On page 8, Ashley Ravenall's letter mentions Charleston. Charleston is the largest city in South Carolina.

On page 11, Ashley Ravenall's journal is said to be disguised as a normal book matching a set on his shelves. The journal's spine has the title The Sermons of Cotton Mather. Although this appears to be a fictitious title, Cotton Mather (1663-1728) was a real world Puritan minister in the New England region of America. He played a controversial role in the Salem witch trials of 1692-93.

Indy and his father have temporarily moved to Washington D.C. where the professor has accepted a teaching position at Georgetown University in the Georgetown district of the city.

Professor Jones' associate, Dr. Zachary Walton, is said to have written a book about the U.S. Civil War called The Storm Clouds Gather. This appears to be a fictitious book.

On page 25, Lizzie says the area of South Carolina she's from, where her antebellum family plantation once stood, is called Clegg County. This is a fictitious county.

On page 26, Dr. Walton says he came to Washington to try to get appropriations to start a Civil War library from Congress, but so far funds have been unavailable. But in the real world, there already was the Civil War Library and Museum in Philadelphia, founded in 1888. It is currently known as Civil War Museum of Philadelphia.

The description given in the book of the Underground Railroad for escaping slaves in the mid-19th Century U.S. is accurate.

On page 33, Indy is excited that Dr. Walton owns "one of those new Ford motorcars" to ride in, but is disappointed when the man shows up with a horse-drawn carriage instead.

Dr. Walton explains to his young friends that they'll take the Leesburg Turnpike to the Georgetown Turnpike while searching in Virginia for Harriet Robinson. These were actual routes at the time. The Potomac refers to the Potomac River which separates Virginia from Washington D.C. I've been unable to confirm a location called Farmer's Crossing as he mentions.

Dr. Walton's description of the non-violent, anti-slavery Quakers is true. Quakers are a Christian religious denomination most prominent in Pennsylvania, but also found around the world. Quakers are known for using "thee" instead of "you" as a common pronoun, as depicted here.

On page 41, Indy, Lizzie, and Dr. Walton approach an old Quaker with a big white beard that made him look like Santa Claus. Santa, of course, is the folkloric figure who brings gifts to children around the world on Christmas Eve.

Old Man Gillis tells Indy, Lizzie, and Dr. Walton that Harriet Robinson moved on from a one-night stay at his home to Christiana, Pennsylvania, where a group of free African-Americans lived at the time. Christiana is known for the 1851 Battle of Christiana (or Christiana Riot), in which local residents defended a fugitive slave, killing the slave-owner in the process.

Indy, Lizzie, and Dr. Walton catch a series of trains to Pennsylvania at Washington's Union Station.

On page 71, Indy, Lizzie, and Dr. Walton's train pulls out of Wilmington, Delaware.

Harriet's trail leads Indy, Lizzie, and Dr. Walton to Boston, Massachusetts after two weeks search.

Indy, Lizzie, and Dr. Walton look for Reverend Porter at Arbor Street Church in Boston. This appears to be a fictitious church.

Garrick Lloyd is said to have been the editor of The Voice of Freedom from the 1840s and through the Civil War. This appears to be a fictitious broadsheet. The historical notes at the end of the book reveal that Lloyd was based on the historic figure William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879), publisher of the weekly abolitionist newspaper The Liberator from 1831-1865. An archive of The Liberator is available for online reading at http://fair-use.org/.

On page 87, Lloyd reveals that Harriett Robinson is still alive and took on her husband's name of Stoneman, becoming the famous Harriett Stoneman who was a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Harriett Stoneman is a fictitious character, but based on the real world Harriet Tubman (1822-1913), as the author admits in the historical notes at the end of the book.

From Boston, the trio heads to New York City by train, arriving at Pennsylvania Station. Pennsylvania Station (often called Penn Station) is the New York City train station, named for its original builder, the Pennsylvania Railroad. The original Penn Station, bounded by Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets in midtown Manhattan, was demolished in 1963 and a new one built beneath Madison Square Garden at 33rd Street and Two Penn Plaza.

Harriet's apartment is located in Greenwich Village on Bleeker Street. Greenwich Village is a neighborhood in the New York borough of Manhattan and Bleeker Street is an actual road passing through it.

Harriett says that the old skillet she calls Treasure once stopped a bullet in Chattanooga.

On page 108, Ashley Ravenall's old stock certificates for Bank of Atlanta, Natchez to Nashville Railroad, and Tredegar Ironworks are found. Gideon Clegg remarks that they all were southern state companies that were destroyed in the war. Bank of Atlanta and Natchez to Nashville Railroad appear to be fictitious businesses. Oddly, Tredegar Iron Works was real and was located in Richmond, Virginia just as stated by Clegg...but it actually survived the war and continued to operate until the mid-1900s. The Tredegar buildings are now preserved by the National Park Service.

On page 119, Lizzie finds some Yankee stock certificates in Ashley Ravenall's strongbox that still have great value: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Colt Firearms, and Du Pont Gunpowder. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (popularly known as the B&O Railroad and even featured in the board game Monopoly) existed from 1830-1987. Colt's Firearms still exists as Colt's Manufacturing Company. DuPont also still exists as a chemical company.

At the end of the story, Indy learns that his father is sending him to Egypt with an old friend of his. This is a set-up for the next novel in the series, Tomb of Terror. The friend of his father in that novel turns out to be Marcus Brody.

Before he goes away, Lizzie gives Indy a straw skimmer hat to replace the one that got crushed in a tussle with Lizzie's pursuers at the beginning of the book. Even though Indy doesn't like the hat, it makes a return in appearance in Curse of the Ruby Cross, as he wants to impress her by wearing her gift.

Notes from the comic strip adaptation of the novel The Young Telegraph (December 29, 1990 - March 2, 1991) Welsh Publishing Group Writer: Simon Jowett Penciler: Phil Gascoine 1991

Additional characters appearing in the comic, not in the novel

Josiah 

Didja Notice?

The opening panel of the comic strip implies it takes place shortly after "The Mountains of Superstition" (though enough time has to have passed to allow Indy and his father to move to Washington D.C.).

In the first installment of the strip, panel 3 is a flashback to when Garth gave Indy his fedora, as seen in "The Cross of Coronado". But the scene is depicted as taking place on top of the circus train in that story, when it actually took place inside the Jones house in Moab, Utah.

In the comic strip, Dr. Walton's first name of "Zachary" is spelled "Zacchary" instead.

In the comic strip, as Indy, Lizzie, and Dr. Walton approach the Quaker farm, Beau and the other thugs begin to catch up to them on horseback instead of in a wagon as in the novel.

At the Quaker farm, instead of finding an old Santa-bearded man there, Indy, Lizzie, and Dr. Walton meet a younger man whom Dr. Walton knows, named Josiah.

In the comic strip, Harriet Robinson is said to have headed for New York, bypassing Christiana where she first headed in the novel.

On the train, Indy bumps into the red-haired thug instead of Beau as in the novel.

In installment seven, as he climbs to the roof of a boxcar on the moving train to escape pursuit, Indy remarks to himself that this all seems very familiar. He is referring to the train chase he went through in "The Cross of Coronado".

In the comic strip, Indy, Lizzie, and Dr. Walton track Harriett straight to the apartment building on Bleeker Street in New York City, bypassing the Boston connections seen in the novel.

In the comic strip, Gideon Clegg and his goons are already at Harriett's apartment went Indy, Lizzie, and Dr. Walton arrive and they are taken captive to Ravenhall Hall to find the treasure.

Unlike in the novel, here Dr. Walton does not betray Lizzie and Indy to Clegg. Instead it is Josiah who gives Clegg the information, but seemingly only because he was beaten by Clegg's men.

In the last installment of the comic strip, Indy says, "Yuck! Thugs I can handle--not kisses!" when Lizzie kisses him on the cheek. In the novel, he doesn't seem to mind it; in fact, he laments that he won't likely be seeing much of her now that the adventure is over.