Death by Chocolate (Food of the Gods)
by Howard and Sally Peters
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Patriots and Patentees
by Howard M. Peters
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The Revolutionary War (RW) patriots (1776-1783) were comprised mainly of white, male residents as is found in the DAR Index www.dar.org or in the records of the SAR www.sar.org. The early U.S. patentees (1790-1890) were also predominately educated, white, male residents as is found in the U.S. Patent Digests www.uspto.gov. This paper reports on the initial findings of matching names (and their stories) from the DAR Patriot Index with the warly U.S. patentees (also see www.invent.org). The first U.S. patentee Samuel Hopkins (for a chemical process for the making of potash) of Philadelphia was a peaceful Quaker and apparently is not reported in the DAR or SAR lists. Robert Fulton (steamboat) was a teenager and is reported to be personally involved with the RW. Jedediah Morse, the grandfather of Samuel F. B. Morse (inventor of the telegraph), is listed in the DAR Index. Other patentees investigated and discussed will include Charles Goodyear (rubber vulcanization), Eli Whitney (cotton gin), Samuel Colt (revolver), Abraham Lincoln (the only U.S. President and patentee), Mary Kies, the first U.S. woman patentee, etc. Should the genealogical societies add "industry" to the virtues of their patriot ancestors?
Joseph Priestley - His Life and Times
by Howard M. Peters
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Joseph Priestley, (1733-1804) scientist, politician, & clergyman, lived in turbulent times. His early life has been documented. As a scientist, his observations and discovery of oxygen stirred up much controversy. His religious views as a Unitarian minister were not popular. His outspoken support of the colonies in the Revolutionary War from 1776 to 1783 and later of the people in the French Revolution and his religious beliefs caused popular opinion to turn against him to a point that his home and lab were destroyed by a mob in 1791. He and his wife eventually fled to the U.S., and she died shortly thereafter. His death in 1804 caused no great stir beyond Pennsylvania. He and members of his family are now buried in Riverview Cemetery in Northumberland, PA. It was recently learned and documented as a result of family genealogical studies accepted by the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) that Nicholas and Barbara Paul, the first author's 5x-great grandparents are also buried in the same Riverview Cemetery. See www.sar.org and www.vcnet.com/ghamor/paul01.htm. A portion of this talk includes excerpts of a fictionalized account describing passages in some recently discovered personal diaries of Nicholas Paul, earlier a Revolutionary War soldier in Northampton (later Lehigh) Co., PA, while he was a contemporary of Priestley during his final years in Northumberland, PA.