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Siloam Springs, AR Real Estate News

By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Mary Elizabeth was born in Lynchburg, Virginia back to 1852 to Pleasant and Mary. After the Civil War the family moved to New York City, where in 1874 she met and married Joseph Pray. She moved to France for a time learning the French language and where she learned the trade that would make her a household name.Not liking what she saw she set about redeveloping the process, implementing a series of steps that are still in use to this day. She returned in New York opening her first salon in 1878. According to all accounts she was a savvy business manager. She expanded her business in 1884. Her husband patented an invention around the same time, that would make her a very rich business owner. The couple divorced later that year. She died in 1902, she was 49.What you may not know about Mar...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Ellis Sylvester Chesbrough was born in Baltimore, Maryland back in 1813 to Isaac and Phrania. He quit school when he was nine going to work in mercantile houses around the Baltimore area. His father became a surveyor for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1828, when Ellis started working for him.He moved to Pennsylvania in 1830 as a surveyor for the Allegheny Portage Railroad. During the Panic of 1837 he tried his hand at farming, which did not suit him. He moved to Boston where he helped to build the Cochituate Aqueduct. In 1855, he was appointed engineer for the City of Chicago. He died in 1886, he was 72.What you may not know about Ellis is that he is credited with the design of the Chicago sewer system, it was the first comprehensive sewer system in the United States. He also design...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Jacques Alesandre Cesar was born in Beaugency, Orleanais back in 1746. The next time you can find anything about him was when he married Julie who was a creole woman 37 years younger than he was. He wrote a paper describing how gases tend to expand when heated, he was elected to the Academie des Sciences in 1795, later he became a professor of physics at the Adademie.This one is going to be short. What you may not know about Jacques Alesandre Cesar Charles is that he was the first person to launch the world’s first unmanned hydrogen-filled gas balloon in 1783. Later that same year Charles and his co-pilot Nicolas-Louis Robert ascended to a height of about 1,800 feet in a manned gas balloon. Charles invented the airtight gas bag by dissolving rubber in a solution of turpentine and varnis...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Gerolamo Cardano was born in Pavia, Italy back in 1501 to Fazio and Chiara. His mother had tried to abort him by taking several types of medication. After a depressing childhood by his overbearing father, in 1520, he entered the University of Pavia to study philosophy and science. In 1525, he graduated with a doctorate in medicine.Due to his upbringing, he had an eccentric and confrontational style, which preceded him, making it difficult for him to find work. With the help of a few noblemen he obtained a teaching position in mathematics in Milan. He simultaneously practiced medicine and taught mathematics. He must have been good, because he turned down offers from the kings of Denmark and France, and the Queen of Scotland. From what I’ve read he was also an accomplished gambler. He wro...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Mary Katherine Campbell was born in Columbus, Ohio back in 1905. After graduating from the East High School in 1922, she continued her education at Ohio State University as an art major. She also attended Ohio Wesleyan University.She received offers for three movies, two Broadway musicals and a circus. She was also offered to perform with the famous Ziegfeld Follies as a chorus girl, but her mother would not permit it due to her age. She married Frederick Townley, an executive at DuPont. He died in 1987 and she followed him three years later. What you may not know about Mary is that was the only person to win the Miss America pageant twice and the second woman in history to win the title. She was also the first pageant winner to attend college. Your day is worthwhile when you make someo...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Laura Bullion was reported to be born in the township of Palarm near Conway, Arkansas back in 1876. However, her true place of birth has been lost to history, never to be fully known. She was arrested in 1901 for forgery of signatures to banknotes and robbery sentenced to five years in prison. She only served 3.5 years being released in 1905. She moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 1918 where she spent the remainder of her life working as a housekeeper, seamstress, drapery maker, dressmaker and interior designer. She died of heart disease at the Shelby County Hospital in 1961. On her grave marker, she was known as The Thorny Rose, a name which was given to her by the gang. What you may not know about Laura is that she was also an outlaw associated with the Wild Bunch. She was the last surviv...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Albert Brown was born in North Platte, Nebraska back in 1905 to Albert Sr., and Ida. His mother was the aunt of actor Henry Fonda and his father was the godson of Buffalo Bill Cody. He joined the R.O.T.C. while in high school. In 1927, he received his bachelor’s degree in dentistry for Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.He was drafted into the military in 1937, stationed in the Philippines. Of course, he was there when the Japanese invasion. He was part of the Bataan Death March. He survived for three years in a Japanese POW camp from 1942-1945, eating nothing but rice. When he was liberated he had lost 80pounds, suffering from no less than 12 different diseases including dengue fever, malaria and dysentery. He also suffered from a broker neck and back. He was nearly blind from his...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
John Mercer was born in Fort Brooke, Florida back in 1826 to George and Lucy. He attended the United States Naval Academy in 1847, commissioned as a lieutenant in 1855. His first assignment was at the United States Naval Observatory charting the stars. One of his other assignments was to take soundings to determine the shape of the ocean’s bottom. He served in the North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition on the USS Vincennes, he was also in charge of the astronomical department. During the American Civil War, he served in the Confederate Navy. He was instrumental in the conversion of the USS Merrimack into the ironclad CSS Virginia. He also helped develop a new rifled fun for the Navy that became known (in a moment). In 1863, he was promoted to Chief of the Confederate Navy’s Bu...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Joseph Bramah was born in Barnsley Yorkshire, England back in 1748 to Joseph and Mary. He attended school in Silkstone, after graduation he apprenticed to a local carpenter. Upon completing his apprenticeship, he moved to London where he worked as a cabinet-maker. It was there that he met and married Mary.As a cabinet-maker his job at the time was to install water closets. Someone else designed the new and better one, but failed to patent it, however Stainborough did in 1778. So, of his original ones are still working in Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s home on the Isle of Wright.He attended some lectures on the technical making of locks, again he designed one of his own receiving a patent for it on 1784. He started his own lock company Bramah Locks the same year, that company still is m...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Thomas Blanchard was born in Sutton, Massachusetts back in 1788. Sorry I don’t have any information about his parents, early childhood and so on. In fact, I don’t have any information about him until 1806, that’s when he received his first patent. He sold the right to that for $5,000.00 a hefty sum in those days.He went to work for the Springfield Armory, while there he invented another machine in 1822. By the 1850’s his invention was the standard for arms manufacturing. In 1851, he was still going strong inventing another machine that could bend dense and strong wood. He wasn’t finished for he also invented a machine for cutting and folding envelopes at a single operation.What you may not know about Thomas is that he pioneered the assembly line style of mass production in America. He i...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Forrest Morton was born Stoughton, Massachusetts back in 1921. His father was a WWI pilot and encouraged him to become a pilot also. By the time he was 14 he performed his first solo flight. At 16 he was working on getting his multiple major pilot certifications. He enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in 1941. Due to his advanced qualifications, he was assigned as a technical air training officer. It was while he was ferrying back to the U.S. for study he discovered something inside of the craft, he took it home studied it and made it more functional. That of course was a pressurized breathing device, it became the standard for high-altitude oxygen regulators for most military aircraft until recently. He spent his spare time collecting and restoring old planes, cars and motorcy...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
William Bettendorf was born in Mendota, Illinois back in 1857 to Michael and Catherine.  Shortly after his birth the family moved to Sedalia, Missouri then finally settling in Leavenworth, Kansas.  He was educated at St. Mary’s Mission School.  In 1870, he worked as a messenger boy in Humboldt, Kansas.  Two years later he moved to Peru, Illinois working as a clerk at a hardware store.  In 1874, he started working as a machinist’s apprentice at the Peru Plow Company.  While working there he invented something that forever changed the way farmers plowed their fields which in return made him a wealthy man.    In 1895, he and his brother started the Bettendorf Metal Wheel Company near Gilbert, Iowa.  The company bought 70 acres setting up their plant.  The residents renamed the town Bettend...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Martha Bernays was born in Hamburg, Germany back in 1882 to Berman and Emmeline. She was raised in an observant Orthodox Jewish family. She met her future husband in 1882, and after a four-year engagement they were married in 1886 in Hamburg. Her husband sent her over 900 love letters which were quite lengthy. They were married for 53 years before his death.According the Martha not a single angry word was spoken between them in that 53 years. The union produced 6 children. According to all accounts Martha was an attractive woman who was a charmer, intelligent, well-educated and fond of reading. As were the times she kept the household efficiently, being almost obsessive about punctuality and dirt. The historians are still at it as Martha had a younger sister Minna, who had moved in with...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Robert Emmett Bledsoe was born in Lincoln County, Kentucky back in 1793 to Walker and Jane. During the war of 1812 he served in the Kentucky militia. After the war, he moved to Alabama where he practiced law while continuing to further his political career. He was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives to the Twenty-first Congress. During the Creek War in 1836 he fought as a lieutenant colonel. In 1839, he converted to Christianity being ordained as a Baptist minister.When he was 46 he moved to Texas where he worked as the Third Judicial District as a judge. He was one of the first officers of the Texas Baptist Educational Society. In 1844, he petitioned the Congress of the Republic of Texas asking for a charter for a Baptist university. He never married and had no children. He...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Elizabeth Bather was born in Winchester, England. She was educated at St. Swithun’s School. From 1937 to 1946 she was a magistrate in Winchester, one of the youngest in the country and she was a member of the Hampshire County Council.In1939, she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force with the rank of Company Assistant, she was assigned to Bomber Command working her way to the Senior Staff Officer in charge of the WAAF’s. she was sent to Canada in 1941 to set up the Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. In 1942, she was promoted to Squadron Officer and in 1945 to Wing Officer.After the war in 1945, she joined the London Metropolitan Police at the rank of Chief Inspector, the following year she was promoted to Superintendent replacing Dorothy Peto. The United Kingdom introduced the rank o...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Mary Ball was born in Lively, Virginia back in 1708 to Joseph and his second wife Mary. Her father died when she was three and orphaned by twelve. She was placed under the guardianship of George Eskridge. Mary married Augustine when she was twenty-two by a “semi-arranged” marriage in 1731.Augustine died in 1743, when their son was eleven. When his son was fourteen his older half-brother Lawrence arranged for him to become a British Navy Midshipman. That arrangement never came to being. She died in 1789 from breast cancer at her home in Fredericksburg.What you may not know about Mary is that one of her sons George was the first President of the United States. That’s right I’m writing about Mary Ball Washington, her husband was Augustine Washington. While it cannot be verified one of the ...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Mary Morse was born in Bow, New Hampshire back in 1821 to Mark and Abigail. Her father was a strongly religious man from a Protestant Congregationalist background. It was once reported that he beat a cow to death with his walking stick for violating the Sabbath. He was also reported to be a strong believer in State’s rights, but thought slavery was a great sin.Mary inherited her father’s temper which resulted in them having a violate relationship. One of her tutors was the Reverend Enoch Corser, he wrote of her “She is an intellectual and spiritual genius.” In 1877, she married her third husband Asa moving to Boston where he died later that year. She died I Newton Massachusetts in 1910, she was 89.What you may not know about Mary Baker Eddy is that she established the Church of Christ, ...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Oswald Theodore was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia back in 1877 to Francis and Elizabeth. When he was 10 the family moved to New York City. After graduating from high school, he attended college studying music. He switched to medicine earning his medical degree starting his practice in 1904.There is a lot of technical stuff I don’t understand; therefore, I won’t go into it. What I can tell you is that in 1943 he received his emeritus status from the Rockefeller Institute, where he continued working for five more years even though he was in his sixties. Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg stated that Oswald and his laboratory deserved the Nobel Prize but never received it.What I can tell you about Oswald Theodore Avery is that he was one of the first molecular biologists and a pioneer in immun...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Nancy Langhorne was born in Danville, Virginia back in 1879 to Chiswell and Nancy. When she was thirteen her father moved the family to Albemarle County, Virginia. She was sent to a finishing school in New York City, where she met and later married her first husband Robert. They were married for four years before she filed for divorce. After the divorce, she took a tour of England falling in love with the country. In 1905, she packed up and moved to England. She was known for her quick wit and at time saucy conversation (you figure that one out). It was there where she met her second husband Waldorf. After the marriage, she became involved in a political circle called Miner’s Kindergarten. Her husband was elected to the House of Lords. He died in 1952. She died in 1964 at 84.What you ma...
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By James Dray
(Fathom Realty)
Nicolas Appert was born in Chalons-sur-Marne, France back in 1749. I do not have any information as to his parents or schooling. She was a confectioner and chef in Paris. In 1800, Napoleon offered a prize of 12,000 francs for something (more on that later). Anyway, Nicolas started working on the issue put forth by Napoleon. He first presented his experiment at the Exposition des produits de I’industrie fancaise, (spelling is correct). In 1810, the Bureau or Arts and Manufactures of the Ministry of the Interior awarded Nicolas the 12,000 francs. Later on, he patented his invention and established a business. Of course, his method has been improved upon and is still in use to this day.What you may not know about Nicolas is that what he invented was a way of preserving food in airtight bot...
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