March 20: William Wall, who went from rope-maker to bank president (of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank) to congressman, was born in this date in 1800.

March 19: Civil War General Francis Baretto Spinola was born on this date in 1821. In 1886, he became the first Italian-American elected to Congress.

March 18: Henry Brockholst Livingston, Revolutionary War officer and Supreme Court Justice, died on this date in 1823.

March 17: On this date in 1848 the speedy clipper ship Rainbow set sail, captained by William Hayes on what he planned to be his last voyage before his retirement, bound for Valparaiso and China. The ship, captain, and crew were never seen or heard from again. Hayes’s cenotaph is at Green-Wood.

March 16: Charlotte Denman Lozier, physician and professor at the New York Medical College for Women, who campaigned for the right of women to vote, was born on this date in 1844.

March 15

On this date in 1921, Catherine Weldon, advocate for American Indian rights, who befriended Chief Sitting Bull and became his confidante and private secretary, died.

March 14: On this date in 1870, Alfred Van Derwerken was born; he died in 1906 and this monument was placed in his memory.

March 13: Leon Javelli, tightrope walker and mime, was born on this date in 1821; he died in 1854 after eating lobster salad.

March 12: William M. Tweed, the “Boss,” died in this date in 1878 at the Ludlow Street Jail, where he was being held on a civil judgment arising from his massive theft of public funds.

March 11: The Great Blizzard of 1888 hit New York City on this date; Henry Bergh, the founder of the ASPCA, the first humane organization in the Americas, was already ill, but when a doctor was summoned he could not reach Bergh because the roads were impassable; Bergh died the next day.