Andrew Alexis Varvel

On this date in 1823, the Morning Post of London in the United Kingdom reprinted President James Monroe's address to the first session of the Eighteenth Congress of the United States, which he had delivered earlier in the month.

On Christmas day in 1907, as students at the University of North Dakota were on holiday break, Professor and Mrs. Vernon P. Squires hosted a splendid family reunion.

On this date in 1922, The Covington Leader reported that prominent Memphis attorney, P. W. Lanier, would keep his license to practice law. The disbarment proceedings in a Memphis courtroom would end up having a dramatic effect on North Dakota politics.

On this date in 1954, Agnes Geelan, Secretary and Treasurer of the North Dakota Nonpartisan League, sent a letter on the official letterhead of the NPL's Executive Committee to P. W. Lanier, Jr., a prominent Democratic Party activist. He had invited her to the inaugural meeting of the Democratic Farmer-Labor Association, the day before on November 22. He had become chairman of this organization, which sought to include “progressive Democrats and Leaguers, farmers and organized Labor...”

On this date in 1954, the Bismarck Tribune reported that a large portion of Bismarck's business district would be decorated with Christmas street lighting for the holiday season. E. V. Lahr, Jr., president of the Chamber of Commerce said a lighted canopy over the streets would "dress up Bismarck for the holidays." The lights would go up about Thanksgiving time and come down around the New Year weekend.

On this date in 1954, Byron G. Allen, Democratic National Committeeman for Minnesota, sent a letter to P. W. Lanier, Sr. Lanier was an ardent Democratic Party activist who had come to Jamestown from Memphis, Tennessee, during the early 1920s.

This week in 1823, the National Intelligencer published a letter rebutting a New-York American editorial that had criticized the Monroe administration's policy of punishing Arikaras for attacking fur traders.

On this date in 1823, the New York American published a scorching editorial critical of a United States military expedition to punish the Arikara for ambushing fur traders. It said in part, “... our reflections … lead to the conclusion that the wrongs of this quarrel are on our side; that we were the original aggressors; and that in affecting to avenge what has been called an unprovoked outrage upon American citizens, we have only followed up more systematically the first aggression.

The War of 1823, often known as “The Arikara War,” forcibly opened the Upper Missouri River to trade. It also established Anglo-American military supremacy over the Upper Missouri River. This victory would be cemented by an Indian Peace Commission, an integral part of a military expedition led by General Atkinson in 1825. This commission was responsible for a series of unequal treaties throughout the region recognizing Anglo-American supremacy.

By this date in 1823, troops of the United States Sixth Infantry were back in their barracks after a punitive expedition against the Arikaras. A generation of tensions had led to the conflict. St. Louis fur traders felt entitled to go anywhere they wanted on the Missouri River, while the Arikara felt entitled to control their own territory.