History instructor. 🇺🇸 Personal account.
Sweet Land of Liberty
Joined October 2025
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Americans, we live in the greatest country in the world, made possible by the grace of God and the US military. We have so much to be thankful for and to be proud of and to look forward to. Dream on. 🇺🇸 🛩🦅🗽🚀
USAF F-35 in Battle Creek, MI
"Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men." --Pres. Gerald R. Ford, Inaugural Address, August 9, 1974.
That is still true. Our Constitution does not need to be "revisited" or "reexamined."
fordlibrarymuseum.gov/the-fo… (link).
Historic map in the Governor's Mansion at Colonial Williamsburg showing colonial claims from the Atlantic to Pacific ("sea to sea") based on royal charters from the 17th century. The Proclamation of 1763, ending westward expansion, violated these charters in the colonists' view. What is now Michigan's Lower Peninsula was claimed by Virginia. I love that! Of course Virginia's claims overlapped those of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York, as this map shows. These states ceded their land to the federal government, except for the Western Reserve, beginning in 1780. Congress then created the Northwest Territory in 1787 and made provisions for new states to enter the union.
🇺🇸 The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 predates the US Constitution and established government in the Northwest Territory (future Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, etc.).
On loan from the National Archives at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 🇺🇸 archives.gov/milestone-docum… (link) and fordlibrarymuseum.gov (link).
Absolutely beautiful 1877 Gothic Revival church in Austinburg, Ohio, on the National Register of Historic Places. The congregation, assembled in 1801, was the second Protestant congregation in the Western Reserve.
The Western Reserve, in what is now northeast Ohio, was related to the 1662 royal charter of Connecticut colony. The state of Connecticut retained the land until 1795 and Moses Cleaveland, the Revolutionary War general for whom Cleveland, Ohio, is named (but spelled differently), surveyed the Reserve in 1796. austinburgfirstucc.org/histo… (link) and case.edu/ech/articles/w/west… (link).
Final resting place of eight unknown American Revolution soldiers who served at Fort Stanwix in Rome, New York. The obelisk is 19 feet tall and was designed by World War I veteran and architect Lorimer Rich, who also co-designed the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. nps.gov/places/tomb-of-the-u… (link) and veterans.syracuse.edu/news/l… (link).
September 11, 2001 Memorial in Erie, Pennsylvania, just outside the Erie Maritime Museum. The centerpiece is part of a column from the World Trade Center.
🇺🇸 "We will never forget." 🇺🇸
visiterie.com/partners/9-11-… (link).
Presque Isle Lighthouse on Lake Erie, Erie, Pensylvania. Built in 1872, lighthouse keepers and their families maintained the light until 1944, when the US Coast Guard assumed operations. No longer in service, it's now a museum in Presque Isle State Park. presqueislelighthouse.org/ (link).
"For we are naturally disposed to admire more than anything else the man who shows fortitude in adversity." ---Seneca the Younger, On the Brevity of Life (De Brevitate Vitae)
Portrait of Washington, one of his swords, and a letter he wrote and signed at Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond. virginiahistory.org/ (link).
“Repeated defeats in the war’s early campaigns may have reinforced Washington’s feelings of inadequacy for the task at hand. He was, however, a fighter who learned from his mistakes and possessed an unmatched determination and grit. He relied on God and the ‘glorious cause’ for which he was fighting to persevere and sustain himself throughout the war, leading the nascent army through its numerous challenges.” ---Jason Q. Bohm, Washington's Marines, p. 46
Statue at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown.
“Repeated defeats in the war’s early campaigns may have reinforced Washington’s feelings of inadequacy for the task at hand. He was, however, a fighter who learned from his mistakes and possessed an unmatched determination and grit. He relied on God and the ‘glorious cause’ for which he was fighting to persevere and sustain himself throughout the war, leading the nascent army through its numerous challenges.” ---Jason Q. Bohm, Washington's Marines, p. 46
Statue at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown.
This is what George Washington looked like. It's a copy of a mask made by French sculptor Jean-Francois Houdon at Mount Vernon in 1785. Jefferson and Franklin arranged to have the likeness of their modest friend preserved for posterity. mountvernon.org/george-washi… (link). This copy is at Heinz History Center, a six story museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. heinzhistorycenter.org/ (link). The real mask is at the Morgan Museum in New York City.
Home of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, 1844-1860, in Springfield, Illinois. The house was built in 1839 and the Lincolns rented it out after moving to Washington, D. C. Mary loved cooking and baking and hated to part with her Royal Oak stove, which is still in the kitchen here, when she became First Lady. nps.gov/liho/learn/historycu… (link).
Lincoln home, Springfield, Illinois. Really enjoyed the tour inside. nps.gov/liho/learn/historycu… (link).
Sitting president. Abraham Lincoln statue at Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan. Lincoln was a reader--be a reader like him! lincolncarmuseum.org/ (link).
Sitting president. George Washington statue at the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown, Virginia. Washington was a reader--be a reader like him! jyfmuseums.org/visit/america… (link).
Sitting president. George Washington statue at the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown, Virginia. Washington was a reader--be a reader like him! jyfmuseums.org/visit/america… (link).
A young Ike Eisenhower commanded the first tank school at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during World War I. He and Mamie would later have a house there, and Christmas is a good time to tour it. Photo taken at Eisenhower Presidential Museum, Abilene, Kansas. See: nps.gov/articles/the-armys-f… (link) and armyhistory.org/the-making-o… (link).
Patton's tanks!!! Best thing in the whole museum. Was so excited to see this Renault tank. Before the drive across France, before the Bulge, before crossing the Rhine March 22, 1945, there was St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne. warfarehistorynetwork.com/ar… (link). National World War I Museum and Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri.
Artifacts connected with Eisenhower's World War I years at his Presidential Museum, Abilene, Kansas. eisenhowerlibrary.gov (link).
Renault tank hood ornament or mascot at Gilmore Car Museum, Hickory Corners, Michigan. gilmorecarmuseum.org/visit/e… (link).
Patton's tanks!!! Best thing in the whole museum. Was so excited to see this Renault tank. Before the drive across France, before the Bulge, before crossing the Rhine March 22, 1945, there was St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne. warfarehistorynetwork.com/ar… (link). National World War I Museum and Memorial, Kansas City, Missouri.
Here's another Allied tank, defeating the Reichsadler, or Imperial Eagle of the German Empire. The Aquila (eagle) was the emblem of the Roman Army, and the Holy Roman Empire continued to use the eagle as its symbol in various forms. Today, Germany's eagle is called the Bundesadler, or Federal Eagle, adopted in 1950 and using the same design as the eagle of the Weimar Republic during the interwar period. Gilmore Car Museum, Hickory Corners, Michigan. gilmorecarmuseum.org/visit/e… (link).
