Just stumbled across this. Posting hare as well as any,I guess:
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Mrs. Sarah Landis Maher of Wilmette, heroine of the civil war, died yesterday at the age of 73. She was the daughter of Abraham Landis of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the first prominent member of the famous Landis family of that state. Her husband, who died last December at Wilmette, at the age of 87, was a construction chemist, and erected the first sulphuric acid plant in the United States in Philadelphia in 1842. He also erected plants in California and Chicago in the early '50s.
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[Mr. and Mrs. Maher helped to make history at the time of the civil war, for their efforts saved kanawha county, West Virginia, to the Union. They were living at the time at Mill Creek, where Mr. Maher had charge of coal oil works. The sentiment was running strongly to the side of the secessionists when Mrs. Maher urged that, as there was not a Union flag in the district, her husband ride to Charleston, ten miles away, and procure silk materials so that she could manufacture one. The question of secession from the Union or from the eastern part of the state was to be voted on two days after Mrs. Maher received her silk, and she was compelled to work all day Sunday and all Sunday night to get the flag finished in time. The next morning, when the men of the district went to the polling place, they found floating above it a beautiful banner, Mr. Maher on a block ready to address them, and his wife by his side pointing to the flag as its folds flapped from the staff. Mr. Maher made an impassioned speech, and with the tears streaming down his cheeks, begged his neighbors to remain true to the Union. The appeal was not made in vain, and a large majority was given against secession. Mrs. Maher the took the flag and, aided by a large body of men, planted it on a hill overlooking the whole vally, where it stayed until it fell into tatters. Mrs. Maher was for many years a leading member of the Presbyterian Church in this city[/SIZE]