Mossy Feet Books – Author Paul R. Wonning
Books About Indiana History, United States History and Garden Guides
Located on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington between the Herman B Wells Library, the Eskenazi Museum of Art, and the School of Public Health, the 11-acre arboretum occupies what was the IU football field 10th Street Stadium. The arboretum is named to honor Jesse H. and Beulah Chanley Cox. Continue reading Sample Chapter – Jesse H. and Beulah Chanley Cox Arboretum
The details of Thomas Posey’s parentage are uncertain. Historians know that he was native to a farm on the banks of the Potomac River near Mount Vernon. Rumors persist that he was the illegitimate son of George Washington, however no one has ever been able to either prove or disprove it. We know little of his early childhood except that Thomas enjoyed George Washington’s patronage as a child. Continue reading Sample Chapter – Thomas Posey
People have stored food underground since ancient times. Many times, this practice involved simply placing the food in an urn or barrel and burying it or digging trenches and mounding the earth over the food. The first walk in root cellars didn’t appear in England until the 17th Century. The North American English colonists took the concept along with them and used root cellars extensively to store food. Continue reading Sample Chapter – Gardener’s Guide to Fruit and Vegetable Preservation
The Nature Trail Head
The Violet and Louis Calli Nature Preserve consists of 180 acres. The trailhead for the self-guiding trail is adjacent to the parking lot on the same side of the road. The trail is just a bit over two miles long. There is a brochure available in a box at the trailhead that describes 18 stations along the course of the trail. There is also a notepad for you to register, just for fun. Continue reading Sample Chapter – Fun Indiana Road Trips
Versailles State Park Geology
The geology of Versailles State Park is interesting because Laughery Creek at this point is the dividing line between two geologic provinces, the Muscatatuck Continue reading Sample Chapter – Versailles State Park
The son of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, Abraham was native to Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. He entered the world on February 12, 1809. Continue reading Sample Chapter -Lincoln State Park
The Indiana Territorial Assembly created Switzerland County two years before Indiana became a state in 1814. The legislature named the county for the native land of many of its early inhabitants, Switzerland. The first commercial wineries in the United States were located here, and the county considers itself the birthplace of commercial winemaking in America. Residents celebrate this heritage yearly during the Swiss Wine Festival in late August. Continue reading Sample Chapter – A History of Switzerland County
Sample Chapter The Lenape Tribe in IndianaLenape History The Lenape tribe’s English name, Delaware, derives from their original homeland at … Continue reading Sample Chapter – The Lenape Tribe in Indiana
For the first time in English history, a band of rebel barons forced a monarch to cede much of his power when they compelled King John I to sign the Magna Carta on June 15, 1215. The Magna Carta inspired much of the revolutionary fervor for liberties that resulted in the American Revolution and the Constitution that followed. Continue reading Sample Chapter – The Magna Carta
The Algonquin, or Eastern Woodlands Indian, tribes inhabited Indiana as the Europeans began penetrating the region in the 17th Century. The tribes in Indiana included the Shawnee, Lenape (Delaware), Miami, Potawatomie, Kickapoo, and others.
The Algonquin Tribes of Indiana relates the general culture, lifestyle, and agriculture of this vast family of Amerindian tribes. Continue reading Sample Chapter – Native Amerindian Tribes in Indiana in 1812
Geology of Mounds State Park
The terrain of central and northern Indiana was principally shaped by the glaciers that covered Indiana many thousands of years ago. The central portion of the state features a type of landscape known as the Tipton Till. Continue reading Sample Chapter – Geology of Mounds State Park
Popular in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, Chautauqua’s were events that sought to deliver top quality entertainment, culture and education. The Merome Bluff Chautauqua brought this movement to Indiana on the banks of the Wabash River. Continue reading Sample Chapter – Fountain Park Chautauqua
A seed is kind of an amazing thing. Everything needed to grow a plant is packed into such a small package. The type of plant, how big it will grow, what kind of leaves it will have, and its flower color. Continue reading Sample Chapter – The Amazing Plant Seed
The Indiana General Assembly created Carrol County on May 1, 1828, naming it for Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence at the time the county was formed. Continue reading Sample Chapter – North Central Indiana Day Trips – History of Carroll County
First Courthouse
Adams County officials contracted to construct the first courthouse in May 1839. The contract stipulated that the courthouse would be,
“…shall be a framed house built of good material, thirty by forty feet in size and two stories high; the lower story or room to be left without any partitions, and the upper story or room divided into rooms to accommodate the grand and petit juries…The weather boarding on the two sides next to the streets shall be planed.” This building served as courthouse until 1873, when it was sold and moved to another site on Front Street in Decatur. Continue reading Sample Chapter – Adams County Courthouse
The son of John and Viola Riddle Hoffa, James was native to Brazil, Indiana. His father, a coal miner, died of lung disease when Jimmy was seven years old. His early education was sporadic, due the the necessity of his having to work to help support the family. His mother went to work upon the death of her husband and eventually moved the family to Detroit. Continue reading Sample Chapter – West Central Indiana Day Trips – Jimmy Hoffa
Ryan White (December 6, 1971 – April 8, 1990)
The son of Hubert Wayne and Jeanne Elaine (Hale) White, Ryan was native to Kokomo, Indiana. When his parents had him circumcised at birth, the bleeding continued long after it should have stopped. The medical staff at St. Joseph Memorial Hospital diagnosed him with severe hemophilia A. The diagnosis required him to be treated with weekly transfusions of a pooled plasma blood product called factor VIII. Continue reading Sample Chapter – Central Indiana Day Trips – Ryan Whit
300 million years ago Portions of the region we know as Indiana was covered at one time by huge swamps. Indiana was much warmer at this time, an environment that was ideal for plants to grow. Vast quantities of dead vegetation accumulated over the centuries to form a layer of brown, spongy peat at the bottom. Geologic and climatic changes over the centuries allowed soil and rock to form over this layer of peat. As time passed the heat and pressure of this buildup converted the peat, hardening it into the substance we know as coal. Each ten-foot layer of peat will generate about one foot of coal from this pressure and heat buildup. The coal in Indiana is of a type called bituminous coal which is very low in moisture and is an ideal fuel for using in electricity generating plants and to make coke for the steel industry. The earliest records of commercial mining in Indiana date from the mid-Nineteenth Century. Most of the coal in Indiana is found in the southwestern part of the state. Continue reading Sample Chapter – Shakamak Indiana State Park – Indiana’s Coal
Natural Gas
Drillers searching for coal usually found natural gas in the process. This gas was highly flammable, hard to handle and considered a nuisance gas. Steel maker Andrew Carnegie pioneered using natural gas in his foundries in the 1880’s and proved that using natural gas was feasible. In 1885, he claimed that using natural gas saved 10,000 tons of coal a day in his huge blast furnaces. On January 20, 1886, drillers discovered a huge gas well in Findlay, Ohio that drillers could not control, so great was its gas flow. The flame plume from the well burned for four months. Continue reading Sample Chapter – First Indiana Gas Well
Pleistocene Era
The Pleistocene Age began roughly two million years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago. During this vast period, at least three episodes of extensive glaciations covered most of what is now Indiana. These glacial events are called the Pre-Illinoisan, Illinoisan, and the Wisconsinan Ages.
The Ice Ages Continue reading Sample Chapter – Indiana’s Timeless Tales – Pre-History to 1781
Mossy Feet Books - Author Paul R. Wonning 