HISTORICAL DATA-1865:









  •  JANUARY:    At some time during this month, a new producing oil well-the first in this location-is  drilled in what Daniel Yergin calls "the dense forest land" of what will very soon become the bustling town of Pithole on Pithole Creek, about 5 miles from existing wells at Titusville in western Pennsylvania.  (Source:  The Prize, by Danial Yergin, a Touchstone Book by Simon & Schuster 1992 ((paperback)), page 31).  

  •  FEBRUARY

  •  MARCH:    At some time during this month the newly chartered Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited opens for operations in Hong Kong, China. (SOURCE: See history page at HSBC Holdings website here:) 

  • MARCH:    At some time during this month the Freedman's Bureau is established ion the United States of America. This is a Bureau set up to care for refugees and is a branch of the federal War Department.  (Source:  The American Nation...Since 1865-  Second Edition-John A. Gararty, pg. 14).    

  • APRIL:    On April 5 or this year Abraham Lincoln visits Richmond, Virginia, the fallen capital of the Confederacy. The center of the city is in ruins, sections of it blackened by fire, but the President is able to walk the streets unmolested and almost unattended. The townspeople seem to have accepted defeat without resentment.  (Source: The American Nation...Since 1865-  Second Edition-John A. Gararty, pg. 9).             

  •  APRIL:    On the evening of  Friday, April 14 of this year in Washington, D.C., while President Abraham Lincoln is watching a performance of the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater there, a half-mad actor, John Wilkes Booth, slips into his box and shoots him in the back of the head with a small pistol.  (SOURCE:  The American Nation...Since 1865-  Second Edition-John A. Gararty, pg. 9).         

  • APRIL:     Early on the morning of Saturday, April 15 of this year in Washington, D.C., President Abraham Lincoln dies without ever regaining consciousness after he had been shot last night at Ford's Theater by the half-mad actor, John Wilkes Booth.

        Lincoln's murder is part of a complicated and senseless plot by die-hard pro-southerners, but it  immediately  works against the best interests of the recently-defeated Southern states. A feeling takes hold of the public mind that retribution and a final humbling of the South are now inevitable.  (SOURCE:  The American Nation...Since 1865-  Second Edition-John A. Gararty, pg. 9).    

  • APRIL:    Also on April 15 of this year the steamship Fanny Ogden of the Montana & Idaho Transportation Line departs from St. Louis, Missouri for the western mining district and the cities of Virginia City, Bannock City, and Deer Lodge, Montana.  (SOURCE:  The American Nation...Since 1865-  Second Edition-John A. Gararty, pg70; illustration). 

  •    APRIL:    At this time the new President of the United States of America, Andrew Johnson, shares most of his poor white Tennessee constituents' prejudices against Negroes. "Damn the negroes, I am fighting these traitorous  aristocrats, their masters," he had told a friend during the war. "I wish to God," he said on another occasion, "every head of a family in the United States had one slave to take the drudgery and menial service off his family."  (SOURCE:  The American Nation...Since 1865-  Second Edition-John A. Gararty, pp. 11-12).

  •     APRIL:    On Sunday, April 16 of this year, former Vice-President Andrew Johnson is spending his first full day as President of the United States of America, following the death yesterday of President Abraham Lincoln. Radical Republican Senator Ben Wade tells him, "Johnson, we have faith in you," because of Johnson's record and his reassuring penchant for excoriating southern aristocrats. Wade is the author of the Wade-Davis bill. "By the gods," Wade continues, "there will be no trouble   now in running the government."  (SOURCE:  The American Nation...Since 1865-  Second Edition-John A. Gararty, pg. 11).

  • APRIL:    At some time during this month in China, the newly chartered Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited opens its second office; this branch is located in the city of Shanghai.  (SOURCE:  See history page at HSBC Holdings website here:) 

  •   MAY:    At some time during this month President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America is captured by Union forces and taken at once to Fort Monroe and clapped into irons preparatory to being tried for treason and murder.  (Source:  The American Nation...Since 1865-  Second Edition-John A. Gararty, pg. 9).       

  •  JUNE:    By sometime during this month there are now four flowing oil wells in the area of what is already developing into the bustling town of Pithole, about 15 miles from Titusville in western Pennsylvania. The four well are producing 2,000 barrels of crude oil per day, and that is one-third of all such crude produced in the whole Oil Regions area of western Pennsylvania, according to Daniel Yergin, who also reports that people are fighting their way in on roas clogged with barrel-laden wagons.  (Source:  The Prize, by Daniel Yergin, a Touchstone Book by Simon & Schuster 1992 ((paperback)), page 31). 

  •  JULY:    At some time during this month a farm in the Pithole, Pennsylvania area which had been virtually worthless a few months ago has now been sold for US$1.3 million because of the intense oil speculation in the area.  (Source: The Prize, by Daniel Yergin, a Touchstone Book by Simon & Schuster 1992 ((paperback)), page 31).        

  •  AUGUST

  •  SEPTEMBER:    At some time during this month a farm near the town of Pithole, Pennsylvania that had been virtually worthless earlier this year. and that had been sold for US$1.3 million in July of this year, is now resold for US$2 million. All this is due to the intense  oil speculation rampant in the area at this time.  (Source:  The Prize, by Daniel Yergin, a Touchstone Book by Simon & Schuster 1992 ((paperback)), page 31).    

  •  OCTOBER:    At some time during this month the New York Herald  reports that the principal businesses in Pithole, Pennsylvania are "liquor and leases" [for oil exploration].  (SOURCE:  The Prize-Daniel Yergin ((paperback)), pg. 31).

  •  NOVEMBER

  •  DECEMBER 

  • FULL YEAR:    All during this year Stephan Thernstrom is continuing with his multi-year study of the workingmen of Newburyport, Massachusetts in the United States of America. (Source: The American Nation...Since 1865-Second Edition, John A. Garratty, pg. 112). 

  • (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At some time during this year  the Commercial Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio begins  the first hospital based ambulance service in the United States of America.  (SOURCE:  "The History of Ambulances" page at  emt-resources.com website: http://www.emt-resources.com/History-of-Ambulances.html  retrieved 3/16/2017-GD).

  • (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At some time during this year the Civil War in the United States of America comes to an end. The end of the war begins in this country an era of massive economic expansion, according to Daniel Yergin, along with rapid development, of fiery speculation and fierce competition, as well as the emergence of economic combinations and monopolies. Heavy immigration and the opening of the west for development provide expanding markets for the new businesses.  (Source:  The Prize-Daniel Yergin ((Paperback)), pg. 37).   

    (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At some time during this year half of the 100,000 foreign-born residents of the city of Brooklyn, New York are Irish; another 25% are from Germany. At this time also, John Loughlin is the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which was created from part of the territory served by the Diocese of New York in 1853.  (Source: Sharp, John Kean, 1892-. History of the Diocese of Brooklyn, 1853-1953: the Catholic Church On Long Island. New York: Fordham University Press, 1954, pages 151-152).

  • (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At some time during this year a reporter for the New York Tribune, visiting the defeated Southern states, reports: "the people wanted their new freedom, civil government and a settlement", but "they made no hypocritical professions of newborn unionism...The hatred of Yankees ...had grown and strengthened with the war."  (Source:  Quoted in The American Nation...Since 1865-Second Edition, John A. Garratty, pg. 13).

  • (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At this time many newly-freed Negroes are expecting that their new freedom will also mean free land, and the slogan, "forty acres and a mule" achieves wide popularity in the former confederate states of the United States of America. This idea is most forcefully supported by the irascible, relentless Congressman from Pennsylvania, Thaddeus Stevens, whose hatred of the planter class is pathological.  Stevens has a scheme to seize the land of the richest "70,000 proud, bloated and defiant rebels", give some of it to every adult male Negro, and sell the rest at auction to pension veterans and reduce the national debt.  (Source: The American Nation...Since 1865-Second Edition, John A. Garratty, pg. 22). 

  • (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At this time it takes a steamboat as long as two months to reach Fort Benton on the upper Missouri River from St. Louis.  (Source:  The American Nation...Since 1865-Second Edition, John A. Garratty, pg. 70, illustration and caption).  

  • (NO SPECIFIC DATE):    At about this time an estimated 13 to15 million head of buffalo -the chief element of the Plains Indians' lifestyle-are roaming the Great Plains in North America.  (Source : The American Nation...Since 1865-Second Edition, John A. Garratty, pg. 64).