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On this day, in 1815, the burned U.S. Library of Congress is re-established with Thomas Jefferson's personal collection of 6,500 volumes. The previous collection, then housed in the Capital building, had been burned on August 24, 1814 as part of an attack on Washington during the War of 1812. Invading British troops marched into Washington under order to lay waste to the unfinished Capitol and other public buildings. The resulting fires reduced all but one of Washington D.C.'s major public buildings to ruins, and only a severe thunderstorm saved the Capitol from being completely destroyed. Unfortunately, a second fire, on Christmas Eve of 1851, burned the Library of Congress again, destroying nearly two thirds of Jefferson's original collection.
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Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, where Nazis killed more than 1 million men, women and children. More than 6 million Jews (more than 25,000 times the population of Warren County) were deliberately murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators over the course of the Holocaust (they also murdered millions that Hitler felt were unfit for his vision of new Germany). We must remember today, and learn from the events that led to such atrocities, so we never allow something so horrific to ever happen again.  Today, January 20th, is Inauguration Day. However, it wasn't always this way. The first Inauguration Day, in 1789, was on March 4th. This four month period was needed to count votes and relay numbers to Washington.
This lengthy Lame-Duck period created several problems throughout history. In the months following the 1860 election, as states succeeded from Union, Lincoln was unable to act and outgoing president, James Buchanan. chose to do nothing. The final straw was in 1933, when president-elect, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had to wait months to enact his New Deal plan in the midst of the Great Depression. With the advancement of technology, such a long period was no longer needed. Congress ratified the 20th Amendment in 1933, changing Inauguration Day to January 20th, The first time a president was sworn in on this day was four years later, when Roosevelt was sworn in for a second term. If you live in Kings, you may or may not know where your town's name came from. Ahimaaz King founded the Great Western Powder Works in 1877. A wooden dam was constructed to divert water from the Little Miami River into a canal the powder mills used.
Kings built his employees homes, a general store, schools, a church, etc. Almost the entire village of Kings Mills was created to house the employees of King's mills, the first home being Ahimaaz's own. Built in 1885 and patterned after his uncle's located in Xenia, the King Mansion is still a local landmark. In 1887, Gershom Moore Peters, an employee of Kings', a former Reverend and King's son-in-law, founded Peters Cartridge Company nearby. Peters had invented a machine which simplified and improved the process of manufacturing shotgun shells. By the time the two companies merged, they were known nation-wide. In July of 1890, a rail car accident at the station triggered an explosion killing twelve. The resulting fires would destroy many of the company's wooden framed buildings including the station, the freight house, two Peters office buildings, the shell factory, the cartridge loading plant, a warehouse and six employee homes. As World War I approached, the company began receiving large ammunition orders. With the money, they were able to construct buildings out of brick and reinforce them with concrete, including the factory (that we all recognize) in 1916. Remington Arms purchased the Peters Cartridge Company in 1934 and it would cease operations in 1944. Self-taught artist, Marcus Mote, was a painter, photographer and teacher. Having been born Quaker, and the religious constraints the Quakers have on art and self-expression, he might never have been able to pursue his passion at all if not for the encouragement and clever thinking of his parents, Mote went on to become one of Warren County's most famous artists and, arguably, the father of art education in schools. |
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