Octavius Catto Event

Octavius Valentine Catto was a teacher, activist, and orator as well as second baseman on Philadelphia’s best black baseball team. The nation lost a civil rights pioneer when Catto was murdered at an election-day race riot in 1871. Daniel Biddle and Murray Dubin, authors of the recently published book Tasting Freedom from Temple University Press, will discuss the life of this charismatic black leader. Co-sponsored with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Union League of Philadelphia.


This event will take place at 1300 Locust St. please RSVP on the Historical Society’s website (www.hsp.org) or call 215-732-6200.

September 23rd in History

September 23rd, 1806

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned to St. Louis, Missouri, from their nearly 3 year long exploratory journey of the Louisiana Purchase.


In our collection:
Meriwether Lewis, History of the expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark, :to the sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky Mountains and down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. Performed during the years 1804-5-6. By order of the government of the United States. Prepared for the press by Paul Allen, Esquire. In two volumes. Vol. I[-II]. (Philadelphia,Pa Published by Bradford and Inskeep; and Abm. H. Inskeep, Newyork. J. Maxwell, printer., 1814.)

September 13th in History

September 13th, 1814

Francis Scott Key wrote a poem entitled “The Defense of Fort McHenry” after witnessing the attack on the fort during the war of 1812. The poem was renamed “The Star Spangled Banner” and became the United States National Anthem in 1931.

In our collection:
Key,Francis Scott “The star-spangled banner: national song” (1814).

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September 1st in History

September 1, 1807
Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr is acquitted. Burr was charged with treason for plotting to annex parts of Louisiana and Spanish territory in Mexico to be used toward the establishment of an independent republic. Though he admitted to conspiring against the U.S., he claimed he was innocent of the charge of treason because he didn't engage in an "overt act".


In our collection:

Aaron Burr, The trial of Col. Aaron Burr, on an indictment for treason, before the Circuit Court of the United States, held in Richmond, (Virginia), May term, 1807, including the arguments and decisions on all the motions made during the examination and trial, and on the motion for an attachment against Gen. Wilkinson, taken in short-hand by T. Carpenter (Washington, D.C.: Westcott & Co., 1807-08).