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David Wiley (mayor)
Rev. David Wiley (1768 – October 14, 1812) was an American surveyor, politician, writer, scientist, and Presbyterian minister who served as postmaster and mayor of Georgetown, District of Columbia. Biography Early life and ministry David Wiley was born in 1768 in Pennsylvania. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) in 1788. From 1788 to 1789, Wiley was a tutor at Hampden Sidney College in Virginia. Wiley married Susan Wynnkoop and they had four children. Wiley was ordained as a Presbyterian minister by the Presbytery of Huntingdon on April 9, 1794, and installed as pastor of two congregations in Centre County, Cedar Creek and Spring Creek. During this period, Wiley also served as the first stated clerk of the Presbytery. He served subsequent congregations and in temporary vacancies until April 1801, when he requested and obtained permission to move to the Presbytery of Baltimore, which covered a wide region that included Virginia. Ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Portrait Gallery (United States)
The National Portrait Gallery is a historic art museum between 7th, 9th, F, and G Streets NW in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Founded in 1962 and opened to the public in 1968, it is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous Americans. The museum is housed in the historic Old Patent Office Building, as is the Smithsonian American Art Museum. History Founding of the museum The first portrait gallery in the United States was Charles Willson Peale's "American Pantheon" (also known as "Peale's Collection of Portraits of American Patriots"), established in 1796. It closed after two years. In 1859, the National Portrait Gallery in London opened, but few Americans took notice.Thompson, Bob. "Who Gets Into the National Portrait Gallery, and Why?" ''Washington Post.'' June 13, 1999. The idea of a federally owned national portrait gallery can be traced back to 1886, when Robert C. Winthrope, president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Bloomer Balch
Thomas Bloomer Balch was a Presbyterian pastor during the American Civil War. Thomas was born to Stephen Bloomer Balch and Elizabeth eallBalch on February 28, 1793, at Georgetown, District of Columbia, US. Thomas was a graduate of the College of New Jersey in 1813 and Princeton Theological Seminary in 1817, where he was a member of the American Whig Society. Hampden-Sydney College conferred an honorary DD on him in 1860. Daniel Webster is supposed to have described him as the most learned man he had ever known. Baltimore Presbytery ordained Thomas on October 31, 1816. For several years he assisted his father in the church at Georgetown, Virginia. He accepted a call to Snow Hill, Rehoboth and Pitts Creek, Maryland July 19, 1820. Snow Hill is the oldest Presbyterian Church in America. Thomas Balch was listed as a missionary in Fairfax County, Virginia, from 1829 to 1836. His brother-in-law, Septimus Tuston, had been a regular preacher at Greenwich, Virginia, between 1825 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Turnpikes And Canals In The United States
The history of turnpikes and canals in the United States began with work attempted and accomplished in the original thirteen colonies, predicated on European technology. After gaining independence, the United States grew westward, crossing the Appalachian Mountains with the admission of new states and then doubling in size with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The only means of transportation at the time between the coastal states and interior lands remained on water, by canoe, boat (e.g. keelboat or flatboat) and ship, or over land on foot and by pack animal. Recognizing the success of Roman roads in unifying that empire, political and business leaders in the United States began to construct roads and canals to connect the disparate parts of the nation. Background After its victory in the American Revolutionary War, the fledgling United States became sovereign over an area stretching along the Atlantic seaboard from New Hampshire to Georgia, and as far inland as the Mississippi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a governor's appointment. Congress has 535 voting members: 100 senators and 435 representatives. The U.S. vice president has a vote in the Senate only when senators are evenly divided. The House of Representatives has six non-voting members. The sitting of a Congress is for a two-year term, at present, beginning every other January. Elections are held every even-numbered year on Election Day. The members of the House of Representatives are elected for the two-year term of a Congress. The Reapportionment Act of 1929 establishes that there be 435 representatives and the Uniform Congressional Redistricting Act requires ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Import
An import is the receiving country in an export from the sending country. Importation and exportation are the defining financial transactions of international trade. In international trade, the importation and exportation of goods are limited by import quotas and mandates from the customs authority. The importing and exporting jurisdictions may impose a tariff (tax) on the goods. In addition, the importation and exportation of goods are subject to trade agreements between the importing and exporting jurisdictions. History Definition Imports consist of transactions in goods and services to a resident of a jurisdiction (such as a nation) from non-residents. The exact definition of imports in national accounts includes and excludes specific "borderline" cases. Importation is the action of buying or acquiring products or services from another country or another market other than own. Imports are important for the economy because they allow a country to supply nonexistent, scarc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Presbyterian Church (USA)
The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PC(USA), is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US, and known for its liberal stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and members of the LGBT community as elders and ministers. The PC(USA) was established by the 1983 merger of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, whose churches were located in the Southern and border states, with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, whose congregations could be found in every state. The similarly named Presbyterian Church in America is a separate denomination whose congregations can also trace their history to the various schisms and mergers of Presbyterian churches in the United States. Unlike the PCA, the PC(USA) supports evangelical feminism and supports practise of same gender marriages. It also welcomes practicing gay and lesbian persons to serve in leadership positions as minist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red River Expedition (1806)
The Red River Expedition, also known as the Freeman-Custis Expedition, Freeman Red River Expedition, Sparks Expedition, and officially Exploring Expedition of Red River, was one of the first civilian scientific expeditions to explore the Southwestern United States. The 1806 expedition was ordered to find the headwaters of the Red River (Red River of the South) from the Mississippi River as a possible trading route to Santa Fe, which was then under Spanish colonial control in New Mexico; to contact Native American peoples for trading purposes; to collect data on flora, fauna, and topography, and map the country and river; and to assess the land for settlement. The Spanish officials intercepted the expedition 615 miles upriver, in what is now northeastern Texas, and turned it back before the party had achieved all of its goals. Planning The third US President, Thomas Jefferson, ranked the Red River Expedition in importance second only to the Lewis and Clark Expedition to reach the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latitude
In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pole, with 0° at the Equator. Lines of constant latitude, or ''parallels'', run east–west as circles parallel to the equator. Latitude and ''longitude'' are used together as a coordinate pair to specify a location on the surface of the Earth. On its own, the term "latitude" normally refers to the ''geodetic latitude'' as defined below. Briefly, the geodetic latitude of a point is the angle formed between the vector perpendicular (or ''normal'') to the ellipsoidal surface from the point, and the plane of the equator. Background Two levels of abstraction are employed in the definitions of latitude and longitude. In the first step the physical surface is modeled by the geoid, a surface which approximates the mean sea level over the ocean ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Longitude
Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter lambda (λ). Meridians are semicircular lines running from pole to pole that connect points with the same longitude. The prime meridian defines 0° longitude; by convention the International Reference Meridian for the Earth passes near the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England on the island of Great Britain. Positive longitudes are east of the prime meridian, and negative ones are west. Because of the Earth's rotation, there is a close connection between longitude and time measurement. Scientifically precise local time varies with longitude: a difference of 15° longitude corresponds to a one-hour difference in local time, due to the differing position in relation to the Sun. Comparing local time to an absolute measure of time allows ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. The term "White House" is often used as a metonym for the president and his advisers. The residence was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban in the neoclassical style. Hoban modelled the building on Leinster House in Dublin, a building which today houses the Oireachtas, the Irish legislature. Construction took place between 1792 and 1800, using Aquia Creek sandstone painted white. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) added low colonnades on each wing that concealed stables and storage. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by British forces in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Bradley Jr
Abraham Bradley Jr. (February 22, 1767 – May 7, 1838) was an American lawyer, judge, and cartographer, who was an assistant postmaster general for 30 years during the earliest history of the United States Post Office Department. Bradley was responsible for moving the federal government's post office from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to the new capital at Washington, D.C., briefly hosting the national post office in his own home. The continuity brought by Bradley's long employment during the tenure of five United States postmasters generals helped establish the budding postal service as a reliable provider. While not trained as an artist or cartographer, Bradley created innovative and detailed postal route maps that improved the office's efficiency. In 1796, Bradley drew one of the first comprehensive maps of the United States; it "represented the first clear cartographic break in European-dominated map making and introduced a new, more distinctly American style of cartograp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson
''The Papers of Thomas Jefferson'' is a multi-volume scholarly edition devoted to the publication of the public and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. The project, established at Princeton University, is the definitive edition of documents written by or to Jefferson. Work on the series began in 1944 and was undertaken solely at Princeton until 1998, when responsibility for editing documents from Jefferson's post-presidential retirement years, 1809 until 1826, shifted to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello. This enabled work to progress simultaneously on two different periods of Jefferson's life and thereby doubled the production of volumes without compromising the high standards set for the project. History The project grew out of a plan developed in 1943 by Julian P. Boyd, the chief librarian of Princeton University, a scholar of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, and the historian of the Thomas Jefferson Bicent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
