FYI February 22, 2019

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On This Day

 
 
1819 – By the Adams–Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.
The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819,[1] also known as the Transcontinental Treaty,[2] the Florida Purchase Treaty,[3] or the Florida Treaty,[4][5] was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the U.S. and defined the boundary between the U.S. and New Spain. It settled a standing border dispute between the two countries and was considered a triumph of American diplomacy. It came in the midst of increasing tensions related to Spain’s territorial boundaries in North America against the United States and Great Britain in the aftermath of the American Revolution; it also came during the Latin American wars of independence.

Florida had become a burden to Spain, which could not afford to send settlers or garrisons, so the Spanish government decided to cede the territory to the United States in exchange for settling the boundary dispute along the Sabine River in Spanish Texas. The treaty established the boundary of U.S. territory and claims through the Rocky Mountains and west to the Pacific Ocean, in exchange for the U.S. paying residents’ claims against the Spanish government up to a total of $5,000,000 and relinquishing the U.S. claims on parts of Spanish Texas west of the Sabine River and other Spanish areas, under the terms of the Louisiana Purchase.

The treaty remained in full effect for only 183 days: from February 22, 1821, to August 24, 1821, when Spanish military officials signed the Treaty of Córdoba acknowledging the independence of Mexico; Spain repudiated that treaty, but Mexico effectively took control of Spain’s former colony. The Treaty of Limits between Mexico and the United States, signed in 1828 and effective in 1832, recognized the border defined by the Adams–Onís Treaty as the boundary between the two nations.

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Born On This Day

 
 
1805 – Sarah Fuller Flower Adams, English poet and hymnwriter (d. 1848)[3]
Sarah Fuller Flower Adams (or Sally Adams[1]) (1805 – 1848) was an English poet and hymnwriter, best known for writing the words of the hymn “Nearer, My God, to Thee”.[2]

Early years and education
Sarah Fuller Flower was born 22 February 1805, at Old Harlow, Essex,[3] and baptised in September 1806 at the Water Lane Independent Chapel in Bishops Stortford.[4] She was the younger daughter of the radical editor Benjamin Flower,[5] and his wife Eliza Gould.[2]

Her father’s mother Martha, sister of the wealthy bankers William Fuller and Richard Fuller, had died the month before Adam’s birth. Her elder sister was the composer Eliza Flower.[2][6] Her uncles included Richard Flower, who emigrated to the United States in 1822 and was a founder of the town of Albion, Illinois;[7] and the nonconformist minister John Clayton.

Her mother died when she was only five years old and initially her father, a liberal in politics and religion,[8] brought the daughters up, taking a hand in their education. The family moved to Dalston in Middlesex, where they met the writer Harriet Martineau, who was struck by the two sisters and used them for her novel “Deerbrook”. In 1823, on a holiday in Scotland with friends of the radical preacher William Johnson Fox, the minister of South Place Unitarian Chapel, London, who was a frequent visitor to their home, Adam broke the female record for climbing up Ben Lomond. Back home, the girls became friends with the young poet Robert Browning, who discussed his religious doubts with Adam.[2]

Career
After the father’s death, about 1825, the sisters became members of the Fox household.[9] Both sisters began literary pursuits, and Adam first fell ill with what became tuberculosis. Soon after, the sisters moved to Upper Clapton, a suburb of London. They attached themselves to the religious society worshipping in South Place, Finsbury, under the pastoral care of Fox. He encouraged and sympathized with the sisters, and they in turn helped him in his work. Eliza, the elder, devoted herself to enriching the musical part of the Chapel service, while Adams contributed hymns.[9] Fox was one of the founders of the Westminster Review.[8] and his Unitarian magazine, the Monthly Repository, printed essays, poems and stories by William Bridges Adams, polemicist and railway engineer, who Adam met at the house of her friend, the feminist philosopher Harriet Taylor Mill. The two married in 1834,[2] setting up house at Loughton in Essex. In 1837, he distinguished himself as the author of an elaborate volume on English Pleasure Carriages, and another on The Construction of Common Roads and Railroads. He was also a contributor to some of the principal reviews and newspapers.[8]

Encouraged by her husband, Adams turned to acting and in the 1837 season at Richmond played Lady Macbeth, followed by Portia and Lady Teazle, all successes. Though offered a role at Bath, then a springboard for the West End, her health broke down and she returned to literature.[2]

In 1841, she published her longest work, Vivia Perpetua, A Dramatic Poem. In it, a young wife who refuses to submit to male control and renounce her Christian beliefs is put to death. She contributed to the Westminster Review, including a critique of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry, and wrote political verses, some for the Anti-Corn Law League. Her work often advocated equal treatment for women and for the working class.[citation needed] At the solicitation of her pastor, she also contributed thirteen hymns to the compilation prepared by him for the use of his chapel, published 1840-41, in two parts, six in the first and seven in the second part. Of these, the two best known —” Nearer, my God! to Thee,” and “He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower”— are in the second part. For this work, her sister, Eliza, wrote sixty-two tunes. Her only other publication, a catechism for children, entitled “The Flock at the Fountain,” appeared in 1845.[10] Her hymn, “Nearer, my God! to Thee”, was introduced to American Christians in the “Service Book,” published (1844) by Rev. James Freeman Clarke, D.D., of Boston, Massachusetts, from where it was soon transferred to other collections.[7] A selection of hymns she wrote, published by Fox, included her best-known piece, “Nearer, My God, to Thee”, reportedly played by the band as the RMS Titanic sank in 1912.[2][11]

Personal life
A Unitarian in belief, her career was hampered by deafness she had inherited from her father and, inheriting their mother’s feebleness, both sisters yielded to disease in middle age. Eliza, after a lingering illness, died in December 1846 and, worn down by caring for her invalid sister, Adam’s health gradually declined. She died on 14 August 1848 at the age of 43 and was buried beside her sister and parents in the Forest Street cemetery near Harlow.[10][7][2][5] At her grave was sung the only other hymn of hers which was widely known, “He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower”.[9]

A blue plaque honouring the husband and wife was placed at their Loughton home: they had no children. Richard Garnett wrote of her:— “All who knew Mrs. Adams personally speak of her with enthusiasm; she is described as a woman of singular beauty and attractiveness, delicate and truly feminine, high-minded, and in her days of health playful and high-spirited.”[1]

Selected works
“Nearer, my God, to Thee”
“He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower”
“Creator Spirit! Thou the first.”[12]
“Darkness shrouded Calvary.”
“Gently fall the dews of eve.”
“Go, and watch the Autumn leaves.”
“O hallowed memories of the past.”
“O human heart! thou hast a song.”
“O I would sing a song of praise.”
“O Love! thou makest all things even.”
“Part in Peace! is day before us?”
“Sing to the Lord! for His mercies are sure.”
“The mourners came at break of day.”

 
 

FYI

 
 
By Larry Grady: On PR Newswire: Tooth Fairy Payouts Plunge, Millennials Taking on More Mortgages, Americans Divided by Party on Ideals of Religious and Ethnic Pluralism
 
 
 
 
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer: 480-Million-Year-Old Mystery Creature Finally Identified from Its Preserved Guts
 
 
 
 
By Harold Maass: 10 things you need to know today: February 22, 2019
 
 
 
 
By Farnoush Amiri: Indiana state trooper shot inside his home as son, 11, detained on attempted murder charge The trooper underwent surgery and is in stable condition.
 
 
 
 
By WFTS Digital Staff: Port Richey Mayor arrested for attempted murder for firing at SWAT team serving warrant at his home Massad arrested for practicing medicine without license
 
 
 
 
One bullet each.
By Amy Taxin: California parents of 13 plead guilty to torture, abuse
The children, who ranged in age from 2 to 29 at the time, were severely underweight and hadn’t bathed for months. They described being beaten, starved and put in cages.

David Turpin appeared stoic as he pleaded guilty, but Louise Turpin’s face turned red and she began crying and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

The two face prison terms of 25 years-to-life when they are sentenced April 19, Riverside District Attorney Mike Hestrin said.

“The defendants ruined lives so I think it’s just and fair that the sentence be equivalent to first-degree murder,” Hestrin said.
 
 
 
 
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