Capitol centennial, Garfield dies: News Journal archives, week of Sept. 18

"Pages of history" features excerpts from The News Journal archives including the Wilmington Morning News, The Morning News, the Every Evening and the Evening Journal.

Sept. 18, 1893, Evening Journal

All Washington alive with processions, music and singing; Capitol centennial celebrated

One hundred years ago today, with all the ceremonies which the period would allow, the corner stone of the Capitol building was laid by President George Washington, and today the citizens of the magnificent city that has grown about the site selected for the structure, together with the highest officials of the nation and the public men from all sections of the land, celebrated the centennial anniversary of the event with exercises so impressive in character as to fitly mark an epoch in the history of this splendid building.

First with a military and civic pageant, then with oratory and music, the event was commemorated. The participants were the representatives of all the branches of the government, including President Cleveland and his Cabinet and the members of both houses of Congress and the highest judicial officers of the country, together with thousands of the people themselves….

Fatalities in chaos of Oklahoma land rush

Sunday in the Cherokee Strip was anything but a day of rest. The boomers were busy hunting for food and water while their families guarded the land they had claimed.

Numerous encounters between boomers and sooners resulted in the loss of life. Many people perished in the rush and others fell victims to the prairie fires….

The governor of Oklahoma had issued an order forbidding all persons who enter the strip from carrying firearms….

Recent gun law news:Delaware House passes a bill to ban assault weapons amid mass shootings in America

Sept. 19, 1975, The Morning News

Patty Hearst, SLA trio nabbed in San Francisco

Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst and her three fugitive companions were captured without a fight in San Francisco yesterday, ending one of the longest and most bizarre manhunts in American history….

The sudden and unspectacular apprehension – by FBI agents and San Francisco police – provided a “whimper” ending to the violent history of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Miss Hearst, the 21-year-old daughter of Randolph A. Hearst, president of the San Francisco Examiner, was held on a total of $500,000 bail on criminal charges in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Her attorney, Terence Hallinan, said her family would seek to provide the money….

Among the others arrested, William Harris and his wife, Emily, are avowed members of the SLA, the small terrorist band that claimed “credit” for the assassination of Marcus Foster, the black school superintendent in Oakland, Calif., and later kidnapped Miss Hearst from her Berkeley apartment Feb. 4, 1974….

The Hearst case…caught the nation’s fancy from the beginning. Miss Hearst, scion of a publishing fortune, had been taken…from her Berkeley apartment in the dead of night. A nation of television viewers watched her parents’ ordeal, their pleas that she be set free – and later, after the bombshell of her claimed conversion to the terrorism of the SLA – their pleadings that she give herself up.

Miss Hearst, in one of many tape-recorded messages sent to a radio station, announced April 3, 1974 – two months after her abduction – that she was renouncing her family….

Catch up on history:The News Journal archives, week of June 5

Sept. 20, 1881, Every Evening

President Garfield dead

President Garfield died at 10:35 last night, thus ending his long sufferings in the way that for some time it had been apparent alone could end them….

Mrs. Garfield bore the trying ordeal with great fortitude and exhibited unprecedented courage after her husband was shot more than two months ago….

Soon after 9 o’clock on the morning of Saturday, July 2, the President entered the station of the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad at Washington, in company with Secretary of State Blaine, being about to join his wife at Long Branch for an extended trip through the Northern States. The President was well advanced into the room when suddenly two pistol shots were heard and Mr. Garfield was seen to stagger. At the same moment the unknown assassin…attempted to escape. Mr. Blaine rushed out to grapple with him but in an instant the miscreant was seized by half a dozen men, and soon after, amid the threats of the excited and bewildered crowd, conveyed to jail.

Meanwhile the wounded President sank upon the floor and several physicians were called. A hasty examination showed that one shot had taken effect, that entered upon the right side, striking the 11th rib, and burying itself….

The assassin gave his name as Charles J. Guiteau and boldly proclaimed the premeditated character of his deed. He left letters showing that he had hoped to end the President and bring into power Vice President Arthur as representing Senator Roscoe Conkling and the Stalwarts. For a moment, the public teamed with a menacing growl toward Mr. Conkling and his friends, but there was a feeling of relief as it became apparent that the assassin, if not insane, at least represented only himself….

After considerable variation in the President’s condition, he grew much worse Aug. 25 and on the following day appeared to be dying. On Saturday of that week, however, he began to improve and the improvement seemed to continue until Monday, Sept. 5 when it was acknowledged that there were indications of malarial influences….

Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Capitol centennial, President Garfield dies: News Journal archives