On This Day
1737 – The finish of the Walking Purchase which forces the cession of 1.2 million acres (4,860 km²) of Lenape-Delaware tribal land to the Pennsylvania Colony.
The Walking Purchase (or Walking Treaty) was an alleged 1737 agreement between the Penn family, the original proprietors of the Province of Pennsylvania in the colonial era (later the American state of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania after 1776), and the Lenape native Indians (also known as the Delaware Indians). By it the Penn family and proprietors claimed an area of 1,200,000 acres (4,860 km2) along the northern reaches of the Delaware River at the northeastern boundary between the Province of Pennsylvania and the West New Jersey area to the east of the Province of New Jersey (later after the American Revolutionary War [1775-1783], as the State of New Jersey) and forced the Lenape to vacate it. The Lenape appeal to the Iroquois Indian tribe further north for aid on the issue was refused.
In the legal suit / court case of Delaware Nation v. Pennsylvania (2004), the Delaware nation (one of three later federally recognized Lenape tribes) and its descendants in the 21st century claimed 314 acres (1.27 km2) of land included in the original so-called “purchase” in 1737, but the U.S. District Court granted the Commonwealth’s motion to dismiss. It ruled that the case was nonjusticiable, although it acknowledged that Indian title appeared to have been extinguished by fraud. This ruling held through several appealed actions made through several levels of the United States courts of appeals. The Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear the case which had the effect of upholding the lower appeals courts’ decision.
Born On This Day
1876 – Carleton Ellis, American inventor and chemist (d. 1941)
Carleton Ellis (September 20, 1876 – January 13, 1941) was an American inventor and a pioneer in the field of organic chemistry. He is the forgotten father of margarine, polyester, anti-knock gasoline, paint and varnish remover, and holder of 753 patents.[1] A native of Keene, New Hampshire, he was the valedictorian of his high school class, and later a graduate of MIT. He then set up the Ellis Laboratories in Montclair, New Jersey.
Contributions
Ellis’s contributions were in the improvement of existing technology, and they were significant. He developed gasoline that reduced engine knock, longer lasting housepaint, more durable polyesters and plastics, improved printing inks, methods for flameless combustion, methods for hydroponics for plant growth without soil, and a healthier and more palatable version of margarine. Prior to 1913, there were substitutes for butter that had been made from animal fats that had high grease content and was often hard to digest. Ellis found a way to synthesize margarine from vegetable oils, and it is said that he helped create what is now a multibillion-dollar industry.[2]
Ellis was the author of The Hydrogenation of Oils in Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry (1912) and a 1920 book of the same name.
Highlights
In 1933, he was issued the first American patent (USP 1897977) for an unsaturated polyester, followed by a patent for polyester co-polymers in the year before his death (USP 2195362).[3] Ellis died of influenza at the age of 64, while vacationing at Miami Beach. A merchant marine tanker, the Liberty vessel S.S. Carleton Ellis, was later named in his honor during World War II. TIME Magazine eulogized him by writing, “Chemist Ellis’ inventions gave birth to more than 100,000 compounds. He developed Standard Oil’s tube-&-tank process of cracking oil, found the formula for cheap acetone to fireproof airplane wings in World War I, and made plastics an exact and lucrative science.”.[4]
He was awarded the Edward Longstreth Medal in 1916.
Publications
The Hydrogenation of Oils, Catalyzers and Catalysis, and the Generation of Hydrogen and Oxygen (Scientific Books, 1915)
Synthetic Resins and Their Plastics (Chemical Catalog Company, 1923)
The Chemical Action of Ultraviolet Rays (Chemical Catalog Company, 1925)
The Hydrogenation of Organic Substances (Van Nostrand, 1930)
The Chemistry of Petroleum Derivatives (Chemical Catalog Company 1934)
The Chemistry of Synthetic Resins (Reinhold, 1935)
Printing Inks: Their Chemistry (Reinhold, 1940)
(with Joseph V. Meigs) Gasoline and Other Motor Fuels(Van Nostrand, 1921)
(with Miller W. Swaney) Soilless Growth of Plants (Reinhold, 1939)
(with Herbert R. Simonds) Handbook of Plastics (Van Nostrand, 1943)
FYI
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Today’s email was written by Stacy Conradt, edited by Annaliese Griffin, and produced by Luiz Romero. Quartz: Pumpkin Spice Latte
Recipes
A Taste of Alaska: Black Forest Cake
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wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for October 8 October 8, 2024Picture of the day Blue-tailed bee-eater (Merops philippinus) in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for October 7 October 7, 2024Picture of the day A rain-soaked jelly ear (Auricularia auricula-judae), family Auriculariaceae, on a stem of a Sambucus. Focus stack of 20 photos.