Timeline

1848

• November 4, 1848 - Grace Greenwood Bedell is born
• Zachery Taylor is elected President of the United States
• Karl Marx issues his "Communist Manifest"

1849

 

1850

• Fugitive Slave Law is enacted
• Millard Fillmore is elected President of the United States

1851

1852

• Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is published

1853

1854

• Kansas Nebraska Act is passed, nullifying the Missouri Compromise of 1820
• Franklin Pierce is elected President of the United States

1855

1856

1857

• Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court

1858

• Lincoln - Douglas debates bring Lincoln to the public eye

1859

• John Brown captures the arsenal at Harper's Ferry. Col. Robert E. Lee is sent to resolve the issue. John Wilkes Booth attends the trial and entertains citizens of Charlestown, Virginia

1860

• Abraham Lincoln gives a speech at Cooper Institute at New York in February
• In May, Abraham Lincoln is nominated as the Republican candidate at the Wigwam in Chicago.
• The Democratic Convention splits in Charleston, S.C. The northern Democrats select Stephen Douglas at Baltimore, while the Southern Democrats select John C. Breckinridge as their candidate in Richmond
• John Bell is the candidate for the Constitutional Union party
• October 10-12, in Westfield, N.Y. Norman Bedell goes to a village fair. He brings home a Republican poster which encourages his daughter Grace to write the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln, encouraging him to grow a beard
• November 6 - Abraham Lincoln wins the presidential election
• December 20 - South Carolina secedes

1861

• January - Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana secede
• The Confederate States of America is formed, inaugurating their President, Jefferson Davis
• February 11 - Lincoln bids Springfield, Ill. a tearful goodbye
• February 16 - Lincoln arrives in Westfield, N.Y. and shows Grace his whiskers
• March 4 - Abraham Lincoln is inaugurated the 16th President of the United States
• Texas secedes
• April 12 - Ft. Sumter is bombarded by southern forces under the command of General Beauregard
• Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus
• June - West Virginia is born
• July 4 - Lincoln calls a special session of Congress, calling for 75,000 troops
• Grace Bedell and her family move back to Albion, N.Y.
• Union loses at the Battle of Bull Run
• Nathaniel Gordon is convicted of slave trading and is sentenced to hang

1862

• Nathaniel Gordon is hanged at the Toombs in New York in February
• Willie Lincoln dies
• September - success at the Battle of Antietam
• Lincoln issues his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
• Militia Act

1863

• January - Final Emancipation Proclamation
• March - First Conscription Act
• July - Fall of Vicksburg
• July - Fall of Gettysburg

1864

• January 10, 1864 - Grace Bedell writes Abraham Lincoln asking for a job in the Treasury Department
• Abraham Lincoln is re-elected

1865

• April 4 - Abraham Lincoln visits Richmond
• April 9 - Robert E. Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox
• April 14 - Abraham Lincoln is shot at Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth and dies the following morning in the Peterson House at 7:22 a.m.

1867

• December 3 - George and Grace were married

1870

• April - George Billings joins the Greeley "Union Colony" and heads out to Greeley, Co. It doesn't take long to realize that the land is barren. George heads to Abilene, Ks.
• May - George takes over a Homestead Claim just north of Delphos, Ks.
• August - Grace leaves Albion and heads for Kansas to join George

1872

• Grace gives birth to their only child, Harlow Drake Billings

1872

• October 25 - Grace's father, Norman Bedell, dies

1874

1876

1877

1878

1880

1885

1888

1890

1898

• Spanish American War

1930

• George Billings dies

1936

• November 2 - Grace Bedell dies