Shipwreck hunters find 1870 schooner

A shipwreck was recently discovered in Lake Erie. The location of where it's been found isn't all that deep, actually, only 80ft, 25 miles north of Cleveland. More Specifically, it was found off Cleveland by the Cleveland Underwater Explorers and the Great Lakes Historical society. They believe it was the historical Plymouth, a tiny schooner of 133 feet, and it was pretty much fully in tact. The problem is, however, that most of the ship is buried under the muck of the lake, making it all the more difficult to pull it out of the water.

Exhibitionists have started this search in 2004 and thought it ended in October, 2007. On Friday October 13, exhibitionists set out for NYC. The information acquired there was that the schooner, which has three masts, hit a storm and everyone aboard, including the sea captain and his wife were thought dead.

The discovery of shipwrecks has more than one value, as Carrie Sowden, archaeological direct of the Peachman Lake Erie shipwreck Research Center said. It fills gaps in two fields: both in history and in archaeology.

Source: toledoblade.com

The Beginning of the Second Great Awakening

Religion became the new "craze" as the nineteenth century began. The outcome of this craze, known as the Second Great Awakening, lasted into the 1830s. This is also where the concept of evangelicalism originated. Evangelicalism is the belief that one who is saved is required to share the message of salvation with others. "Evangelical ministers feared for the nation because so many westerns were unchurched (Ayers, 227)." The Presbyterians began another series of revivals known as the great western revivals of 1800-1815. Their first camp meeting took place in August, 1801 at Cane Ridge Kentucky where people from all denominations came, numbering to about 20,000. Religion was also important to black Americans, whether they remained enslaved or had achieved freedom.

The period around 1800 witnessed the expansion of several dissenting sects: The Shakers, the Society of the Public Universal Friend, and the Universalists. They are called sects, rather than denominations because they were new and fairly small. They held distinctive beliefs that set them apart from mainstream religions, yet had a significant influence on intellectual and scial movement of their time. The Shakers were the most influential sect. They left England to escape mob attacks and imprisonment. The sect offered an avenue for people who had been spiritually reborn in the Awakening and sought a distinctive way to represent that rebirth in their lives. Prominent amongst them was Mother Lee. Mother Lee Believed she embodied Christ's Second Coming. She was also called the Mother of New Creation. She preached the Shaker's beliefs of achievement of salvation was on by that of confession of sin, equality regardless of sex or race, opposition to slavery and war, and assistance to the poor. Men and woman slept, ate and worked separately to abstain form sexual intercourse. In a large open space without pulpit or pews, worshipers dances, shouted and sang. The Shakers influenced other groups to organize communal Utopian experiments during the years after 1815.

The Louisiana Purchase

The greatest success of Thomas Jefferson's Presidency was, in fact, the Louisiana Purchase. His tour de force granted him land that doubled the size of the United States, thus undermining Spain's control in America. This all began when, in 1800, Jefferson sent the Robert R. Livingston , the U.S. minister to France to recover lands in the west, with high desire to prevent French control of the Mississippi Valley. In October, 1802, the Spanish suspended once again the right of Americans to deposit goods for export at New Orleans. The Americans thought, incorrectly, that Napoleon was behind this ban. In response to Livingston's overtures Napoleon decided to sell the entire Louisiana Territory to the United States. Jefferson ignored the Spanish objections, but worried that the Louisiana purchase was unconstitutional. The Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson believed, wouldn't the life of the republic by providing space for generations of ordinary planters. Beyond Spain's objection to the U.S. purchase of Louisiana, the two nations also disputed territory boundaries. Jefferson pushed for West Florida, with an eastern boundary at the Puerdo River, in the southwest to the Rio Grande, in the Northwest to the Rocky Mountains and along the west bank of the Mississippi from Northern Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico. Jefferson sent troops as a threat but decided not to attack and tried to purchase what is now Florida with failed attempts. Several times since 1783, he had tried to organize expeditions for scientific knowledge, and to promote American interest in the region. In 1792 an American sea Captain named Robert Grey explored the Columbia River, and George Vancouver, a British Naval Officer, explored the Northwest coast.Even before buying Louisiana, Jefferson appointed his private secretary, Meriwether Lewis as captain of his expedition. Lewis choose William Clark to accompany him. Clark was his close friend and the two of the m actually fought in the Army together. This time, their task was to find the Northwest Passage and explore the west. Jefferson also hoped they would make peaceful contact with the Native Americans to expand commercial networks for fur trade. Lewis and Clark more than fulfilled their duty. Lewis and Clark received commissions as army officers to lead the Corps of Discovery of about 40 men who departed from St. Louis in may 1804. They traveled up the Missouri River and duirng that time several men deserted and one died. The arrived in the Manda and Hidtsa villages of what is North Dakota. The Lewis and Clark Expedition set out with Sacajawea a Shoshone woman and her French Husband and infant son. They went southeast along the Yellowstone River and returned to St. Louis by September 1806.