Timeline: Elzara Townsend: Art's List

1825 - 1870 (45 years)

	Date	Event(s)
1	1825	18 1825: The 350 mile long Erie Canal, the most important passenger and freight route from the East to the Midwest, is completed. Opened in 1825, the Erie Canal was the engineering marvel of the 19th Century. When the planning for what many derided as “Clinton's Folly” began, there was not a single school of engineering in the United States. With the exception of a few places where black powder was used to blast through rock formations, all 363 miles were built by the muscle power of men and horses.
2	1828	1828: Noah Webster completes his monumental American Dictionary of the English Language, after working on it for 20 years.
3	1829	1829: The railroad age begins as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad carries its first passengers in a horse-drawn excursion train.
4	1831	1831: Steam locomotive DeWitt Clinton pulls ornate railroad coaches filled with passengers on a 12 mile journey between Albany and Schenectady, New York. 1831: Jackson County was formed in 1831. The county was created from parts of Kanawha, Mason and Wood Counties.
5	1836	1836: Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and 200 Texans are killed when the Alamo, a fort in San Antonio, Texas, is captured by Mexican leader Santa Anna.
6	1837	1837: John Deere creates a steel-bladed plow that turns moist soil with ease, contributing to the expansion of farming in the midwest and western United States.
7	1839	1839: The first baseball game is played in Cooperstown, NY. The era of photography begins in the United States, as Louis Daguerre's process for capturing photographic images is introduced.
8	1842	1842: The first gummed postage stamps bring changes in the postal system, as senders--rather than the receivers--begin paying for a letter to be delivered. The state of Massachusetts passes a law that limits children under 12, who worked in factories, to a ten-hour day.
9	1844	1844: Samuel F.B. Morse sends the first telegraph message, from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland.
10	1849	1849: The Gold Rush Began 80,000 people rush to California after gold is discovered.
11	1850	23 1850: At a time when women always wore skirts, women's rights advocate Amelia Bloomer wears a garment of full trousers, which became known as the bloomer costume. We are forever grateful!
12	1852	1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel about the cruelty of enslavement, increasing the desire of many northerners to abolish enslavement in the United States.
13	1857	1857: The first passenger elevator is installed in a New York City store.
14	1858	1858: Overland mail service by stagecoach begins, connecting the east and west coasts of the United States.
15	1859	1859: The drilling of an oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania, changes the way most Americans light their homes, as kerosene made from the oil replaces whale oil and candles.
16	1861	18 1861: Abraham Lincoln becomes president. The American Civil War begins when Confederate troops capture Fort Sumpter in Charleston, South Carolina.
17	1863	1863: President Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring freedom for enslaved persons living in states under the control of the Confederacy. Congress initiates free mail delivery in cities. * The Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania marks a turning point in the Civil War, as Confederate forces retreat to the South after losing this important battle. 20 Jun 1863: The 35th state, West Virginia, was admitted into the United States on June 20, 1863
18	1865	1865: Civil War ends when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Abraham Lincoln is killed by an assassin five days after the Civil War ends. The 13th Amendment abolishes enslavement in the United States.
19	1870	1870: The 15th amendment guarantees that no male citizen will be deprived of the right to vote because of race, color or previous condition of servitude. The United States Weather Bureau is established.