Religion in the early history of Springfield, Illinois, through the period of Abraham Lincoln’s residency there, which had a formative impact on Lincoln’s own religious faith.

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Religious elements of national parks may not be obvious, but visitors’ experiences rely to some extent on traditions of religious travel and religio-aesthetic interpretations.

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A Nez Perce delegation arrived in St. Louis in 1831, but Protestants and Catholics tell very different stories about them.

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Rev. Edwin J. Stanley’s 1873 tour of Yellowstone made him a witness to “the scepter of the irrepressible white man” in the divine right of Manifest Destiny.

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Montana’s leading citizens included Masons who sought to civilize the wild lands of Yellowstone by claiming it as a park.

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Warren Angus Ferris visited Yellowstone in 1834 as the first tourist to experience the thermal features, and the first person known to use the Icelandic word “geyser” to describe them.

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Mountain man Joe Meek’s first summer of fur trapping in 1829, which put him among the earliest of non-indigenous people to enter Yellowstone.

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