Scottish Clan & Tartan Information Center

12/10/2025

4 DECEMBER 1783 – WASHINGTON BIDS FAREWELL TO HIS OFFICERS

After leading the Continental Army to victory in the Revolutionary War, on 4 December 1783 General George Washington announced to his officers and staff that he intended to resign his commission and return to civilian life in an emotional farewell.

Although the Continental Army had won the final major battle of the war at Yorktown in 1781, peace negotiations with Britain continued for another two years, and British troops continued to occupy strategic military and commercial locations like New York City.

Upon the final evacuation of British troops from New York City on 25 November 1783, Continental Army troops entered the city and participated in a city-wide celebration of victory. Shortly thereafter, on 4 December, Washington convened his officers in the Long Room at Fraunces Tavern for one final meeting.

In his memoirs, Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge attributes the following statement to Washington:

“With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable. I cannot come to each of you, but shall feel obliged if each of you will come and take me by the hand.”

In a tear-filled farewell, Washington shook each of his officers by the hand in turn, wishing the best of luck in peace to those who had stood by him in war. Following the meeting, Washington’s officers escorted Washington to his ferry, from which the general began his long journey home.

12/10/2025

BREAKING: US Steel is RESTARTING a dormant furnace in Pittsburgh, bringing hundreds of quality American jobs back to life. This is a testament to effective leadership.

12/10/2025

1958 Corvette

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This Memorial to the Marquis de Lafayette stands in Brooklyn in Prospect Park. The sculptor was Daniel Chester French, who later sculpted the Lincoln Memorial. Another man stands in this vignette. He is also named Lafayette!

James Armistead Lafayette was a slave during the Revolutionary War, and with the permission of his master, volunteered for service with Lafayette during the siege of Richmond in 1781.

Armistead spied behind enemy lines, posing as an escaped slave. He obtained information about the plans and movements of the British, and relayed this intelligence to the Marquis de Lafayette that helped bring about the American victory at Yorktown.

Lafayette later wrote a special testimonial about Armistead’s service and was instrumental in helping the slave win his freedom from the Virginia General Assembly in 1787. In tribute to Lafayette, James Armistead adopted the surname Lafayette, which he used for the rest of his life.

The sculpture is based on a painting made in 1783, called Lafayette at Yorktown by Jean-Baptiste Le Paon.

12/10/2025

1957 Chevrolet Corvette

12/10/2025

BREAKING: Trump awarded FIFA Peace Prize trophy three times BIGGER than the World Cup

12/10/2025

Before 1869, stopping a speeding train was one of the most dangerous jobs in America.
Brakemen had to leap between moving cars, balancing on narrow catwalks while cranking heavy iron wheels by hand. Each car had to be braked separately. If one man slipped, he fell to his death. If the brakes weren't applied fast enough, the train crashed anyway.
Thousands of brakemen were killed or maimed every year. And railroad executives considered it the cost of doing business.
George Westinghouse refused to accept that.
At just 22 years old, after witnessing a horrific train collision that could have been prevented with better brakes, he sketched an idea that seemed impossible: a system using compressed air that could brake every car on a train simultaneously with a single command from the engineer's cab.
Industry titans laughed at him.
Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the most powerful railroad tycoons in America, dismissed him with contempt. "Do you pretend to tell me you could stop trains with air?" Other executives ignored his letters entirely.
But Westinghouse persisted.
With financial help from a friend named Ralph Baggaley, he built a working prototype and convinced the Panhandle Railroad—a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad—to give him one chance. They agreed, but only if Westinghouse paid for everything himself and covered any damages if it failed.
He accepted.
On the appointed test day in April 1869, a train equipped with his air brakes left Pittsburgh carrying railroad executives who expected to witness a failure. As the train emerged from a tunnel, engineer Daniel Tate spotted a horse-drawn wagon stopped on the tracks ahead. The driver had been thrown between the rails.
Tate grabbed the new brake lever.
The train screeched to a halt—just feet from the fallen man.
The executives on board were stunned. Within months, Westinghouse incorporated the Westinghouse Air Brake Company. Within years, his system was adopted by railroads across America and Europe. By 1893, Congress passed a law making air brakes mandatory on all trains in the country.
George Westinghouse did not just invent a brake.
He proved that the "impossible" is just a problem no one has solved yet.
And his invention still stops trains today—more than 150 years later.


~Unusual Tales

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Wood burning campfires. Fresh mown grass. Black powder gunsmoke. A chlorinated pool at the YMCA. Bread baking.

12/10/2025