Events and Dates in 1826

January, 1826

01 - "Mid-January"

Camilla Wright and the family of George Flower set out from Albion to try to reach Memphis and Nashoba. They could not find a steamboat willing to risk the trip so early in the year, so they waited (in New Harmony?). (source: p118 Eckhardt, Fanny Wright)

William Maclure brought a keelboat (called "The Philanthropist") of intellectuals (also called the "Boatload of Knowledge") to New Harmony. They included Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, Thomas Say, and Gerard Troost.(source: p126 Eckhardt, Fanny Wright)

At the Round Hill School in Northampton, MA, Sam Ward and Thomas Appleton may have been involved in the "Croneytown affair", in which a shantytown set up by students as a refuge from the school was torn down. (Source: Tharp - Appletons of Beacon Hill, p117)

February, 1826

02 - Camilla Wright and George Flower hitch a ride on a flatboat and by the end of February, reach Memphis. (source: p118 Eckhardt, Fanny Wright)

02/09 - Francis Wright purchases a "family of Negroes, to wit: Lukey, aged between 35 and 40 years, and her six children, named Maria, Harriet, Elvira, Isabel, Viole and Delilah." from Robert Wilson of South Carolina for $446.76, with the intention of showing the world how the freeing of the slaves can be practically accomplished. (source: p119 Eckhardt, Fanny Wright)

March, 1826

03/03 - "ground breaking" for for Frances Wright's Nashoba community in Tennessee. (source: p119 Eckhardt, Fanny Wright)

April, 1826

04/29 - Lundy's Genius of Universal Emancipation published a vituperative letter by one of Fanny Wright's Tennessee neighbors "Who would ... have the disgrace of being a slave holder, if they could make more out of slaves, than slaveholders." That, of course was exactly what Wright hoped; she was trying to prove that preparing slaves for freedom could be more profitable than retaining them - though she failed to do so(source: p122 Eckhardt, Fanny Wright)

May, 1826

June, 1826

06/10 - Letter from Frances Wright to Benjamin Lundy, highly optimistic about the prospects for Nashoba, is published in Lundy's Genius of Universal Emancipation. "We were told of difficulties and apprehended many ... Truly as yet we have found none worthy of the name.(source: p120 Eckhardt, Fanny Wright)

06/20

• A glowing review of Anne Royall's (,) first book, from Boston Commercial Gazette was reprinted in the Connecticut Herald: "A little incident which happened to herself, makes in her pages as great a figure as an epoch in history, not from egotism, but from a wish to tell the whole truth ... She marches on speaking her mind freely, and unpacking her heart in words of censure or praise, as she feels." (James, Anne Royall's U.S.A., pp160)
• Theodore Dwight, in the New York Daily Advertiser, wrote of Anne Royall's (,) first book: "A Book of Travels in the United States has lately appeared from the pen of a lady, a native of Arkansas (A.R. grew up in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia and had never been near Arkansas, which was still largely occupied by Indians) ... It is new to us to be criticized by travellers from that point of the compass." (James, Anne Royall's U.S.A., pp160)

06/27 - 3 miles from Praerie du Chien/Fort Crawford, a band of Winnebago Indians lead by Red Bird, wrongly believing that some of their tribe had been massacred, made a retaliatory raid against Registre Gagnier and his family. His Sioux/French wife escaped and carried the news to Prairie du Chien. (Source: Lyman, John Marsh, p120)

July, 1826

07/04

• 50th Anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both die on that day.
• - Robert Owen, in New Harmony, gave a speech he called his "Declaration of Mental Independence".(source: p129 Eckhardt, Fanny Wright, which in turn cites Pitzer and Elliot, New Harmony's Fourth of July Tradition.

07/05 - The Columbian Centinel praised Anne Royall's (,) first book: "She frequently notices minutiae which most travellers do not think worth their attention..." (James, Anne Royall's U.S.A., pp161)

August, 1826

08/07 - Theodore Dwight (New York Daily Advertiser) wrote, after meeting Anne Royall (,) at Saratoga (and by chance, boarding in the same house): "[she] professes to be the widow of a Revolutionary officer ... gives pretended sketches of the country, manners of the inhabitants, ... A more contemptible book was never palmed upon any community. .. She goes into families without the least ceremony, and if her reception is not such as suites her, she will threaten the master or mistress with exposure in her book." (James, Anne Royall's U.S.A., pp171-2).

September, 1826

09/11 - Disappearance of William Morgan, an argumentative disgruntled Mason who was about to publish the secrets of Masonry in a book to be called Illustrations of Masonry. His presumed murder, and apparent obstruction of justice by masons, helped launch the Anti-Masonic Party.

(Source: Van Deusen, Weed, p38).

October, 1826

10/01 - 3rd son of Mary and Nathan Appleton, George William, born (died following 5/25). (Source: Tharp - Appletons of Beacon Hill)

November, 1826

11/12 - Fanny Wright and her sister Camilla, in the wilds of Tennessee, have just gotten over three months of desperate fever, and Camilla writes "without [R's] unremitting care and admirable skill, Fanny our beloved Fanny wd have been now quiet in her grave, and I asleep beside her". During this period their irreplacable helper, George Flower, also left them to return to Albion, and his wife. (source: p131 Eckhardt, Fanny Wright).

December, 1826

12 - William Maclure visits Nashoba and it amazed at how well it operates, and how hard the slaves work with no coercion. (source: p132-3 Eckhardt, Fanny Wright). According to Eckhardt, this is largely the work of the recently departed George Flower, and would soon fall apart.