Isabella Alden was born on this date, November 3, 1841, in Rochester, New York.
She was the sixth child born to Isaac Macdonald and Myra Spafford Macdonald.
There was quite an age difference between Isabella and her older siblings; only fourteen months after Isabella was born, her eldest sister Elizabeth married at the age of 19.
Besides being the year of Isabella Alden’s birth, 1841 was important for a number of reasons. Here’s a brief list of other momentous events that occurred in 1841:
- Hong Kong was proclaimed a sovereign territory of Britain
- US Supreme Court ruled the kidnapped slaves from the Spanish schooner the Amistad were free
- Orlando Jones patented cornstarch
- The first steam-powered fire engine was tested in New York City
- Vice President John Tyler became the 10th President of the United States after the death of President William Henry Harrison
- Horace Greeley began publishing the New York Tribune
- Edgar Allen Poe’s book Murders in the Rue Morgue was published, America’s first detective novel
- The first wagon train left Independence Missouri for California on May 1st and arrived in California six months later on November 4
- Thomas Cook opened his first travel agency
- John Hampton patented the venetian blind
- Alabama became the first state to license dental surgeons
Isabella Alden 