"That William Henry had the honor of originat- ing the idea and of building the first steamboat ever built in the United States." Robert Fulton, who is generally given credit for being the first success- fully to commercialize the application of steam to navigation, was born in what was then Little

during the conflict between the States was openly critical of President Lincoln and the Civil War. Forney in this period took as an avowed editorial stand the policy "never to criticize the government in its hours of peril and trouble." James Melvin Lee, the prominent newspaper historian, commenting on

in the Lancaster Phalanx, a privately raised company of militia commanded by Captain James Humes. (Right) Henry Fleming Slaymaker. He helped his father in business; later inherited the major share of Amos Slay- maker's estate. In the War of 1812 he was a captain in the Pequea Rangers, a company

the diary itself. An ordinary "blank book" (6 by 7 inches) with ruled pages and red-lined margins, it bears the embossed stamp of "John Sheaffer, Bookseller and Stationer, North Queen St., Lancaster, Pa." Inside the front cover, are pasted words clipped from some periodical, "War for the Union. Men of