"residents of the nation's capital and, along the lower Potomac, the watermen of Virginia's Northern Neck. Being situated in an area rich in American history and American heritage has led to the Potomac being nicknamed ""the Nation's River."" George Washington, the first President of the United States, was born in, surveyed, and spent most of his life within, the Potomac basin. All of Washington, D.C., the nation's capital city, also lies within the watershed. The 1859 siege of Harper's Ferry at the river's confluence with the Shenandoah was a precursor to numerous epic battles of the American Civil War in"
"which Washington was painfully familiar with after his father's death and losing his opportunity to study abroad. It has also been claimed to be the site where George Washington ""threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock River."" It is possible to ""skip"" a coin or flat rock across that area. Regardless, the river was considerably wider during this period than it is today, making the feat that much more difficult. Each year during the celebration of Washington's birthday, townspeople are invited to attempt to recreate this event. In the summer of 2006, archaeology intern Jim Trueman duplicated Washington's alleged throw"
"silver dollar across the Rappahannock River at Ferry Farm. Another tale claims that as a young child, Washington chopped down his father's cherry tree. His angry father confronted the young Washington, who proclaimed ""I can not tell a lie"" and admitted to the transgression, thus illuminating his honesty. Parson Mason Locke Weems mentions the first citation of this legend in his 1806 book, ""The Life of George Washington: With Curious Anecdotes, Equally Honorable to Himself and Exemplary to His Young Countrymen"". This anecdote cannot be independently verified. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) is also known to have spread the story while"
"the Potomac River (an amateur architect, Blodget would later design the First Bank of the United States building in Philadelphia), but also to collaborate on a business venture with former U.S. Postmaster General Ebenezer Hazard, who owned a counting house in the city. Hazard had previously invested in an idea of Blodget's called the Boston Tontine, a sort of early annuity fund that also acted as a lottery for the last surviving investor. It failed, but Blodget and Hazard decided to try again in Philadelphia, then the largest city in North America. They called their new attempt the Universal Tontine"
"brought on by alcohol consumption, and that Michalak, who was prospecting for silver ore near the lake at the time, probably made the story up to keep other prospectors out of the area. In April 2018, the Royal Canadian Mint released a $20 silver coin depicting the alleged event as part of its Canada's Unexplained Phenomena series, stating ""According to Stefan Michalak’s account, two glowing objects descended from the sky on May 20, 1967, near Falcon Lake, Manitoba, where one landed close enough for him to approach. When the craft suddenly took flight, its emission set Michalak’s clothes ablaze, leaving"
"whether you fail or triumph, it's that you keep your word... and at least try!"" On July 2, 1984, the barrel was rolled into the Niagara River 1000 feet above the cataract of Niagara Falls with Soucek inside. In seconds, the barrel was swept over the brink. Shortly after, Soucek emerged bleeding but safe. Soucek was fined $500 for performing the stunt without a license. He had also spent $15,000 on materials and labor and $30,000 to film the stunt, but quickly earned back all his costs from sales and interviews. Having tasted success, Soucek decided to build a museum"
"water on herself while she was extremely intoxicated. Horace Tabor Horace Austin Warner (""Haw"") Tabor (November 26, 1830 – April 10, 1899), also known as The Bonanza King of Leadville, was an American prospector, businessman, and Republican politician. His life is the subject of Douglas Moore's opera, ""The Ballad of Baby Doe""; and the 1932 Hollywood biographical movie: ""Silver Dollar"". Also, Graham Masterton's 1987 novel ""Silver"" has a protagonist named Henry T. Roberts, whose life includes incidents from Tabor's. Tabor was born in Holland in Orleans County in far northern Vermont to Cornelius Dunham Tabor and Sarah Ferrin. He was"
"directly traceable to the hijacking have been reported. Some investigators have speculated that the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens may have obliterated any remaining physical clues. Alternative theories were advanced. Some surmised that the money had been found at a distant location by someone (or possibly even a wild animal), carried to the riverbank, and reburied there. The sheriff of Cowlitz County proposed that Cooper accidentally dropped a few bundles on the airstair, which then blew off the aircraft and fell into the Columbia River. One local newspaper editor theorized that Cooper, knowing he could never spend the money,"
"Reed Waddell Reed C. Waddell (c. 1860 – March 27, 1895) was an American swindler, confidence man and underworld figure in New York during the mid- to late 19th century. He was one of the most successful men of his trade making nearly a quarter of a million dollars using his ""gold brick"" swindle, a con game which he invented and introduced to New York in 1880, and from which the term ""goldbricker"" originated. Waddell was also involved in schemes with other prominent confidence men, including attempts to sell the Brooklyn Bridge, before his murder by noted bunco artist Tom"
"silver dollars and because he gave them away to strangers on the street. He repeatedly tossed handfuls of silver dollars in restaurants and bars so he could watch the wait staff and others chase after the rolling coins. At parties, he would toss them into pools and laugh as people dove in after them. About five months after his death, executors of his estate found numerous barrels, bags, and other containers full of silver dollars along with a cache of $2 bills worth about $250,000 (or over $2 million in March 2013 dollars) in his basement. He kept a veritable"
"operated as a toll bridge. The toll was 35 cents until December 31, 1936, when it became a quarter. The last of the bonds that financed the construction were redeemed in 1946, and the tolls were removed. On January 17, 1949, the bridge was renamed in honor of George Rogers Clark, recognized as the founder of Louisville. The bridge was rehabilitated in 1958. Muhammad Ali threw his gold medal from the 1960 Rome Olympics into the Ohio river while standing on the bridge. There was a movement in the 1950s to restore tolls, as traffic on the bridge had reached"
"(birthname Keish), and their nephew Dawson Charlie (K̲áa Goox̱), while travelling through the area, stopped to rest on the banks of one of the Klondike River's tributaries called Bonanza Creek, then called Rabbit Creek. They were there on the a suggestion of another prospector Robert Henderson. One of them noticed a shiny object in the water. It was gold and Carmack took credit for finding it. It is uncertain whether it was George Carmack or Skookum Jim who made the discovery, but the group decided that George Carmack be named as the official discoverer out of concern that mining authorities"
"was light. A high point of the events that day was done by a man named Murphy Jones, who as a stunt, jumped a plunge into the Delaware River from the bridge. The festive stunt got Jones a total of $15 (1904 USD) and the event became an annual one. Work finally came to a conclusion in 1904, and the people were beginning to cross the new structure. However, since the turnover had never occurred, the bridge was free of charge. On September 5, 1904, the bridge finally got its transfer to the bridge corporation, and a new toll-taker was"
"throw of on July 14, 2003 at Fort Funston. Hemmings' Aerobie was airborne for 30 seconds (not an official measurement) and was the first thrown object to break the quarter-mile barrier (402 meters or 1,320 feet). Previous to the 1986 record, the Aerobie held the world record at . It does not appear that this was recorded by Guinness. On June 7, 1988, the Aerobie became the first object to be thrown across Niagara Falls with a throw by Scott Zimmerman. In April 1987, Zimmerman threw a silver dollar taped to an Aerobie across the Potomac River. Since the introduction"
"later included in his promise $100 in silver to his supporters, payable on May 1, 1838. On December 29, Royal Navy Commander Andrew Drew and seven boatloads of Canadian militiamen crossed the Niagara River to Fort Schlosser. They captured the ""Caroline"" used by William Lyon Mackenzie and his rebels on Navy Island. Drew's forces set the ship alight and sent it adrift towards Niagara Falls, resulting in the death of one American. It was falsely reported that dozens of Americans were killed as they were trapped on board, and U.S. soldiers retaliated by burning a British steamer while it was"
"daughter named Lizette Charbonneau; however, because she receives only occasional mention in Clark's papers, her life remains unclear beyond her third birthday. Charbonneau and Sacagawea appear on the United States Sacagawea dollar bronze one dollar coin. He is the second child depicted on United States currency. Pompeys Pillar on the Yellowstone River in Montana and the community of Charbonneau, Oregon are named for him. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was born to Sacagawea, a Shoshone, and her husband, the French Canadian trapper Toussaint Charbonneau, in early 1805 at Fort Mandan in North Dakota. This was during the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which"
"Kemple later became discouraged with his claims and sold them. According to a less accepted story, a man known as ""Metalliferous"" Murphy, an assayer from Pioche, Nevada, was brought a piece of a grindstone made of sandstone from the Silver Reef area by miners in Pioche. After performing tests on the sample, Murphy stated that it contained over $200 of silver per ton. After some investigation, Murphy discovered that the samples had come from the area that was to become Silver Reef. There is no record of Murphy ever staking a claim, but he did allegedly attract the attention of"
"ferry Lincoln across the Potomac River. The two men then traveled to Baltimore on January 21. In testimony for the prosecution in June 1865, Weichmann said that Surratt had $300 which he needed to give to a man in Baltimore. Although Surratt never revealed the man's name, the prosecution at Powell's 1865 trial attempted to show that this man was Lewis Powell. Historian Edward Steers Jr. agrees that it is likely that Surratt met Powell at this time, while historians David Griffin Chandler and Elizabeth Trindal present their meeting at Parr's China Hall store as fact. In either late January"
"dies penniless. Silver Dollar (film) Silver Dollar is a 1932 American pre-Code biographical film starring Edward G. Robinson, Bebe Daniels and Aline MacMahon. Based on David Karsner's biography of the same name, it tells the story of the rise and fall of Horace Tabor (renamed Yates Martin), a silver tycoon in 19th century Colorado. A copy is preserved in the Library of Congress. Kansas farmer Yates Martin (Edward G. Robinson) uproots his uncomplaining wife Sarah (Aline MacMahon) and baby son to 1876 Colorado in search of gold. He buys a claim, then immediately abandons it when two prospectors tell him"
"cache of gold under a tent-shaped rock. In Murray’s account the man was called John Jackson, a veteran Alaskan prospector, who in 1903, hearing about the Slumach legend set out for the Pitt Lake area and returned three months later with a very heavy pack-sack. Jackson deposited $8,700 in gold in the Bank of British North America in San Francisco—an affiliate of a Canadian bank. Before he died, Jackson, suffering from the hardships of the search, sent a letter and a map with the information about the location of the treasure to a friend in Seattle called Shotwell. Being an"
"rear window of his house onto his waiting horse, galloping off into the night. With the soldiers in hot pursuit of him (there was a price of $500 on his head), Bradford made it to McKees Rocks, where he traded his ""faithful grey horse"" for a skiff and set out down the Ohio River. A touch-and-go gun battle with his pursuers went on all night but he managed to slip through by staying close to the opposite shore of the river. Once Bradford reached Louisiana, he sent for the rest of his family. Contrary to popular legend, Bradford did not"
"and bluffs of Starved Rock to secrete it from a French Canadian governor who had dismissed him. Later in 1704 when he was dying of yellow fever, Tonti described the treasure's location to the priest who was giving him last rites. As the story goes, the priest mentioned this revelation to third parties, but did not describe the secret location, and this key piece of information was lost when the priest died in an Illinois River canoe accident. Another narrative centers on the death, in 1769, of Pontiac at the hands of an unnamed member of the Illini Confederacy. According"
"across the Potomac River. At one point, a party of Catawba is said to have followed a party of Lenape who attacked them, and to have overtaken them near Leesburg, Virginia. There they fought a pitched battle. Similar encounters in these longstanding conflicts were reported to have occurred at present-day Franklin, West Virginia (1725), Hanging Rocks and the mouth of the Potomac South Branch in West Virginia, and near the mouths of Antietam Creek (1736) and Conococheague Creek in Maryland. Mooney asserted that the name of Catawba Creek in Botetourt came from an encounter in these battles with the northern"
"sometimes spotted dropping these coins off the bridge and into the river below, although swimmers were never able to find anything of value to support the myth. Even though the bridge made a large sum of a money and the tollhouse was often filled with money, the place was never robbed. Two Airedales the McCrackens kept in the tollhouse, named Duke and Totsey, helped keep the place clear from thieves. In the time of the bridge prospering, Reverend Darlington was wed to Dorothy Stone Smith at the Trinity Chapel in Newark. The wedding, which occurred in November 1920, made the"
"two of his 10 children, Peter and Spencer, were brought to trial and were charged with making counterfeit coins. Solomon was found guilty, but fled Virginia before being sentenced. He reportedly died in 1858 and never revealed the location of his source of silver. Each year in Wolfe County, Kentucky there is a Swift Silver mine festival in the county seat of Campton, Kentucky where locals believe the mine may be located near Swift Creek. John Filson is the first person known to have referenced the mine following Swift's death. In 1788, Filson claimed a tract of land supposed to"
"Silver Dollar (film) Silver Dollar is a 1932 American pre-Code biographical film starring Edward G. Robinson, Bebe Daniels and Aline MacMahon. Based on David Karsner's biography of the same name, it tells the story of the rise and fall of Horace Tabor (renamed Yates Martin), a silver tycoon in 19th century Colorado. A copy is preserved in the Library of Congress. Kansas farmer Yates Martin (Edward G. Robinson) uproots his uncomplaining wife Sarah (Aline MacMahon) and baby son to 1876 Colorado in search of gold. He buys a claim, then immediately abandons it when two prospectors tell him of a"
"up the Fraser River to Yale. McGowan was convicted of assaulting Dr. Fifer before the colony's first judge, Matthew Baillie Begbie, but McGowan charmed everyone, the Colonel, the Judge and the future British Rear Admiral Richard Charles Mayne, then a young lieutenant, with toasts to Queen Victoria and President James Buchanan, (the latter a friend of McGowan's). The incident is known in British Columbia history as McGowan's War. In 1859, tired of struggling against the numerous Vigilance Committee miners on the Fraser, McGowan sold his stake at Hill's Bar for $500 and left British Columbia with $5000 in gold dust."
"Seneca Falls, New York, where the introduction occurred. In 2007, the Troup–Howell bridge in Rochester, NY, was redesigned and renamed the Frederick Douglass–Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridge. The U.S. Treasury Department announced on April 20, 2016, that an image of Anthony would appear on the back of a newly designed $10 bill along with Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Alice Paul. The original plan was for a woman to appear on the front of the $10 bill, with Anthony under consideration for that position. The final plan, however, calls for Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Secretary of"
"on The molding clay of Limping John. Tread lightly, stranger, on this sod. For if he moves, you’re robbed, by God""</poem> Cornelius Donahue Cornelius Donahue alias ""Lame Johnny"" (c.1850 in Philadelphia – 1878), was an American cattle rustler, horse thief and general Wild West outlaw from the Black Hills of South Dakota. His gang's most notorious robbery was probably $3,500 in currency, $500 in diamonds, hundreds of dollars' worth of jewelry and 700 pounds of gold dust, nuggets and bullion from a special treasure coach called the ""Monitor"" belonging to the Homestake Mine in October 1878. Doug Engebretson in his"
"and Spanish-milled dollars from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the British troops at Boston, Massachusetts. After sending ""Polly"" into Beverly under a prize crew, ""Lee"" sailed off Boston, and at dusk the next day gave chase to the 250-ton brig ""Nancy"", then beating her way into Boston. Mistaking ""Lee"" for a pilot boat, ""Nancy"" laid her sails aback and sent up a string of signal flags. Captain Manley dispatched a boat with carefully picked men, ordering them to conceal their weapons as they rowed to and boarded ""Nancy"". Taken by surprise, the brig surrendered without resistance, providing the Americans with a"
"of the Shenandoah River with multiple volleys and special toasts of brandy and claret to the King and the Governor, naming a peak for each. After the journey, Spotswood gave each member of the expedition a pin made of gold and shaped like a horseshoe on which he had inscribed the words in Latin ""Sic jurat transcendere montes"", which translates in English to ""Thus he swears to cross the mountains."" The members of Governor Spotswood's expedition soon became popularly known as the ""Knights of the Golden Horseshoe."" A historical plaque and pyramid-shaped stone mark their historic crossing of 1716. The"
"Horace Tabor Horace Austin Warner (""Haw"") Tabor (November 26, 1830 – April 10, 1899), also known as The Bonanza King of Leadville, was an American prospector, businessman, and Republican politician. His life is the subject of Douglas Moore's opera, ""The Ballad of Baby Doe""; and the 1932 Hollywood biographical movie: ""Silver Dollar"". Also, Graham Masterton's 1987 novel ""Silver"" has a protagonist named Henry T. Roberts, whose life includes incidents from Tabor's. Tabor was born in Holland in Orleans County in far northern Vermont to Cornelius Dunham Tabor and Sarah Ferrin. He was one of five children, one girl and four"
"river, Joaquín demanded that a ferryman take them across the river and give them all his money. When it was revealed the man only had a hundred dollars, Murieta said “I will not take it, you are a poor man, and you never injured me. Put us over the river, and I will pay you for your trouble.” After arriving in Stockton, Joaquín saw an advertisement offering a $5,000 reward for him, dead or alive. Joaquín is known to have added, “I will give $10,000. JOAQUÍN” in pencil in front of a dozen unknowing villagers. He then departed before anybody"