Robert Pullman Lord (1838 - 1917)

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Robert's lifetime.

In 1838, in the year that Robert Pullman Lord was born, on January 11th in New Jersey, Samuel Morse and two others first publicly demonstrated Morse's new invention - the telegraph. Patented by Morse in 1837, the electrical telegraph used a code developed by him and his assistant, Samuel Vail, and sent a message two miles. In 1844, Morse broadcast from Washington DC to Baltimore Maryland the message "What hath God wrought" and the telegraph took off.

In 1844, when he was only 6 years old, in June and July, the "Great Flood of 1844" occurred on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers - the largest flood recorded in that area. The population in the area was sparse at the time, though, so the flood didn't have a lot of economic impact. The biggest loss was to the Wyandot Indians - 100 people died from diseases caused by the flood.

In 1852, by the time he was just 14 years old, in Springfield Massachusetts, Smith & Wesson was founded. Their first gun was the Volcanic rifle. The company later expanded their line to include revolvers and ammunition.

In 1871, he was 33 years old when on October 8th, 4 major fires started on the shores of Lake Michigan - in Chicago (Illinois), Peshtigo (Wisconsin), Holland (Michigan) and Manistee (Michigan). The Chicago fire is the most well known of them because it left almost 100,000 people homeless. But the Peshtigo Fire killed around 2,500 people. The casualty count made it the deadliest fire in US history.

In 1917, in the year of Robert Pullman Lord's passing, the NHL (National Hockey League) was established as a response to the demise of the National Hockey Association (NHA). The first superstar of the League was "Phantom" Joe Malone of the Montreal Canadiens, a leading scorer with records that still stand. The Canadiens won the NHL championship over the Senators.