of 809 North M St., Pensacola, Fla. The woman and child were not identified in the story.

April 25, 1959 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway, a waterway system of locks, canals and channels that connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, opened. The first ship to navigate the seaway was an icebreaker, the D'Iberville.

April 25, 1960 – The United States Navy submarine USS Triton completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

April 25, 1961 - A television version of Alabama author Mary Elizabeth Counselman's story "Parasite Mansion" was broadcast as part of the “Thriller” series.

April 25, 1963 – The Evergreen Courant reported that an article titled “County Organized for Farm-to-Market Roadwork,” written by Conecuh County Engineer Marion Wilkins, had been published in the April 1963 issue of “Rural Roads,” a nationally circulated magazine concerned with the building of federal, state, county and township roads.

April 25, 1974 - Pam Morrison, Jim Morrison's widow, died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27.

April 25, 1974 - Tampa Bay was awarded the NFL's 27th franchise.

April 25, 1990 - The crew of space shuttle Discovery placed the Hubble Space Telescope into a Low Earth Orbit. Initially, Hubble's operators suffered a setback when a lens aberration was discovered, but a repair mission by space-walking astronauts in December 1993 successfully fixed the problem, and Hubble began sending back its first breathtaking images of the universe.

April 25, 1995 - Darryl Strawberry was sentenced to three years probation, six months of house confinement and a $350,000 fine. Strawberry had avoided prison for tax evasion.

April 25, 1996 - The Minnesota Twins and the Detroit Tigers combined for the most runs in 26 years. The Twins won with a final score of 24-11.

April 25, 1997 – Walter Eugene “Gene” Garrett of Uriah, Ala. passed away at the age of 68 in a Mobile hospital. He was a 1947 graduate of Marion Institute and a 1953 graduate of the University of Alabama. He received his law degree from Alabama in 1953 and went on to serve as a state legislator, special judge and member of the Alabama Constitution Revision Committee. In 1963, he purchased the historic King Plantation House at Packer’s Bend and moved it board by board to Uriah.

April 25, 2011 – Sweetwater Mansion in Florence, Ala. was featured on an episode of A&E’s “Paranormal State.”

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