d Class _iLil£. CoffyiigteN". COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. America s Great Men and Their Deeds A mencan noneers Pi By William A. Mowry and Blanche S. Mowry & Silver, Burdett and Company New York Boston Chicago ^n"- \\^^ LIBRARY of c:0M'3«tS3 juN 9 lyws' Copyright, iqos. by SILVER, I5URDETT AND COMPANY J. F. TAPLEY CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS NEW YORK PREFACE Children like stories of action and adventure. Their tastes should be consulted in placing be- fore them lessons in history. Heretofore this study has been too often presented to them in such a manner as to make it dry and uninterest- ing. Whenever it has been made interesting, they have enjoyed it ; and some parts of history have always a charm for boys and girls. The true pedagogical method of presenting history to young people is to give them at first those portions in which they naturally take the deepest interest. Still further ; deeds, deeds of men, things done, personal anecdotes and inci- dents — these always claim a large share of their attention. Biography is the backbone of his- tory. This series of books, — " America's Great Men and their Deeds," — including " Inventions," " Heroes," " Pioneers," has been prepared on this plan and is designed for supplementary readers for the sixth, fifth, and fourth grades. It is recommended that this book be used first, then " Heroes" and "Inventions." 6 PREFACE Acknowledgment is made to the following authors and publishers for the permission, which they have very kindly granted, to use copy- righted illustrations : The Marietta Mound, from Builders and Later Indians, by Gerard Fowke. The Ohio State Archjeological and Historical Society. Sarah Bush Lincoln, Costume worn by a Matroii of Illinois in the Days of Lincoln' s Yoiitli, Lincoln s Surveying Instrti- vients, Lincoln in 1857, from Tarbell's Life of Lincoln. iMc- Clure, Phillips & Co. Mary Lyon ; Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, 1886 ; The Talcott Arboretum, from Views of Mount Holyoke College. Asa Stephen Kinney, M.S. Dr. Howe Teaching Laura Bridgman, from Laura Bridgman, by Maude Howe and Florence Howe Hall. Little, Brown & Company. I^aura Bridgman Teaching a Fellow-Pupil to Read, from Life of Laura Bridgman, by Mary Swift Lamson. Dorothea Lynde Dix, from Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix, by Francis Tiffany. Houghton, Mififiin and Company. CONTENTS Part I PIONEERS OF CIVILIZATION The First Migration— Across the Atlantic CHAPTER I. Pedro Menendez and the Early Days of Florida . II. Samuel Champlain, the Founder of New France III. John Smith, the Pioneer of Virginia IV. William Blackstone, the First Settler in Boston and Rhode Island ...... V. Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch in New York VI. William Penn and the Quakers in Pennsylvania . PAGE 21 34 47 58 The Second Migration— Over the Alleghanies VII. Father Marquette, the Jesuit Missionary VIII. Iberville, the Founder of Louisiana IX. Daniel Boone, the Pioneer of Kentucky . X. Simon Kenton and the Indian Raids XI. George Rogers Clark, the Hero of the Northwest Territory ....... XII. Rufus Putnam, the " Father of Ohio " . XIII. Wdham Clark and Early Life in Missouri XIV. David Crockett, the Tennessee Patriot . XV. Samuel Houston and Pioneer Days in Texas . 81 94 103 117 127 13S 150 163 173 8 CONTENTS The Third Migration — Across the Rocky Mountains CHAPTER PAGE XVI. Captain John A. Sutter and the Discovery of Gold 187 XVII. Amos L. Lovejoy and the Early Settlements in Oregon . . . . . . . .196 XVIII. Peter H. Burnett, the First Governor of Calitornia 205 Part II PIONEERS OF REFORM Government XIX. Thomas Jefferson, the Author of the Declaration of Independence . . . . . . .217 XX. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution . 230 XXI. Al)raham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclama- tion 239 Education XXII. John Harvard and Harvard College . . . 256 XXIII. Horace Mann and the Public Schools . . . 266 XXIV. Mary Lyon and the Higher Education of Women . 279 XXV. Samuel G. Howe, the Friend of the Blind and Deaf 292 XXVI. General Samuel C. Armstrong and the Education of the Colored Races ..... 306 Philanthropy XXVII. John Eliot, the " Apostle to the Indians" . . 318 XXVIII. Peter Caitvvright, the Itinerant Preacher . . 326 XXIX. Dorothea L. Dix, the Friend of the Insane . .337 XXX. John B. Gough, the Temperance Lecturer . . 347 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS PAGE he Old Spanish Gate at St. Augustine 14 St. Mark's Castle, St. Augus- tine 17 I'rench Soldiers Attacking the Spanish Fort 18 A Spanish Ship on the Florida Coast 20 Jacques Cartier 22 Wigwam in the Canadian For- est in 1 840 24 Samuel de Champlain 26 Champlain's Attack on the Iroquois Fort 29 Working a Canoe up a Rapid of the St. Lawrence 31 Chesapeake Bay {Map) 34 The Landing of the Settlers at Jamestown 35 Building Tents and Booths at Jamestown 36 Captain John Smith 37 Smith's Combat with Grualgo 39 Capjtain Smith Rescued by Pocahontas ........... . 43 Ruins of the Tower of the Church Built at Jamestown by the Early Settlers 45 John Smith's Pistol 46 The Settlers Choosing a Site on the Charles River 48 Shipping Wharves at Boston To-day 50 PAGE Statue of Blackstone 51 Governor Winthrop 52 The First Settlements of Mas- sachusetts and Rhode Island (^/«/) 54 Monument to Roger Williams at Providence, R. I. . . . . . 55 On the Road to Boston 57 The Palisades of the Hudson River opposite Manhattan Island. . . 59 Peter Stuyvesant {Portrait and Autograph) 60 The East River Gate and Blockhouses of the Stockade 61 Stuyvesant's "Bouwerie" House .... 63 Stuyvesant Destroys the De- mand for Surrender 65 Stuyvesant's Epitaph 67 William Penn {Portrait and Autograph) 68 The Middle Colonies (yl/(?/). . 70 King Charles II 72 The Second Home of William Penn in Philadelphia ... 74 Penn Treating with the In- dians 76 Indian Receipt 79 Indian Belt of Beads 82 Fort and Town of Mackinac. 85 Indians Gathering Wild Rice 87 Indian Peace-Pipe 88 lO ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS Indian Method of iJroiling I*"ish 90 Marquette's Grave 93 Robert Cavalier de La Salle. . 95 The French Fleet on the Lou- isiana Coast 96 King Louis XIV 9S Territory Settled by the French {^/ap) 100 Bienville, Governor of Loui- siana 102 Daniel Boone {Porhail nnd Autograph) 103 Fording the Potomac on the Way to the Northwest. . . . 104 A Settler's Hut in the Shenan- doah Valley 105 Pioneers Accosted by Indians 107 Fort at Boonesborough 112 Floating down the Ohio 114 Simon Kenton i iS Lord Dunmore 119 Indians Gloating over their Prisoners 122 Indians in Council 124 Indian Weapons 126 George Rogers Clark 12S Boone's Trail and Clark's Campaign ( J/(//) .... 1 29 Captain Helm Surrendering Fort Vincennes to the Eng- lish 133 The Sergeant and tlie Drum- mer Boy 136 Ruf us Putnam 1 39 George Washington 140 The Marietta Mound 144 Fort Washington, tiie Begin- ning of Cincinnati 146 PAGE Midnight Escape to the Fort 147 The Ohio River about 1S50. . 14S William Clark (^Portrait and A utograpli) 150 Meriwether Lewis {Portrait and A tttograph) 151 Lewis in the Costume of a Western Scout 153 Map Showing Growth of the United States west of the Mississippi 155 The City of Washington in 1S25 15S A Missouri \'illage in 1S40.. . 160 St. Louis about the Time of Clark's Death 162 David Crockett 163 Daniel Webster Speaking in the Senate 167 Room in the Capitol at Wash- ington Used by the House of Representatives until 1S59 169 The Alamo 171 Railroad Travel in Crockett's Day 172 Sam Houston {Portrait and A utograp/i) 1 74 Aiidrew Jackson 17S Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna iSi Texan Cowboys 1S2 Lone Star Flag of the Te.xas Republic 1S3 The Present Capitol of Texas 1S5 Captain John A. Sutter iSS Examining Sand with a Gold Pan 1S9 Hydraulic Mining for Gold at the Present Day 191 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS II PAGE Native Californians Lassoing a Wild Bear 193 The Pick Mattock of the Miner 195 On the Columbia River, Ore- gon : Indians Spearing Salmon as they come over the Falls igy " Westward Ho ! " 200 . In the Famous Assay Oftice, Seattle, Washington 203 Dr. Whitman's Homeat \Vaii- f latpu, Washington 207 A Caravan on Its Way to California 209 The Donne r Party Crossing the Sierra Mountains in 1846. . 212 A Settlement at the Foot of the Rocky Mountains 213 Flag of the California Repub- lic 215 Thomas Jefferson 217 The College of William and Mary as It Appears To-day 219 Williamsburg in Colonial Days {Map) 220 Monticello, Jefferson's Home 222 Jefferson Reading to the Committee the First Draft of the Declaration 225 The Autograph of Jefferson 227 The University of Virginia at the Time of Jefferson's Death 22S James Madison. ... 230 Independence Hall, Philadel- phia 232 Chair and Table Used by Washington as President of the Federal Convention. . . . 234 PAGE Madison's Home at Mont- peilier 236 The Autograph of Madison. . 237 The Great Seal of the United States, Adopted in 1782... 238 Abraham Lincoln. 240 Sarah Bush Lincoln 243 Costume Actually Worn by a Matron of Illinois in the Days of Lincoln's Youth. . . 245 Lincoln's Surveying Instru- ments 247 Lincoln in 1S57 248 The Autograph of Lincoln.. . 250 The National Capitol at Washington 252 Statue of Lincoln in Lincoln Park, Chicago 254 Interior of the Grammar School, Stratford-on-.^von 258 Harvard College in 1720. . . . 259 The College Yard at Harvard To-day 262 Monument to John Harvard at Charlestown, Mass 264 The Royal Arms of Massa- chusetts 265 Horace Mann 267 A Schoolroom When Horace Mann Was a Boy 269 Title Page of a Copy of the " New England Primer".. 273 Statue of Horace Mann in Front of the State House at Boston 275 Horace Mann School, New York City 277 Mending the Quill Pen 278 An Old-Fashioned Loom. . . . 280 12 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS As Ladies and Gentlemen Looked When Mary Lyon Was a Girl 282 Mary Lyon 2S4 A New England Kitchen. . . . 286 Mount Holyoke Female Sem- inary 289 The Talcott Arboretum, Mount Holyoke College. . . 290 Samuel G. Howe 293 Dr. Howe Teaching Laura liridgman 296 Laura Bridgman Teaching a Fellow Pupil to Read .... 300 The Congressional Library at Washington 302 Samuel Armstrong . . 307 A Cooking Class at Hampton Institute 309 The Barn at Hampton Insti- tute 312 Booker T. Washington 315 Chapel of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial College 316 John Eliot Preaching to the Indians 319 A Page of Eliot's " Indian Primer " 321 Indian Title Page of the Eliot Bible of 1663 324 Peter Cartwright 327 A Camp-Meeting Ground of the West 332 Fort Dearborn, the Beginning * of Chicago, Illinois, in 1810 336 Dorothea Lynde Dix 33S Visiting a Prison. . ." 340 Caring for the Wounded on the Battlefield 344 The Old Jail in NewYorkCity 346 John B. Gough 348 Audience Cheering John Gough in Exeter Hall, London 356 Part I PIONEERS OF CIVILIZATION The First Migration— Across the Atlantic CHAPTER I PEDRO MENENDEZ 1 5 19-1574 A PIONEER is "one who goes before, as into the wilderness, preparing the way for others to follow." The wilderness may be a forest or a plain never before disturbed by the foot of man, or it may be a vast domain of knowledge which has lain for centuries un- heard of and unknown. In either case some one who is brave enough and strong enough to overcome the obstacles in the way must take the lead. The word pioneer has grown out of an old French word \ri.^2in\n'g foot-soldier. We are to study about American Pioneers, and shall begin with the pioneers of civilization, those people who first came from England and 14 AMERICAN PIONEERS Other European countries and settled along the Atlantic coast of North America, Afterwards pioneers crossed the Alleghany Mountains and made settlements in the great valley of the Mis- sissippi ; and later still other pioneers pushed across the Rocky Mountains and established THE OLD SPANISH GATE AT ST. AUGUSTINE themselves along the Pacific coast, in California and the Oregon country. Some of the first settlements in our country by the people of Europe were soon given up. There was little enough in the new land of America to make these early pioneers con- tented. It was a struggle just to keep alive. The first settlement made and not given up was at the place since known as St. Augustine, in Florida. This was in the year 1565. In those PEDRO MENENDEZ I 5 far-away days people did not all think alike on matters of government and religion, any more than they do at the present time. The French people were jealous of the Spanish, the Spanish of the French ; and both were jealous of the English. The constant enmity between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics resulted in oppressive laws and cruel persecutions. Long before the English settled upon the coast of North America some French Huguenots, sent out by the famous Gaspard de Coligny (co- len'ye), of France, tried to make a home for themselves at Port Royal, within the boundaries of what is now South Carolina. The place was soon abandoned, but two years later (1564) another settlement, also under the patronage of Coligny, was started on the St. John's River, in the present state of Florida and called Fort Caroline. These colonists were Frenchmen and Protestants. The very next year a colony was sent over from Spain under Catholic leadership. It was commanded by Pedro Menendf ^ de Aviles (ma-nen'-deth da a-ve'-les). Let us see how and why this new enterprise came to be undertaken. Previous to 1565 Menendez had received permission from the King of Spain to make an expedition to the New World. He was a cruel soldier and ad- l6 AMERICAN PIONEERS venturer, but he feigned eagerness to convert the Indians in the territory of Florida to the Catholic faith. While he was busy getting men together and fitting out his ships, news arrived in Spain that French Huguenots had made a settlement on the American coast, Menendez's desire to go on his expedition was then increased tenfold. Had not the Pope given all Florida to the King of Spain ? No other nation had a right to settle there, and of all peoples the French Huguenots had the least right. Menendez would quickly wipe out the little Protestant settlement and found a new colony subject to the Spanish king. He laid extensive plans, and the king gave him all needed help, It was not difficult to get volun- teers. Soldiers and adventurers flocked to the port; and finally, in the year 1565, Menendez set sail with fifteen hundred men and nineteen vessels. This was one of the largest companies that ever came to this country. After much trouble and many delays Menen- dez reached the coast of America and found the French fleet at the mouth of the river now called the St. John's. " Whence does this fleet come ?" he asked. " From France," was the reply. " Are you Catholics or Lutherans ?" PEDRO MENENDEZ 17 *' We are Lutherans of the new religion. Who are you ? " inquired the French in their turn. " I am Pedro Menendez, General of the fleet of the King of Spain, Don Philip the Sec- ond." Then he told them that his orders were to hang and behead all Lutherans and that he should obey his instructions. The battle began ; but the French fleet got away, and its destruc- tion was for a time postponed. Menendez, with his large company, sailed south thirty or forty miles and found a beautiful plain bordering on a small bay, about two miles from the main coast. Here he landed his men and began to build a town. He named it St. Auorustine. Meanwhile, he by no means forgot his foes, the Huguenots. He reorganized his army and marched five hundred men overland, across swamps and through forests, to the St. John's River. Some- times they floundered waist deep in the mud ; sometimes they hacked their way through palmetto thickets. When they st. mark's castle, st. augustine i8 AMERICAN PIONEERS Stopped to rest at night, " their bed was the spongy soil, and their tent the overhanging clouds." Early one morning the Spaniards attacked the French in P^ort Caroline. Menendez gave no quarter. " One hundred and forty-two per- FRENCH SOLDIERS ATTACKING THE SPANISH luRl sons were slain in and around the fort, and their bodies lay heaped together on the bank of the river." The Spaniards pursued the fugitives who escaped, and all but the women and chil- dren were put to the sword. The colony was utterly destroyed, and no other attempt was made by the French to colonize on that coast. PEDRO MENENDEZ I9 Spain was now supreme in her province of Florida. When the Spaniards first went to Florida, the Indians were friendly ; but as time passed, the new comers treated the natives so badly that their friendship changed to savage hate. After a time, when the cruelty of Menendez became known in France, one Dominique de Gourgues (goorg), who had been ill-treated by the Span- iards on the Mediterranean Sea, fitted out three vessels and sailed for Florida to chastise the murderers and avenge the cruel destruction of his fellow-countrymen. The Indians in great num- bers flocked to his aid, and again the glades of northern Florida were drenched with blood. Indian warriors and French soldiers togfether meted out swift destruction to the Spaniards. The colony on the St. John's, which the Span- iards had planted on the ground of old Fort Caroline, was wiped out. But these scenes are too terrible to dwell upon. Let us cover the sad picture and be thankful that we do not live in times of such cruel and barbarous practices. Menendez's settlement at St. Augustine con- tinued and grew into a prosperous city. It is now three and a half centuries old, and has the distinction of being the first city in the United States founded by Europeans. What changes 20 AMERICAN PIONEERS the world, especially the New World, has seen during this time ! Instead of engaging in wars, we are now beginning to settle disputes by arbi- tration. Roman Catholics and Protestants are living side by side, no longer enemies, but friends. Many thousands of emigrants are every year flocking to these shores from all parts of the world, and here they make a home for themselves and their children. Ours is not only a land of plenty, but a land of good-will. ¥"— A SPANISH SHIP ON THE FLORIDA COAST CHAPTER II SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN 1567-1635 • /^NE bright day over three hundred and fifty years ago a company of white men and Indians stood on the summit of the mountain that overlooks the city of Montreal. Did they see a beautiful city with well-laid streets, fine buildings, lofty churches, and busy factories spread out below their feet ? Did they see be- yond the city a broad river on which ships, large and small, were hastening to and fro ? Did they see in the distance villages, farmhouses, and cul- tivated fields ? A city, if it could be called a city, was there, and the river was there ; but the churches, the factories, the wharves, the ships, the green fields were not. They looked down on the top of a great forest which spread itself out over hundreds and hundreds of miles. Al- most without a break it stretched southward to the Gulf of Mexico, eastward to the Atlantic, northward to the frozen lands of the Polar sea, and westward to the plains of the Mississippi. 22 AMERICAN PIONEERS The white men in this Httle band of observers were Frenchmen — the first white people to come up the great river of Canada. They had been sent out to build a new France in the coun- try of which such wonderful stories had been told by the Spaniards who had discovered it. Their leader was Jacques Car- tier (kar-tya'), a bold sailor, who was not afraid of the dangers of the seas or the mysteries of the forests. Their attendants were the inhabitants of the Indian village of Hochelaga (ho-shel'a-ga). This strange town was then the most populous settlement on the river ; and to-day its successor, Montreal, is still the largest city on the St. Lawrence, as that same river now is called. In his journey up the river, Cartier had been welcomed at all the villages on its banks. One Indian after another had said, " No, this is not the largest village. There is a greater one be- yond." When Cartier said that he was going to see it for himself, his new friends tried to hold JACQUES CAUriER From the painting by Th. Hatnei^ after the original preserved at St. Malo SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN 23 him back. " They are our enemies," they said. "They are very powerful. They will destroy you." But the truth was, the Indians did not want to share with the inhabitants of Hochelaga the wonderful sharp knives and hatchets which Car- tier had brought with him. They had soon learned that steel hatchets were much superior to stone hatchets, and perhaps they had already dreamed of a victory that they might win over their old enemies. As Cartier could not be frightened by stories of hostile tribes, the Indians tried another plan. One morning a canoe came out to the ships. In it were three Indians disguised as devils. They were dressed in black-and-white dog skins. Their faces were painted with soot. On their heads were horns three feet long. As the canoe floated by, the leader chanted a long address. " Coudouaguy (coo-doo-a'-gi) will destroy you," he said. " He will send tempests and snows and drifting ice, and you will be destroyed and your ships." The Indians frightened themselves so well that they fainted when they reached the shore, but Indian devils could not terrify Jacques Car- tier, He called out to the Indians on the bank that their eod was a oood-for-nothing; and could 24 AMERICAN PIONEERS not harm those who believed in Christ. Then, as soon as he could get ready, he weighed anchor and sailed away. Cartier received any but a hostile welcome at Hochelaofa. The Indians had never seen white WIGWAM IN THE CANADIAN FOREST IN 184O men before, nor boats with wings. " Surely," they thought, " these men with bright faces must be gods." They hastened to honor them with every attention that Indian courtesy could devise. When Cartier and his men, dressed in their best, landed from their boats, they were met by a band of warriors and escorted to the village. There, they were seated in the center of the SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN 2$ great public square, while the Indians squatted around them row behind row, "just as if," Car- tier wrote in his journal, "we were going to act a play." Then a strange procession came from the wigwams. Several strong warriors brought in their arms their helpless old chief. Others carried sick men, sick women, sick children. Some led blind men, some supported lame men. All were laid at the white man's feet. What did they expect ? They thought that he would heal them. Cartier was troubled. He was only a bluff sailor ; he was not even a physician. Surely he was no god. However, he did the best he could to relieve their sufferings and then knelt and offered a prayer and made the sign of the cross over them. Afterwards he distributed the pres- ents that had been brought up from the ship ; to every man and to every woman and child he gave a knife or a hatchet, beads or a ring. The visit over, Cartier went back to his ship, sailed down the river, and built a fort where he and his men spent the winter. In the spring he returned to France ; and Canada, except for occasional visits from hunters and adventurers, was left to its Indian inhabitants for eighty years. Then again a strange ship came sailing up the St. Lawrence. It was commanded by Samuel 26 AMERICAN PIONEERS de Champlain, a French soldier, who had alread}' made three trips to the New World. He hoped that now at last a permanent settlement could be made in the wilderness, where men could brinof their wives and children and build homes and plant gardens. It would be hard work, he knew ; but he was not afraid of hard work. They would have trouble, perhaps famine and suffering ; but he was not the kind of man to be discouraged by dangers and hardships. The party landed at a spot where the St. Lawrence River narrows and the bluffs rise high on either side. Soon the echoes were giving back the ring of axes and the crash of falling- trees. And it was not long before the men had built three houses for dwellings, a larger one for a store-house, a tower for doves, and platforms for cannon, and enclosed all by a strong, wooden wall, which they surrounded by a deep trench filled with water, Champlain called his fortOue- SAMl'KI. OK ClIAMri.AIN From the painting by Tit. Hanul, after the Moncornet portrait SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN 27 bee. The name he borrowed from the Indian language. It means a narrowing. In the fall the ship went back to France, and Champlain and twenty-eight men were left to spend the winter in the wilderness. The days grew short and shorter. The wind blew cold from the north. Snow and ice drove the pioneers into the fort, where they huddled around their fires. No winter such as this had they ever known in sunny France. Would it ever end ? Until the latter part of the winter they kept their health. Then one fell sick, and then another and another. Then one died. After that the men carried their comrades one by one out of the fort and laid them away, until in the spring only eight were left. As the lonely days went by, how anxiously, the first thing in the morning, must each man have looked down the river ; and how constantly, as he was busy about his work, must he have looked up to see if a sail had not yet appeared on the horizon. At last a ship did come, and it brought colonists and fresh provisions. Their friends in France had not forgotten them. During the winter Champlain had made the acquaintance of some Indians and had promised that in the spring he would take the war-path with them. Their enemies lived far to the south 28 AMERICAN PIONEERS in what is now the state of New York, and Champlain was anxious to explore the country. So after the new colonists had arrived at Quebec, he went off up the river with the Indians. Cham- plain soon discovered that an Indian's word could not be trusted. He had been told that the whole journey could be made in boats. But it was not many days before he heard the roar of falling water and saw the river rushing madly before him. The Indians landed, picked up their light canoes, and carried them on their shoulders to the quiet water above. It was a different matter to carry through the forests a heavy European boat. Champlain sent back his boat and most of his men to Quebec, and he and four others pushed on with the Indians. Day after day they paddled over rivers and lakes never before visited by white men. At night they lay down with the Indians on the shore ; and in the morninof, after tellino- their dreams, they paddled on again. The Indians firmly believed that the day's events were fore- told by the visions of the night before. As they expected that the guns of the Frenchmen would win them victory, they were especially anxious to know what kind of dreams Champlain had. Every morning they asked him about his dreams and were greatly disappointed when he said that SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN 29 he had not dreamed at all. Finally one morning he told them that in a dream he had seen three Iroquois warriors drowning in the lake. The Indians were jubilant, and immediately began to prepare for battle. After the original in Chainplaiii' s " Nouvelle France " CHAMI'LAIN'S attack on the IROQUOIS FORT The chief brouo-ht out a bundle of sticks and planted them in the ground just as we would arrange a company of toy soldiers. The tall sticks represented the chiefs, and the short sticks 30 AMERICAN PIONEERS were the warriors. Without any words of ex- planation, the Indians carefully examined the sticks and then arranofed themselves in the same positions. In this order they were to go Into battle. The Indians decided that Champlain was a good dreamer, for in a few days they came across the enemy. The victory was an easy one, for the Iroquois were so astonished by the sound of the oruns and so terrified because the balls went so easily through their arrow-proof armor that they soon ran away. A year or two after this expedition, a French adventurer came down the river from the Inte- rior. He had a wonderful story to tell. He said that he had gone so far up the river that he had come to the other side of the continent and that It would take only seventeen days' journey to reach salt water. Nearly every Spaniard, Frenchman, and Eno-llshman who had crossed the Atlantic had sought in vain to find an open- ing through to the Pacific. Champlain thought that he now had a chance to have his name hon- ored In all Europe as the discoverer of this much desired passage. Taking the adventurer alone with him, he set out in hloh siilrits. It was easy paddling up the St. Lawrence; but after the Ottawa was reached, rapids ap- SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN 31 peared ahead. As the river grew narrower, the rapids became more frequent and the difficulties greater. Sometimes the woods were so thick that Champlain could not get his boats through From an engraving 0/ 1841 WORKING A CANOE UI' A RAPID OF THE ST. LAWRENCE them and had to pull the canoes up the current by ropes fastened to trees on the bank. Finally they came across a band of Indians who looked at the travelers in amazement. How could strangers come up from the sea by a course over which even they could go only with great diffi- culty ? " These white men must have fallen from the clouds," they said to one another. 32 AMERICAN PIONEERS " The French chief can do everything. All that we have heard of him must be true." When the Frenchmen reached the settle- ments, they were received with honors, for re- ports of Champlain's kindness and fairness had spread even to that far country. When he asked for boats and guides to take him farther to the country of the Nepissings, his hosts re- plied that the tribes were hostile and the rapids too many. " Nicholas has been there," replied Cham- plain ; "and he did not find the road or the people so bad as you have said." "Nicholas," demanded the chief, "did you say that you had been to the Nepissings?" The adventurer was silent ; then he answered slowly, " Yes, I have been there." "That is false," returned the chief. "You know that you slept here among my children every night and rose again every morning. If you went where you say you went, it must have been when you were asleep." It was only too true. Nicholas had not seen the great sea, but had spent the winter with the Indians as the chief had said. He had made up the whole story, hoping that he would get hon- ors and a fortune for his falsehood. Champlain gave up his quest ; but another year he repeated SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN 33 this journey, went farther on, and discovered Lake Huron and Lake Ontario. When he returned to Quebec, he had greater difficulties to overcome than any he had found in the wilderness. There were continual quar- rels between the merchants and the hunters, and between those who believed in one kind of religion and those who believed in another. Once the fort was captured by the English, and Champlain was carried a captive to London. After peace had been made, he sailed for Quebec; and there, on Christmas Day, 1635, he died. Champlain was one of the noblest pioneers that came to the New World in the early times. The Indians trusted him as they trusted few white men. He always kept his word with them and was honorable in all his dealings. He treated them like men, while most of the other colonists considered them little better than beasts. The wisdom of his course was well shown in the after years. The French lived at peace with their Indian neighbors, while the English colonists to the south were constantly listening for the terrible war-whoop and were never safe from attack. CHAPTER III ^XCHESAPEAKE BAY JOHN SMITH 1579-1631 nr^HE Spaniards and the French were not the only European peoples who wanted to get land in the New World. England also had sent out expeditions for exploration and settle- ment, but had not been at all successful in crettincr colonists to remain in the forests of America. A year or two before Champlain came to Can- ada, some people in Eng- land made a determined effort to start a colony and interested about a hundred men to set out for the unknown world. Some went because they were fond of adventure. All hoped to obtain a fortune, for wonderful stories had been told of the abundance of gold and jewels there. James'o" \/Cape Charles Pr Comfort CapeHenry JOHN SMITH 35 They sailed in three vessels, and in the early spring reached that part of the new country known as Virginia. They had had a long, stormy voyage ; and the land with its brio-ht C5 From the painting hy Chapman THE LANUlNc; OF THE SETTLERS AT JAMESTOWN flowers and its fresh, green leaves seemed most pleasant to them. Therefore they named the point of land that they first saw Point Comfort. For three weeks they explored the banks of a river, which they called the James, after King James I of England, seeking the best situation for a settlement. At last they decided upon a small peninsula which was about as bad a place as they could have chosen. The ground was 36 AMERICAN PIONEERS low and marshy, and, when the tide was in, a part of it was covered with water. However, it was an easy place to defend if the Indians should be troublesome ; and the settlers did not know that the fogs from the river and the gases BUILDING TENTS AND BOOTHS AT JAMESTOWN that would arise from the damp earth under the hot summer sun would prove to be as dangerous a foe as the Indians. In a short time the tents and booths of James- town made a brave showing against the dark green of the forest. But difficulties arose al- most at once. Most of the settlers were of the class called "gentlemen." They had never been accustomed to work in England, and they JOHN SMITH 37 did not know how to work in America. The president of the colony and the men who had been chosen for councilors were seltish and looked out for their own interests first. i he Indians were hos- tile ; and, worse than all, a terrible disease attacked the colony from which about half their number died. In their great need, the settlers turned to ont' amonor them who, because of the jealousy of the president and his friends, had been kept from his rightful place in the government of the colony. John Smith seemed the only man who had energy, will, and wit enough to keep the colony from destruction. He was a true genius ; a man who could pull himself out of any difficulty, no matter how great, who always did the best he could under all c:r- CATTAIX jnilN SMI 111 Copied from the original engraving in John Smithes ''^History of New England, Vir- ginia, and the Summer Isles " published in 1624 38 AMERICAN PlOxXEERS cumstances and could make other men do their best, also. John Smith was at this time twenty-eight years old, but he had already had many wonder- ful adventures and had seen still more wonderful sights. When a young boy, he caused his par- ents and guardians a great deal of trouble be- cause he was so determined to go out into the world to seek his fortune. Not satisfied with the adventures he could find in England, at the very first opportunity he set out for the conti- nent of Europe. In those days strange things that could not possibly happen at the present time were com- mon occurrences. One of Smith's first experi- ences ouofht to have satisfied even his love for adventure. He set sail in a ship bound for Italy. His fellow-passengers were a supersti- tious company who were on their way to visit the churches and shrines of Rome. A terrible storm came on, and they decided that it was caused by some one on board who wished them harm. Smith w^as the only passenger who was an Eng- lishman, so he was judged the culprit. He was thrown overboard and left to drown or get to land in the best way he could. Fortunately Smith was a good swimmer, and he reached a little uninhabited island where he was picked up JOHN SMITH 39 by a pirate ship. A pirate's trade proved too adventurous even for Smith, for he was an honest and a kindly man. He left the ship at the first port reached and then wandered from place to place in southern Europe. Finally, he went to fight the Turks. Once he was sold HisCom6at witkGRVALGO CaptofTkreefimdredHorjemcn Froii! "History of New England^ I'irgiiua, and the Sn>inner Isles" into slavery, but he escaped after a time and asfain reached England, a little while before the colonists set out for Virginia. He joined the company ; but during the voyage he was made a prisoner on the charge of wishing to "usurp the government, murder the coun- cil, and make himself king." He was soon acquitted ; and, as we have seen, it was not 40 AMERICAN PIONEERS long before the colonists had need to make him their leader. As soon as Smith had been appointed presi- dent, he set energetically to work to improve conditions in the colony. It was too early for the crops to be harvested. The supplies that had been left by the ships had not been carefully used. The settlers were already starving. Food must be provided, and Smith, with seven men, went down the river to an Indian village to buy corn. The Indians had all this time been watchine the white faces at Jamestown. They knew how things were going on there, about as well as the Englishmen themselves did. They knew how the crops were coming on, and they knew how near starvation the settlers were. They had not formed a very high opinion of the strangers, and they were not at all anxious to share the land with them. So they would not be tempted by the beads and trinkets that the Englishmen offered in exchange for corn. They refused to sell. Smith ordered his men to fire their muskets over the heads of the Indians, and they ran off in fright. When they found that " the great thunder" had hurt no one, they returned in full force to attack the strangers. With them they brought an image of their god, Okee. Okee JOHN SMITH 41 was a terrible creature, and the Indians were greatly afraid of him. He had a shrine on the York River, and the Indians never paddled by without throwinor offerincrs into the stream and hurryinor away as fast as they could. Surely, they thought, Okee will destroy the white faces. Instead, Smith captured the hideous stuffed image, and then the Indians with great rever- ence sold to him all the corn that he would buy. • The cool, clear breezes of the autumn brought health to the sick colonists and a better state of affairs at Jamestown. But meanwhile Smith's enemies became more active. They accused him of not carrying out the suggestions of the com- pany, which had sent them to America to make a careful search for a passage through the land to the " South Seas." So, as there was no longer any direct need for Smith to stay in Jamestown, he offered to lead an expedition towards the mountains. He never found the South Seas, but he learned many things about the natives and met with many startling adventures. Where the Chickahominy River grew shallow. Smith was forced to leave his boat and to pro- ceed in a canoe, with only two companions. Be- fore long he landed and struck off into the woods, where he was taken captive by a large band of Indians under a chief called Opechanca- 42 AMERICAN PIONEERS noiigh (o-pech-an-ca'-no). They at once pre- pared to put him to death, but Smith's wits saved him for a time. A law had been made at James- town that no one should go out into the forest without a compass. This was a necessary rule, for there were no roads throuorh the woods and nothing to tell direction or places. Smith, of course, had his compass with him. It was set in an ivory frame and had a glass on both sides. He showed it to the chief and explained how he could find his way through the thickest woods because the needle always pointed to the north. The Indian was impressed more by what he saw than by what he heard. There in a box was a strange, quivering needle. He could see it plainly enough. He could put his finger upon it, but he could not touch it. Marvelous ! Smith then told him something about the shape of the earth and about the movements of the stars in the heavens. Probably the Indian understood very little of Smith's talk, but he got the idea that the compass ruled the universe and that Smith ruled the compass. Therefore the captive must be a powerful man and too important to be put to death in the woods. At last Opechancanough decided to take him to the great chief Powhatan (pow-ha-tan'). Powhatan was for a lono- time undecided what JOHN SMITH 43 he should do with his captive. Smith was kept a close prisoner, but was kindly treated and well fed. This was not because the Indians were friendly to him, but because they wished him to be in good condition to endure torture. Many From an olJ engraving CAPTAIN SMITH RESCUED BY POCAHONTAS long discussions took place in the Indian coun- cil. At last it was decided that if he were put out of the way, it would be very easy to get rid of the other pale faces down the river. A day was appointed for the execution, and great prep- arations were made for the event. The chief sat on his throne with his warriors 44 AMERICAN PIONEERS and his family about him. Smith was bound and laid on the ground, with his head upon two stones. Two Indians with uplifted clubs stood ready to pound out his brains. Powhatan had already begun to lift his hand for the signal to strike when there was a rustle in the group of silent women who sat around him. A young Indian girl ran out to the prisoner, threw her arms about his neck, placed her head above his, and claimed him for her own. So, according to Indian custom. Smith was saved only to be- come the slave of a twelve-year-old girl — to make toys and trinkets for the little Poca- hontas. But after two days Powhatan sent him back to Jamestown with a message to his people. It was winter when Captain Smith reached the settlement, and there he found everything in commotion. The principal men had seized the boat and were planning to return to Europe and leave the rest to their fate. Smith acted promptly. He compelled the deserters to re- main, but they were still too powerful to allow him to assume his rightful place in the govern- ment of the colony. Conditions went from bad to worse, and again the people nearly starved. Finally Smith again became the head of the colony. He told the men that they could no longer depend upon the Indians for their food. JOHN SMITH 45 They must plant their own cornfields and every one must work. "You must obey," he said; and "he that will not work shall not eat." Of course there was much grumbling, for many of the colonists had never done work of this kind before. Smith was able to make good his promise, however; and the fields were planted, and the crops were har- vested. He also set the men to fellin e trees and building a fort as a protection against the Indians. This exertion blistered their tender hands and called forth more erumblins RUINS OF THE TOWER OF THE CHURCH BUILT AT JAMESTOWN BY THE EARLY SETTLERS The ringr of the axes was accompanied by the sound of many oaths. So many oaths were used that Smith made a law that, for every oath a man uttered through the day, he should have a bucket of water poured down his sleeve when he returned to the settle- ment at night. 46 AMERICAN PIONEERS By these and other forceful acts, Smith saved the colony from destruction. He constantly en- deavored to live not for himself, but, as he pro- claimed was the duty of every man, "each to help other." One of the Virg-inia colonists gave a very truthful picture of the character of John Smith, when he called him a man that " never allowed more for himself than his soldiers with him ; that upon no danger would send them where he would not lead them himself ; that would never see us want what he either had or could by any means get us ; that would rather want than borrow, or starve than not pay ; that loved action more than words, and hated false- hood and controversies worse than death ; whose adventures were our lives and whose loss our deaths." The good men admired him, but the selfish and dishonorable hated him because he was so unlike themselves. His enemies sent untrue re- ports about him to England, and he was com- manded to return. Later he made other voyages to the New World, but he never went back to Virginia. CHAPTER IV WILLIAM BLACKSTONE i6oo(?)-i675 A BOUT twenty years after John Smith left '^ ^ Jamestown, fourteen ships sailed one after another into Massachusetts Bay, On board was a large company of Englishmen, who, with their wives and children, had left homes and friends in their native land to find new homes and a new country in the forests of America. Though many of these colonists settled at different points along the New England coast, the gov- ernor, John Winthrop, and most of the princi- pal men decided to remain at the place which is now known as Charlestown. The company had had a long voyage of about eighteen weeks. It seemed so good to be free from the cramped, bad-smelling cabins, that al- most any spot on land was a pleasant place to them. They soon decided upon the different sites for their homes and quickly raised booths and tents for shelter. The colonists who re- mained at Charlestown were a little hasty in 48 AMERICAN PIONEERS choosing this site for their settlement. There was only one spring of water anywhere near, and that was on the beach, where it was covered by the sea when the tide was in. The spring could not supply water enough for all their needs, and what water it did furnish was brackish. THE SETTLERS (IKidSlNC, A SITE ON THE CHARLES RIVER Moreover, many of the colonists had never been accustomed to any privations, and grew weak and ill during their long journey. In the new land, the strange climate, the hard work, the poor food, and the bad water were too much for them. Men, women and children sickened and died ; and great sadness settled down upon the company who had been so happy such a short WILLIAM BLACKSTONE 49 time before. One day a stranger, an English- man, made them a visit. He told them that on the peninsula just across the river they would find an abundance of pure springs. For many years he had lived there alone ; but now he in- vited them all to share with him the hills, the meadows, and the springs of Shawmut. Thomas C. Amory has told the story in -the following words : " Unused to hardships, sorrowing For friends the seas divide, They droop and sicken, one by one, Even their physician died. " Their barks but scanty food supplied, Untilied as yet the fields ; And soon to fevered lips, the spring No more refreshment yields. " It was a sorry sight to see, To make one's heart to bleed ; How could a Christian man unmoved Regard such urgent need ? " His springs and brooks in copious streams With crystal waters welled ; He gave them all they wished and more, — Naught but his farm withheld." Governor Winthrop gladly accepted the invi- tation ; and the settlers moved their families, their cattle, and even their houses, across the 4 50 AMERICAN PIONEERS bay. In this way began the settlement of Shawmut, or Boston, as soon afterwards it was called. Who was the stranger ? and what was he doine alone in the New World ? His name was Slliri'I.NG WHARVES AT 150S10N TO-DAY William Blackstone. He was a graduate of an English college and had been ordained a min- ister in the English Church. It was a time when English people were growing dissatisfied with the way in which God was worshiped in their land. Some thought that one method should be followed and others, another entirely different. Few were willing that others should worship God except in the way they themselves Thomas Bail STATUE OF BLACKSTONE Modeled for the Boston Memorial Society 52 AMERICAN PIONEERS thought right. Therefore, there were many bitter discussions, much hard feeHng, great unhappiness and sorrow. Some people were obHged to leave England to escape persecution. Others left because all such disturbances were distasteful to them. Among these was William Blackstone ; and when Winthrop arrived Black- stone had probably been in America about seven years. On the south side of the highest hill at Shaw- mut, where the Boston Common now is, he had built a cottage and laid out a farm with an or- chard. Here, far away from all controversies, at peace with the Indians and at peace with himself, he had cultivated roses, raised apples, and read his books. William Blackstone's peace was soon dis- turbed. The story is told that Governor Win- throp at first decided to take possession of all the land at Shawmut, because the king had given the whole of this region to him and his companions. Blackstone stoutly urged his right to the land which he had so long occupied. He said that fj Sm MM i '^ a^M 1",-:;' ' ^B L \ &*■'« tj " HE; M 1 ^ i 1 GOVKKNUK WINTHROP WILLIAM BLACKSTONE 53 if the King of England could give away land in New England because a hundred and thirty years before two Englishmen had sailed along its coasts, he himself surely owned and could keep the land that he had cultivated for seven years. Governor Winthrop finally changed his mind and set aside fifty acres for the use of William Blackstone and his children forever. Blackstone had othei* reasons for being un- happy among his new neighbors. They had left England so that they might have more freedom to worship God in their own way, but they did not leave behind their controversies or their dis- likes. Discussions over this and that matter were common. If any new settler brought new opinions, he found that he could have no more freedom in America than he had had in Encrland. Blackstone took no part in the wranglings, which o-rew more and more distasteful to him. " I left England," he said, "because I did not like the Lord-Bishops ; but I cannot join with you, be- cause I would not be under the Lord-Brethren." He had found that Puritan ministers were no more ready to give liberty and freedom than were the bishops of the Church of England. When he could endure it no longer, Blackstone sold his land, bought cattle with the money, packed up his goods, and pushed off into the 54 AMERICAN PIONEERS wilderness. What paths he took, and how he eot his animals over the streams and throuo-h the forest, we do not know ; but he traveled until he reached a rich piece of land now in the state of Rhode Island. Here, on the banks of the river afterward called by his name, at the place now called Lons- dale, he built a new cottage, and planted a new orchard. His farm he called Study Hill anci his cot- tage Study Hall. William Black- stone did not keep entirely away from the noise of the rapidly erowinir settlement at Boston. He made fre- quent visits to his old home, traveling back and forth on a cream-colored steer which he had trained to carry a saddle. When he returned from one of these visits, he did not come alone. With him was his bride, and together they lived happily for many years. THE FIRST SETTLEMENTS OF MASSACHUSETTS AM) KHODE ISLAND WILLIAM BLACKSTONE 55 Neighbors began to arrive even at Study Hill. More and more people kept coming over from England, and so new clearings were contin- ually being made in the forests. Ro- gerWilliams, who, in 1636, had been turned out of the colony of Massachu- setts Bay, had started, a little to the south of Study Hill, a settlement which he called Prov- idence. To this settlement anybody and every- body was welcome, no matter what his belief. At the foot of Study Hill a road was built, because at that point was the best ford across the river. Over this road travelers went back MONUMENT TO ROGER WILLIAMS AT PROVIDENCE, R. I. 56 AMERICAN PIONEERS and forth from the settlements up the river to the larger town below. William Blackstone lived at peace with them all. He was willing that they should have their opinions, and they were willing that he should have his. He welcomed friends at his fireside and he was welcomed at theirs. Frequently, mounted on his steer, he went to preach on Sunday at Providence. There were always a great many boys and girls in his congregation ; perhaps, because of what he brought them rather than because of his sermon. He was very fond of children, and when he went to Providence he always filled his saddle-bags with apples from his orchard at Study Hill. Blackstone was a good friend of all the In- dians round about, and up to the time of his death the settlers of Massachusetts and Rhode Island had little trouble with their red neio^hbors. But after his death the Indians grew jealous of the whites. They saw their hunting grounds occupied more and more each year and feared that soon nothing would be left for them. They determined to destroy all the English settlements and get rid of the pale faces for ever. A terrible Indian war broke out, and a fierce battle was fought near Study Hill. Blackstone's house was burned, and with it the library of books that he had brought over from England with such WILLIAM BLACKSTONE 57 care. There were more than two hundred volumes — a large library for those times. Where Study Hall once stood, is now a great cotton mill. Where once was heard the ripple of the river, the rustle of the trees, and the song of the birds, is now heard the whirl and rattle of machinery, the hum of a multitude of voices, and all the bustle and hurry of business life. Near the walls of the mill is a monument with this inscription : " The grave of the Rev. William Blackstone, founder of the town of Boston and the first white settler of Rhode Island." On the Road to Boston CHAPTER V PETER STUYVESANT 1 602-1 682 TT was the Dutch who discovered the Hudson River, and the Dutch who settled New York. Henry Hudson was the first to find the river which now bears his name. He himself was an Englishman, not a Dutchman ; but he was in the employ of the Dutch trading company. Hence, he was sailing in a Dutch vessel, under the Dutch flag. So we say that the Dutch dis- covered the river. It came about in this way. In the year 1609, two years after the English had made their first settlement in Virginia, the Dutch East India Company sent Captain Hudson in a vessel called The Half Moon, to find a short passage through North America to China. After cruising along the coast from Newfoundland to Chesapeake Bay, he turned back northward, and in Septem- ber, he found the mouth of the great river that flows down past Albany and New York City to the ocean. He did not find the passage PETER STUYVESANT 59 through to China ; but he made a great dis- covery, and great results came from it. He him- self did not give his name to the river. He called it the North River, as he had already named the Delaware the South River. Later, THE PALISADES OF THE HUDSON RIVER OI'POSI 1 E MANHATTAN ISLAND South River got its new name from Lord De La Warre, and Hudson's name was given to the North River. It was not till fourteen years after Captain Hudson had made his great discovery and claimed for Holland all the land between the North and the South rivers that the Dutch made their first permanent settlement at New Amster- 6o AMERICAN PIONEERS dam, now New York City. A little later, Peter Miniiit became the first governor. He bought Manhattan Island of the Indians for trinkets valued at about twenty-four dollars. Not even millions and millions of dollars could buy it to-day. After this first Peter, came Wouter Van Twil- ler, as governor, then Wilhelmus Kieft, then the last and greatest gov- ernor of this im- portant settlement, another Peter — Peter Stuyvesant. Peter Stuyve- sant was a typical Dutchman. He iv^n^i^J^y was of good height and fig- ure and dressed with great care, wearing a velvet jacket and full puffed shirt, and rosettes upon his shoes — or rather, a rosette upon one shoe, as he had lost a leof in battle and wore a wooden one with silver bands. He ruled the colony with a rod of iron. Toward the people he was cold, PETER STUYVESANT 6l haughty, and passionate ; but he was quick to see what should be done and how to do it, and always he was independent and willful. When the home government ordered him to appear personally in Holland, he refused to obey and said, " I shall do as I please." With equal independence he dispersed a convention THE EAST RIVER GATE AND BLOCKHOUSES OF THE STOCKADE of deputies assembled in 1653 from the little village of New Netherland to demand reforms. " We derive our authority from God and the company," asserted Stuyvesant, " not from a few ignorant subjects." When the war broke out between Holland and England, that year, how do you suppose he made the town secure against aland attack from 62 AMERICAN PIONEERS the north ? He built a stockade, twelve feet high, across the island from the North to the East rivers, with two blockhouses for gates. This line was along what is now Wall Street, and the entire village was south of the stockade. Two years later Stuyvesant sent a fleet of seven vessels and seven hundred men to the Delaware and took possession of New Sweden. In Stuyvesant's day Manhattan Island was occupied by small farms and large forests. In the forests, the tanners obtained the bark needed in their tan-yards, and the children found chestnuts to eat and fine places in which to play " hide and seek." The village itself was situated between the present " Battery" and Wall Street, and the vil- lagers had their gardens near by. Further north, Stuyvesant purchased at a very small price a large farm, or — to use the Dutch word — bottwerie. Few in those days seemed to appreciate the great natural advantages of Manhattan Island for a large city and for immense commerce. In- deed, it has always been difficult to foresee where great cities will be likely to grow up. There was a time when Newport, Rhode Island, had outstripped both Boston and Philadelphia. Why has Chicago outgrown St Louis? and why has Seattle so quickly become larger than Tacoma or even Portland, Oreofon ? PETER STUYVESANT 63 While Stuyvesant was governor, the mer- chants of old Amsterdam addressed to the mer- chants of New Amsterdam these words : — "When your commerce becomes established, and your ships ride on every part of the ocean, throngs that look toward you with eager eyes stuyvesant's "bouwerie" house will be allured to embark for your island." How true this prophecy became ! Yet its fulfillment was long delayed. To-day it is estimated that there are in New York City more Germans — parents and children — than in any city of Ger- many except Berlin, and that there are more Irish — parents and children — than in Dublin itself. Besides these there are thousands of people who 64 AMERICAN PIONEERS were born in one foreign country or another, all over the world. But then the colony was poor. It had not in- creased in population as had been hoped, and the discontented people were clamoring for a gov- ernment by the people. Already the English had secured everything along the Connecticut River, and Stuyvesant saw no door of relief in any direction. Moreover, the English king had given all this domain to the Duke of York, who secretly fitted out a fleet to sail to the shores of America. This was in 1664. The Duke of York's fleet blockaded New Amsterdam and demanded its surrender. Stuy- vesant wanted to fight ; but the people knew that the town was at the mercy of the English and, to avoid bloodshed, proposed to surrender. The terms offered by the English were security to the people in life, liberty, and property, only on condition that they acknowledge the British rule. Stuyvesant, dressed in his best velvet coat and frilled shirt-front, with his best rosette on his shoe, stormed and strutted around outside of his little fortifications and swore he would never surrender. He flour- ished his arms and urged his people to resist the invaders, to shoot them down like dogs if they dared to come ashore, and to give their PETER STUVVESANT 65 carcasses to the beasts of the fields and the fowls of the air. New Amsterdam was in a desperate situation. From the painting by Poweli STUVVESANT DESTROYS THE DEMAND FOR SURRENDER Something must be done and that without de- lay. The principal inhabitants assembled in the public hall and demanded from Stuyvesant the letter which had been sent to him by the com- 66 AMERICAN PIONEERS mander of the English llect. The angry gov- ernor thereupon tore up the letter and scattered the pieces to the four winds. Then the people framed a protest against the governor. A few days of parley followed ; and early in Septem- ber, 1664, the Dutch government of New Neth- erland ceased by a full and complete surrender to the English fleet and arms. New Amster- dam was then named New York. From this time the several towns in the colony were permitted to choose their own magistrates, and New York was allowed to elect its own deputies, with free voice in all public affairs. Subsequently the Dutch recaptured the place ; but they had held it only a short time when the Enorlish attain secured control. Thence- forth the colony of New York was one of the most powerful and prominent of the English colonies upon the Atlantic coast of North America. The year following his surrender to the Eng- lish, Stuyvesant went over to Holland. ' Soon, however, he returned to New York and passed the remainder of his days on his farm of sixty acres or more, wdiich then lay outside the city. Beyond this great boinvcric, woods and swamps stretched to the northward as far as the little village of Harlem. PETER STUYVESANT 67 Stuyvesant died in Aufyust, 1682 * at the aee of eighty years, and was buried in St. Mark's Church, New York City. In the outside wall of the church still stands the stone that bears his epitaph. ,j IntTiiiVault lies luricd /^l PETRUf STUYVESANT. ^ ^ idte Captain- Geiierai aiid GoverupninCliiefof Anisterdam iiiNevvr-Nelherland now c^tflectNew -"WrTt^x. _ aud the DutdxVVe^-Iadia Islands ,died in AX).1672 £j- aged go years. ^^\^ aS * Historical researcli fixes the date of Stuyvesant's death as 1682. The date in the epitaph is therefore incorrect. CHAPTER VI WILLIAM PENN 1644-1718 /^N the fourth of March, 1681, King- Charles II of Eneland sio-ned and sealed a charter giving- to William Penn the "tract of territory between the bay and river of Delaware and Lord Baltimore's prov- ince of Maryland." Wil- liam Penn was a Quaker, or, as he would have said, "a member of the Society of Friends." The "Friends" were a peaceable people, who did not believe in wars and fiirhtinor, but in the y.fn^lUH'Alll doctrine of love and C^ //l/jC U//7L^ good- will, simple habits, and a sober life. Be- cause they refused to serve as soldiers, and because they did not believe in many of the WILLIAM PENN 69 laws and customs of the English people, they frequently suffered much persecution. It was to give them a refuge that William Penn ob- tained his charter for a grant of land in America. His next step was to advertise for purchasers of his land. A company was formed of mer- chants and others, mostly Friends, who bought from him twenty thousand acres. The price paid for the land was twenty English pounds for a thousand acres, or ten cents of our money for one acre. To-day much of this same land could not be bought for ten cents a square foot. The first colony came over in 1681 and beg-an to build on the site of the present city of Phila- delphia. In the summer of the next year William Penn himself came over. With about a hundred persons he went aboard a small vessel called the Welcofiic, Robert Greenway, master, at Deal, County of Kent, and sailed away to America. The}' were nearly two months on the voyage. To add to their other sufferings, that awful plague of the old time, small-pox, broke out, and day after day one after another died ; till on their reaching Upland upon the banks of the Delaware, only seventy were left to land in the New World. Penn was constant in his attention to the sick and did everything in his power to aid and encourage them. One of the passengers 70 AMKRICAN PIONEERS afterwards gave this testimony of his unselfish care cUiring that fearful voyage: "The kind words of William Penn were very welcome to all MAP OF THE MIDDLE ATLANTIC COLONIES. THE MIDDLE COLONIES the company. His singular care was shown in aiding in various ways many who were sick of the small-pox, of which more than thirty died." WILLIAM PENN 7I The principles upon which Penn founded his colony were very different from those of the other lin^lish colonies. Here was freedom for all men, whether Catholics, Puritans, Episco- palians, or Quakers. But in no respect did this colony differ from the other colonies more than in its treatment of the Indians. Penn's ideas of the riohts of the white men and the red men is well shown by a quaint writer of a hundred years ago. He gives a supposed conversation between Penn and King Charles, just before Penn sailed for the New World. Ihe story runs as follows : " ' Well ', says the King, ' I have sold you a valuable province in North America, but I do not suppose that you intend to go there yourself.' " 'Yes, indeed I do ', replied Penn, 'and I am just come to bid thee farewell.' " ' What ! venture yourself among the savages of North America ? Why, man, they will be after you with their bows and arrows and blaz- ing torches, in two hours after setting foot upon their shores.' " ' I think not,' said Penn. " ' What security have you against those canni- bals ? You will need soldiers, with their mus- kets and bayonets ; and, mind, I tell you before- hand, that with all my respect and good-will for you and your family, to whom I am under obli- 72 AMERICAN PIONEERS gations, I will not send a single soldier with you.' '" I want none of thy soldiers, Friend Charles, I depend upon something better than thy soldiers.' "The king wanted to know what that could be. " ' Why, I de- pend on them- selves, on their own moral sense ; even that grace of God which bring- eth salvation, and which hath ap- peared unto all men.' " ' I fear. Friend William, that that grace has never appeared to the Indians of North America.' " ' Why not to them as well as to all others ?' " ' If it had appeared to them, they would not have treated my subjects so barbarously as they have done.' "'That is no proof to the contrary. Friend Charles. Thy subjects were the aggressors. When thy subjects first went to North America, they found these poor people the fondest and KING CHARLES II WILLIAM PENN 73 kindest people in the world. They would feast them on their best fish and venison and corn, which was all that they had. In return for all their kindnesses, thy subjects, called Christians, seized on their country and rich hunting grounds for farms for themselves. Now is it to be won- dered at that these much injured people should have been driven to desperation by such injus- tice ; and that burning with revenge they should have committed some excesses?' " ' Well, then, I hope you will not complain when they come to treat you in the same man- ner.' " ' I am not afraid of it' " ' But, how will you avoid it ? You mean to get their hunting grounds, too, I suppose.' "'Yes, but not by driving these poor people away from them.' " ' Indeed, then, how will you get their lands ?' " ' I mean to buy their lands of them.' " ' Buy their lands of them ! Why, man, you have already bought them of me.' " 'Yes, I know I have, and at a dear rate, too ; but I did it only to get thy good-will, not that I thought thou hadst any right to their lands.' " ' Zounds, man ! no right to their lands ! ' " ' No, Friend Charles, no right at all. What right hast thou to their lands ?' 74 AMERICAN PIONEERS " ' Why, the right of discovery, the right which the Pope and all Christian kings have agreed to give one another.' '" The right of discovery ! a strange kind of right indeed. Now suppose, Friend Charles, some canoe- loads of these same savages crossing the seas and dis- coveringthy island of Great Brit- ain were to claim it as their own, and set it up for sale over thy head, what wouldst thou think of it?' "'Why, why, why, I confess I should think it a piece of great impudence in them.' " ' Well, then, how canst thou, a Christian, and a Christian prince, too, do that which thou so utterly condemnest in these people whom thou callest savages ? ' "The king was obliged to give at least a tacit aofreement to this aroument. TU1-; SECOND HOME OF WILLIAM PENN IN I'HILA- DELl'HIA, ROOFED w'lTH SLATE AND ELEGANTLY FURNISHED WILLIAM PENN 75 " 'Well, then, Friend Charles, how can I, who call myself a Christian, a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus, a man of peace, how can I do what I abhor, even in heathens? No, I will not do it. But I will buy the right of the proper owners, even of the Indians themselves !'" Thus William Penn, true to his convictions of justice and right, soon after his arrival in the New World, called a meeting of the Indians who lived in that section of the country. With them he made a famous treaty. Yes, indeed, it was a famous treaty. That treaty between William Penn and his followers on the one hand, and the Indian king on the other, is well worth our careful study. The day on which it was made was a beautiful autumn day near the close of November. The tall trees on either bank of the Delaware had shed their leaves, but the sun was bright and the air was mild. All nature was still and quiet as if wrapped in thought and preparing for the great transaction about to take place. Under a wide-spreading tree, at a place which was called by the Indians Shackamaxon, a coun- cil-fire had been built. Near it was seated a company of chiefs with their counselors and ao-ed men on either hand. In the midst of the group was the great Sachem, Taminend, " one 76 AMERICAN PIONEERS of nature's noblemen, revered for his wisdom and beloved for his goodness." Behind them in the form of a half-circle sat the young men and a few aged matrons. Beyond them in still- widening circles were the younger people of PKNN TKKATINC. WllH lllK INDIANS both sexes. Lacy Cock, the hospitable Swede whose dwelling was near by, and a few other white men, also were of the company. Quietly all awaited Penn's coming. A barge now appeared on the mild waters of the Delaware and approached the place of meet- WILLIAM PENN 'J'J ing-. At the mast-head was the broad pennant of the governor. The oars were manned by sturdy rowers, and near the stern sat William Penn, attended by his council. They landed and advanced toward the council-fire, Penn's at- tendants walking before him, bearing presents, which they spread upon the ground. Taminend put on his chaplet, surmounted by a small horn, the emblem of kingly power. By means of an interpreter, he intimated that the nations assembled were ready to hear what the white father had to say to them. Then Penn arose and addressed them through the inter- preter. Clarkson, the great English philan- thropist, says that he spoke as follows : " The Great Spirit, who made you and me, who rules the heavens and the earth, and who knows the inmost thoughts of men, knows that I and my friends have a hearty desire to live in peace and friendship with you, and to serve you to the utmost of our power. It is not our cus- tom to use hostile weapons against our fellow- creatures, for which reason we have come un- armed. Our object is not to do injury, and thus provoke the Great Spirit, but to do good. We have met on the broad pathway of good faith and o-ood-will so that no advantao;e is to be taken on either side, but all to be openness, 78 AMERICAN PIONEERS brotherhood, and love." Here the Governor unrolled a parchment, containing agreements for trade and promises of friendship. Then he proceeded : " I will not do as the Marylanders did, that is, call you children or brothers only ; for parents are apt to whip their children too severely, and brothers sometimes differ. Neither will I com- pare the friendship between us to a chain ; for the rain may rust it, or a tree may fall and break it. But I will consider you as the same flesh and blood with the Christians, and the same as if one man's body were to be divided into two parts," The Indians took time to think on what Penn had said to them, and then the king ordered one of his chiefs to reply. The Indian orator came forward and in the name of the king saluted Penn. Then he took him by the hand and made a speech, pledging kindness and good neighborhood and that they would " live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the sun and the moon shall endure." The Indians then agreed to give to Penn all the land bounding on the great river from the mouth of Duck Creek to what is now Bristol, and from the river towards the setting sun as far as a man could ride in two days on a horse. WILLIAM PENN 79 Penn not only paid the Indians for the land, but he did everything possible to add to their happi- * »^a^itatUecA t^i^i/nA, ^ourh^l^ \ •^ INDIAN KICCEUT FOR lEN THOUSAND DOLLARS IN PAYMENT OF LAND SOLD BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE SIX NATIONS TO THE DE- SCENDANTS OF WILLIAM PENN, 1 769 ness and improvement. As a result they were kind and friendly in return. This peaceful intercourse between the people 8o AMl'KHAN 1'I0N'KI':RS ol I'ciinsyK ania aiul thr I luliaiis loiit imiiHl with- out iiit(Mrii|)l ion as lout; as tho priiu'ipK's ol I'cMiii prcNailotl ill tho i-oloii\'. 1 his ttcat)' ko|)t so ItMiL; a time well ilhistratos thi- truth that the th)ttriiu' of pi-act* promott's iho happiness ol man. X'ollairc, llic j^rcat l^HMirli pliiK)sophcr, said of this troat\- : "W'illi.un IV-nn l>oi;an by niakiiiL; a 1(ml;ii<^ with tht^ Anicricans. his ncij^libors. It is the onl\' one Ix'twcrn thoso natixos aiul tlu- Christians whiih was novor sworn to, and tin- only oui- that was novor brokiMi." riu' tr('(" umlor which, as tradition sa)s, the tri-at) was niado stood until Maith, iSio, when it was blown owv b\' tho wind. It was twenly- four feet in liriunilricncc and t\\i> hundred anil eiohtN-throe \iMrs oKl. The state of TennsNl- vania has pureh.ised the land where this treaty was inad(- ; and where the tii'e iMue stin^d, the l\-nn .*^oiiiM)' has iMeeted a inonunient ti^ eoni- nieniorali' the l\nuuliuv:; ol rennsylvania "by iKmhIs ol peace.' riu> life of William Venn is wcW worth our stiuh' and imitation. ilow happy ouv vacc will be when it folK>ws the prineipK-s which i^overned his life! TluMi the doctrines i>f peace' and «;"oc>d- will shall i"\iM\where pri"\ail, and the Ciolden RuK' conlii>l tlu" affairs oi all nations. rioNi'.i'.ks ov ci\ii.i/.\ i"U)N The Sccotul Mii;ration Over the Alleghaiiics C'llAP'ri'.K \'II K.\riii:u MAKoiM I'l'i-: i(.j7 1(75 /'^IIAMPI.AIN'S (oloiu h.ul h.ndU luvM («s- t.iMisluHl ;U (Jui'hiH" hrloii' .i i()iii|).my of l"H'iu'h pru'sts aii"ivc(.l. They laiiic lo j)rc.uh nol to ihcir lOiiiU r\ men, l)ut lo llu- liuli.ms. 1 he hrst fompaiiN was lollowcd Ity others, and all siatteitHl in litllc L;r<>ii|)s ol twos ami thucs through the lorcsts. riu\ went where no other while men hail excr heen ; anil when, l)\ and hy, Ini-traders and ad\ cnt nreis feaihed the .shores ol ihe LMeat iidand waters, theN' womlered to Inul in some dislanl Indian xilla^e or on some lonely lu'adland a laoss or a tiny i-hapel. idiese priests, or jesnits, as they were called hecanse they l)eloni_;t"il to a soc lety km)wn as the (j 82 AMERICAN PIONEERS Society of Jesus, endured great hardships. They could not carry much baggage in their small canoes, so they took with them the articles used in the service of their church and left behind the things they needed for their own comfort. They lived in much the same way as did the Indians. They slept on the same kind of hard INDIAN liELT OF BEADS beds ; they ate the same kinds of disagreeable foods. Many died from exposure ; many were killed by the savages. The heroism and patience of these Catholic priests ought to have received an abundant re- ward, but their teachings fell upon very stony hearts. The Indians were baptized and gladly hunor crucifixes and imai^es of saints about their necks ; but it was more because they were at- tracted by the glitter of these objects and were eaofer to receive beads and tobacco than because they desired to change their manner of living. The most successful missions were among the Hurons who lived on the eastern shore of Lake FATHER MARQUETTE 83 Huron. This nation had a deadly foe, the Iro- quois, the most savage tribe of all the Indians. In the early springtime, they came with all their warriors into the country of the Hurons, burning, destroying, killing, wherever they went. The Hurons who were left tied and sought new homes far away. One band finally settled on the peninsula between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan on the west, and Lake Huron on the east ; and hither came Father Marquette. Here, in the northern part of this peninsula, at the gate-way between these great bodies of water, was an ideal place for a mission station. It was the gathering place of all the tribes for many miles around, for it was the " home of the fishes." The Indians considered it a sacred place and told many legends about it. They said that a large company of warriors was once gathered at sunrise on the point where St. Ignace now stands. It was the moon of February, the month sacred to the Great Manitou. . While they were looking out over the water, something be- sides the sun rose out of the lake. At first it looked like the back of a great turtle, but when in the memory of man was there a turtle so large ? It rose higher and higher and finally it showed itself to be a beautiful island. The In- dians ever after called this a holy place and 84 AMERICAN PIONEERS never passed it without making some offering to the fairies who were supposed to Hve in the caverns under the island. These fairies were in the habit, so the legend says, of coming out and dancing on the beach after dark. One night an Indian chief was greatly honored. While he was asleep, a hand touched him and beckoned him to follow. His spirit immediately left his body and went with the fairy. She led him through the entrance beneath the hill into a large and beautiful wig- wam, where the great spirits were seated in solemn Indian fashion. The chief was permitted to see many wonderful sights, and after some time the Master Spirit called the guide, and he was led back to his body. When he awoke the next morning, he told of his visit ; but what he had seen and what he had heard no one could get him to describe. Nobody else ever had a similar experience, and the Indians never learned more about the home of the fairies. The Indians called the island Moe-che-ne- mack-e-nung, which means a great turtle. The French called it Mich-il-i-mac-kin-ac, which we have shortened to Mackinac. This name is given not only to the island, but also to the strait which connects lakes Michigan and Huron and to the town on its southern shore. Father Mar- FATHER MARQUETTE 85 quette lived on the island until his chapel was built on the mainland. Its sides were of rough logs and its roof was of bark. Beside it were two or three houses, and around the whole was From a print of 1870 FORT AND TOWN OF MACKINAC a strong fence of upright logs. Outside clear- incrs were made where corn was raised. At the station Father Marquette said the mass, baptized the children, buried the dead, and attended to all the wants of his savage flock. Here, too, every year came wandering tribes to fish and to hunt ; and from them he heard of a great river which flowed from the north on and on, ever growing larger and larger until it 86 AMERICAN PIONEERS reached the far distant south. Did it flow into the Vermilion Sea, as the Gulf of California was called ? Did it empty its waters into the Gulf of Mexico ? Did it twist to the east and reach the Atlantic Ocean near Virginia? If only he could go and see and carry the story of the Vir- gin and of Jesus to the many, many tribes that must live upon its banks! For two years Father Marquette labored at Michilimackinac, until one day Louis Joliet ar- rived at the station. The fame of the great river had reached even to Quebec, and he had been sent out to persuade Father Marquette to find it. With great joy the priest made hurried preparations, and in a few days the simple outfit was ready. They had two canoes, a small stock of dried meat and Indian corn, and five men. This little company set out about the middle of INIay, 1672 ; and when night came, they had arrived at the country of the Wild Rice Indians. This name had been given the Indians because such quantities of wild rice grew on the banks of their streams. They were very fond of the rice, and Marquette has given an interesting ac- count of the way they gathered and prepared it for food. In September, he says, the Indians go in their canoes through the fields of rice and shake the grain into the canoes as they advance. FATHER MARQUETTE B7 When it is ripe, the grain falls easily ; and in a little time the canoes are full. Then it is dried over a slow fire for several days, so that the outer covering will fall off easily. After that, it is placed in a hole in the ground and trodden INDIANS c-.A 1 IIKKIM; \U 1 I > Kli.1': upon until the chaff is cleaned from the grain. Finally, it is powdered into meal and boiled with water and grease. The Wild Rice Indians received the adven- turers kindly ; but when they told where they were going, their hosts tried to hold them back. " Hostile Indians live on the banks of the great river," they said. "It is treacherous and is in- 88 AMERICAN PIONEERS INDIAN TEArr-nrK habilcul by ilcnions that destroy all slranoxTs." Marciucttc^ told them that c>\ tMi these terrors could not keep him from continuiiio- on his journe)-. \\c hless(>d tlu>m and departed. In just a month from the ilay he antl Jolitn left the mis- sion, they reached the Mississippi, l^^or two weeks they jiaddled on and saw no sij^n of Intlians. At last, seeino footprints in the nuul. Manpiette ami Joliet tleeidetl to folKnv them. Soon they came upon a village, anil immetliattdy there was an uproar. The In- dians swarmed out of their wiowams aiul fiuu' chiefs met them. hoUlino- hii^h the peace-pij>e. " \\du> are \'ou ? " askcnl Mar- qut,>tt(.\ "We are Illinois." tlu^y replietl. The i>eace- pipi>s were smoked ; and tlu> stranoers were led to tlu> principal wiL^wam, when^ tlu^ chief met them with a speech oi welcome. Lonofellow. in his beau- FATHER MARQUETTE 89 tifiil pofin of 1 liawatlia, has translatcnl it as follows : Tlicn the joyous Hiawatha Cried aloud and s|Kike in this wise : " Beauiilul is tiie sun, O strangers, When you come so far to see us ! All our town in jieace awaits you, All our doors stanil open for you ; Vou stiall enter all our wigwams, For thelieart's right hand we give you. " Never bloomed the earth so gaily, Never shone the sun so brightly, As to-tiav they shine and blossom When you come so far to see us ! Never was our laUe so tranquil, Nor so free from rocks and santl-bars ; For your birch canoe "'n passing Has removed both rock ami san(l-l)ar ! " Never before had our tobacco Such a sweet and pleasant llavoi , Never ttie broad fields of our cornfields Were so beautiful to look on. As they seem to us this morning, Wiien you come so far to see us ! " And the Black-Robe chief made answer, Stammered in his speech a little, Speaking wortls yet unfamiliar : " Peace be with you, Hiawatlia, Peace be with you and your people. Peace of jirayer, and peace of pnrdon. Peace of Christ, and joy of Mary ! " The Indians sot before their oiicsts a feast. " It consisted," says Marquette, "of four courses which we had to take with all thcMr ways. The 90 AMERICAN riDNEERS first course was a great wooden dish full of sagamity, that is to say, of Indian meal boiled in water and seasoned with grease. The master of ceremonies, with a spoonful of sagamity, pre- sented it three or four times to my mouth, as we would do with a little child ; he did the same INDIAN METHOD Ol' I'.KdlllM; FISH with ]\I. foliet. For the second course he brought in another dish containing three fish, removed the bones, and having blown upon it to cool it, put it to my mouth as we would food to a bird. For a third course they produced a large dog which they had just killed, but learn- ing that we did not eat it, it was withdrawn. Finally, the fourth course was a piece of wild buffalo, the fattest portions of which were put into our mouths." FATHER MARQUETTE 9I The travelers were not always so kindly treated. Further down the river the Indians were unfriendly. At first Marquette feared that they would be killed ; but finally the peace-pipe was smoked, and they were given food and shel- ter. The devouring- demons, prophesied by the Wild Rice Indians, did not appear ; but they did see, high up on the face of a cliff, two terrible creatures, " as large as a calf, with horns like a deer, red eyes, a beard like a ticrer, and a frightful expression of countenance. The face is some- what like a man's, the body covered with scales ; and the tail so long that it passes entirely round the body, over the head, and between the legs ending like that of a fish." These demons or gods were painted in red, black, and green and were greatly feared by the Indians. A little beyond the cliffs Marquette and his companion reached the Missouri River, which brought such a quantity of trees and drift in its torrent that the canoes were nearly capsized. The travelers met with no more serious adven- tures than these ; and when they had reached the mouth of the Arkansas River, they decided to return. They had found the Mississippi and had followed its course far enough to discover that it fiowed neither into the Pacific nor into the Atlantic, but into the Gulf of Mexico. 92 AMERICAN PIONEERS The journey back was difficult ; but at the end of four months from the time {.he two men left the mission station, they reached Lake Michigan again. They had traveled in all twenty-five hundred miles. Joliet went back to Quebec to carry the story of the discover)^ ; Mar(|uette remaineil behind in the wilderness. He hail become much interested in the Illinois Indians. The word Illinois means "the men", and in all respects they seemed to be a finer race than any other he had seen among the Indians. Idle next autumn, though he was ill and knew that he had onl)- a short time to live, he went to start a mis- sion among the Illinois. When lu; reached the soutluMMi tMul of Lake Michigan he could go no farther, 11 is Indian companions built a little hut, and here he spent the winter — the first white man on the site of Chicago. In the spring, being better, he went on and started a mission at Kaskaskia. His strenofth was nc^w eone, and he was anxious to return to Michilimackinac. A great compain- of Indians followed him as far as the lake. Here hv left thtMU and started for home. He died on the. way and was buried on the shore of the lake. The next year the Indians tenderly carried his bones to his old mission. As they proceeded FATFIER 1\[ARQUETTE 93 on the lake, they were joined by more and more canoes, until, by the time they reached Michili- mackinac there were thirty boats in the procession. At the shore they were met by all the priests and traders of the mission. The roui^h box was carried to the chapel and buried beneath its lloor.'"'' An old record says that Fath(;r Marquette "was the first and last white man who ever had such an assembly of the wild sons of the forest to attend him to the grave." MAKi H IC I II'. s liK.W * The little cha|)el of St. Ignace, on tiie mainland opposite Mackinac, was ilestio\e(l by fire in 1706, and it was not until 1877 that Marquette's grave was discovered. In 1882 the present monument was erected by the citizens of St. Ignace. CHAPTER VIII PIERRE D'IBERVILLE 1661-1706 piERRE LE MOYNE D'IBERVILLE (o-ber-vel') was one of eleven sons of a Canadian gentleman. All of them gave their talents, and many lost their lives, in pushing- forward the cause of France in the New World. Iberville was the most beloved of all the brothers. When he was only fourteen years old he became a midshipman in the navy ; and from that time until his death, he was here, there, everywhere, north, east, south, and west, in the service of France. At one time we hear of him as one of the leaders in an expedition against an English set- tlement in New York. Three times he went to Hudson's Bay and seized the English forts there. As the commander of a French frigate, he cap- tured three English ships and then attacked the fortifications at Newfoundland. The commander sent him word that he would not give up the fort, even though " the sea was white with PIERRE D IBERVILLE 95 French sails and the land dark with Indians." But his supplies gave out before his courage, and he was forced at last to surrender to keep his garrison from starvation. These and other successes made Iberville the most famous officer in the French service. He was called " the idol of his countrymen," and his sailors would have fol- lowed him to the ends of the earth. When peace had been declared be- tween France and Encf- land, Iberville asked per- mission to take a colony to the valley of the Mis- sissippi River. He hoped to secure all the vast Ror.iiKT cweuer ue la sm.le stretches of country from the mouth of "the Father of Waters " to the mouth of the St. Lawrence. A few years after Father Marquette had dis- covered the Mississippi, another Frenchman, Cavelier de La Salle, had made a more thorough exploration of the river. He had descended to its mouth, and in the name of France had taken possession of the whole country, calling it Lou- isiana, in honor of King Louis. 96 AMERICAN PIONEERS The Gulf of Mexico was a long way from Quebec, aiul Frenchmen could hardly expect to keep all these thousands of miles for themselves without many forts and soldiers and settlements. Quebec guarded the gateway of this region on the nc^rth. It would be hard work for the 1mi!>- i-ioiit l/it- /•.iiHttHi; ls,iillts i'.alloy lllK FKKNril Kl.KKl' UN llIK I.OI'ISIANA COAST lish to get past \\vx forts. If only a colony could guard the gatewa)' at the south, then the ene- mies of b^ ranee could not enter except over the mountains to the east. The shii)s carrying Iberville's colony reached safely the Ciulf of Mexico. On the way, they had had a fight with the English, but Iberville with his usual success had beaten them ofT. He riKRRK D inERVII.LE 97 carefully searched the coast for the best place for a settlement. First he visited a group of islands which he called Chandeleur Islands, be- cause they were discovered on Candlemas Day. They were Hat and sandy, so shelters were put up on another island which was named Ship Island because it had a good anchoraoe for ships. The next island was small and marshy, and was overrun by a strange animal which was neither a cat nor a fox. The place so swarmed with them that one of the men cried, " This must be the kingtlom of cats ! " Therefore it is called Cat Island to this day. Leaving the rest of the colonists, Iberville set out with two boats to (hkI the Mississippi. He reached the mouth of a great river whose waters were covered by masses of trees and driftwood. " Surely," said Iberville, "this must be the leather of Waters" ; but that he might not make a mis- take, he went a ten days' journey up the river. At this point he found a proof that jnit all his doubts to rest. It was nothing less than a letter ; a bit of "speaking bark," the Indians called it. It had been left there by Tonti, a friend of La Salle. The Indians called him the Iron Hand, because he wore an iron hand in place of the one he had lost in battle. To their orreat won- der he had learned to use it with skill. 7 98 AMERICAN PIONEERS A rumor had reached Tonti in his northern home that La Salle had returned to Louisiana with a colony by way of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi. Tonti immediately set out with a few Indians in birch canoes on a journey of a thousand miles and more to meet his friend. He waited day after day ; but as La Salle did not appear and he could wait no longer, he left this let- ter with the Indians, tell- ing- them to give it to the first white man who should come up the river. Iberville boutrht it for an axe and then returned down the river to the KING LOUIS XIV waiting ships. Finally he decided to leave his colony at a place which he called Biloxi, It was not a very good location, as he afterwards found ; but here he built a fort, left two of his brothers in com- mand, and went back to France for more colo- nists and more supplies. While he was gone, his younger brother, Bienville, made various explor- ing expeditions. One day when he was out in a small boat on the Mississippi, he met a ship coming up the river. It was commanded by Captain Barr of the English navy. He had PIERRE DIBERVILLE 99 been sent out to make explorations and a settle- ment. " You can't settle here," said Bienville. "All this region is now a part of Canada and belongs to the French king. We have a colony here as you must know, else I would not be on the river in so small a boat." The Englishman courteously turned his vessel about and sailed back into the Gulf, and this is why a bend in the river is now known as the English Turn. One day a visitor surprised the colonists at Biloxi. It was Father Devion, an heroic Jesuit priest who had long been a missionary to the Indians of that region. His knowledge of the natives and of the country proved to be a great help to the settlers. Father Devion had first worked among a tribe of Indians called the Tunlias. He had labored with them long and faithfully, but still they seemed to be as fond of their idols as at first. Father Devion therefore burned their temple and broke in pieces their carved idol. The In- dians were very angry ; but they had learned to love the good priest, though they had not learned to love his relio-ion. Instead of killino- him, as would have been expected, they turned him out of their country. He then went to another tribe and there had better success. t.^i lOO AMERICAN PIONEERS In the forest, behind a great oak, he built a tiny chapel. Inside the chapel was the altar, but Father Devion's pulpit was fastened to the trunk of a tree. Herein the open air he preached to his Indian con o retration. The people be- lieved that he must be more than man ; for, said they, " No man could eat so little and live, and no man could know so much that was happening so far away." The sick scarcely needed to send for him ; he w^as with them before they called. He was a companion of all the children and a help to any one in distress. Even after his death he was long remembered, and Indian mothers used to carry their children to the old chapel in the woods in the hope that F"ather Devion, though dead, still could bless them. La Salle's Route ^^ TERRITORY SETT1.K11 KY THE FRENCH PIERRE D IBERVILLE lOI The next winter Iberville returned and imme- diately set about improving the condition of the colonists and pushino- forward new explorations. One company was sent to seek for copper mines. Another was ordered to build a fortification on the IVIississippi. While work on this fort was going forward, a canoe came down the river. In it was one white man with a number of Indian warriors. It was " Tonti of the Iron Hand." Again he had heard that a colony of French- men were on the lower Mississippi, and again he had made the long journey to welcome and aid them. When Tonti returned, Iberville went with him up the river, and smoked the peace-pipe with the Indian tribes. At one place they were met by "The Great Sun " of the Natchez tribe and a large company of " little suns." This In- dian nation kept a lire burning continually in their temple, and before this fire the first animals killed on a hunting trip were always offered. They believed that the souls of warriors who had been successful in battle went to live in the land of buffaloes, where in great happiness they hunted forever. All those who had never taken any scalps went to the country of the lakes, where there were only alligators and fish. After saying good-bye to Tonti, Iberville went I02 AMERICAN nOXEERS back to Hiloxi and soon after returned to France. When he next came to Louisiana, he found the colony in great distress. The yellow fever had attacked them. Many had died, and amoncr them one of his brothers, the governor of the colony. Iberville decided that the situation of Biloxi was unhealthful. He removed the colony to Mobile and so began the settlement of Ala- bama. Iberville himself was sick with fever. Me left the fort in the care of Bien- _ ville, who was but r.iKNVM.iK, (;,.vKK.NoK OK i.oiMsiANA tweuty-two years of age, and sailed away never to return. Bien- ville afterwards moved the colony to the Mis- sissippi and founded the city of New Orleans. The discouragements were man)-, and the diffi- culties were great, but Bienville remained by the colony until he .was ordered back to France. He had then been in Louisiana nearly forty-four years. .i^JH^^Hlft'*- ^^K "^f^^H ^E«»: % ^% * %,'^,;|\^ f W^ ■■ CHAPTER IX DANIEL BOOxNE 1735-1820 TTNTIL a few years ago, there stood on the bank of Boone's Creek in eastern Ten- nessee, a tree on whose smooth bark was rudely carved," D. Boon cilled A BAR on this tree year i 760." Daniel Boone was a famous hunter. Ib^ frequently carved his name on trees and re- corded the killing of bears and other wild animals. He was a brave man and a real hero, one of the most noted pioneers of the Old Northwest. His father and grandfather were Quakers. His grandfather, George, came to Pennsylvania from England in the year 171 7. George's son Squire was the father of Daniel, who was born I04 AMERICAN PIONEERS in the valley of the Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, in November, i 735. When he was sixteen years of age he made his first pioneer move with his father's family, more than five hundred miles from Pennsylvania into North Carolina. The women and the chil- FORDINC; THE POTOMAC ON THE WAY TO THE NORTHWEST dren rode in their rude covered wagons, and the men and the boys on horseback, some in the front making ready the path, and some in the rear guarding the cattle. The herds of cattle followed the wagons, and those on horseback were kept constantly alert to prevent their stray- ing off into the forest on the right hand or the left. They forded the Potomac at Harper's Ferry, and then wound their way through an almost DANIEL BOONE 105 unbroken wilderness the entire length of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, and onward, stead- ily advancing, until they reached the valley of the Yadkin (N.C. ). Here they made their home. They built cabins, cut down trees, and cleared the land for their corn, potatoes, and wheat. In this new country the people lived a primi- A settler's hut in the SHENANDOAH VALLEY tive life. Their houses were log huts, generally of one room, and a loft reached by a ladder. The floor of the room was the bare ground. At its rear end a capacious fire-place opened from the big outside chimney. The family had only the rud- est implements for cooking, eating, and sleeping. For a long time their best bed was a pile of leaves on the floor, with bear skins for blankets. I06 AMERICAN PIONEERS The dress of Daniel Boone, like that of most of the pioneers, consisted of a long hunting-shirt of coarse cloth or of dressed deerskin, with trousers and leggings of the same material. His feet were covered with moccasins of deerskin. From his belt hung powder-horn, shot-pouch, tomahawk, and scal[)ing-knife. Generally the men wore on their heads a coon-skin cap with bushy tail, but Daniel Boone always preferred a hat. In the fall of 1767, with a few companions, Boone left the Yadkin country and, crossing the mountains, sought the fertile valleys of Ken- tucky.* The party hunted for furs and secured a large quantity of deer, beaver, and otter skins and other peltries, worth in those days one hun- dred dollars, and stored them in their camp. In December the Indians made a raid on the camp and plundered everything. Still these hardy pioneers persevered, and in the winter of 1770 Boone remained there alone for three months. He spent his time in camp and on hunting expeditions, with no compan- ions, and without bread, salt, or sugar. At length, in September, 1773, more than a half- century after his grandfather had come to this country, and almost half as long since he had DANIEL BOONE 107 made his home on the Yadkin, Daniel Hoone, his family, and a company of friends pushed across the mountains throuoh CumlnM-lantl Gap I'lO.NKf.KS ACCwM lai l.V 1M)1AN> and made the first permanent settlement in Ken- tucky, at Harrodsburg. From this time onward, the number of set- tlers in Kentucky rai)idly increased, although I08 AMERICAN PIONEERS the frequent invasions and attacks of the Indians from beyond the Ohio came near blotting out all the settlements. Without previous notice or suspicion, a band of Indians would surround a cornfield where the men were at work ; or a rifle shot or a war-whoop would awake the settlers in the small hours of the night. They were kept on the watch at all times, and their rifles were always within reach. It seems strange that men would expose themselves and their families to such constant dangers, but trees were continually beine cut down and new clearino^s made in the old hunting grounds of the Indians. Almost everything that the pioneers had to eat or to wear must be raised in the clearings or found in the forests. Salt was one of the neces- sities that could not be bought. It was obtained at the salt springs which were scattered here and there in various parts of the country. Long before the white men or even the red men knew of these springs, they were known by the wild animals. At certain seasons of the year they would come in droves to them and lick up the salt. Therefore the settlers called the springs Salt Licks. One January, Boone and thirty men went to the Lower Blue Licks to make salt for the set- tlers. They continued for a time in peace, one DANIEL BOONE 109 half working and the other half watching- for Indians or gathering food. They had sent on pack-horses to Boonesborough a considerable quantity of salt, when their work was suddenly cut short. It happened that one day Boone left the salt camp to hunt buffalo and beaver. When, to- wards evening, in the midst of a blinding snow- storm, he was returning with his horse well laden, he was confronted by four Shawnee In- dians, who sprang suddenly from an ambush and took him prisoner. They hurried him to their camp a few miles away, where he found more than a hundred well-armed Indians under com- mand of their chief. Black Fish. The Indians were about to make an attack on Boonesborough and proposed that Boone should show them the way. As a stratagem, he induced the men at the salt camp to surrender them- selves prisoners. This was to bring about a delay in the proposed raid upon the settlement. At Boonesborough there were about sixty men besides women and children. The fort was only partly built ; and if an attack were made at once, the Indians would win an easy victory. Boone told the Indians that in the spring, when the weather was warmer, they would all go together to Boonesborough. The place could I 10 AMERICAN PIONEERS then be captured easily and the prisoners carried to Detroit to get the promised reward from Gov- ernor Hamilton. This occurred, we must re- member, during the war between England and the Colonies ; and so it was that the British gov- ernor had offered the Indians /"20 for every American prisoner they should bring him. Boone's proposition appeared reasonable, and the Indians agreed to it. So Boone succeeded in delaying their attack in the hope that his peo- ple would finish the fort and that reinforcements might come from Virginia. Week after week Boone and his companions remained in the crowded wig\vams of the savages. They lived upon game, corn, hominy, and beans boiled together in one kettle in the slovenly In- dian manner. The smoky huts were filthy in the extreme. But Boone was cheerful — whistled and sang at his work and seemed to be con- tented. His appearance of happiness so de- ceived the Indians that they guarded him less closely. About the middle of June the Indians under Black Fish, who had adopted Boone as his son, gathered a force of four hundred braves near the Ohio River. Boonesborough must be warned ! So Boone was all the more easier to escape. One day, while the attention of the DANIEL BOONE III Indians was concentrated upon a numerous flock of wild turkeys, came his long-sought opportunity. He slipped away unobserved ; and in four days, in which he ate but one meal, he reached Boonesborough. His appearance was like that of one who had risen from the dead. He had been gone nearly five months, and his friends had given up all hope of ever seeing him acrain. The fort was not even then in a state of defence. Under Boone's leadership, however, the palisades were finished, the gates put up, the fortress strengthened, and the four block- houses at the corners of the enclosure put in order. It was not till September that the assault was made. Then fully four hundred braves with some French Canadians appeared before the fort and demanded its surrender. This was re- fused and the battle began. Then followed one of the most remarkable assaults and heroic de- fences recorded in all our annals of Indian war- fare. The Indians and the French made numer- ous unsuccessful attempts to set fire to the fort and the houses; a tunnel under the stockade was started and failed ; scaling parties were re- pelled ; while in sharpshooting the settlers excelled their besiegers. 112 AMERICAN PIONEERS For ten days and nights the Httle garrison of about forty men, with the help of the women From a« old print FORT AT BOONESBOROUGH and the children, the sick and the disabled, re- sisted this trained band of Indian warriors which outnumbered them ten to one. Then the In- DANIEL BOONE I 13 dians, thoroughly disheartened, in the darkness of a rainy night "Folded their tents like the Arabs, And as silently stole away." Boonesborough was saved, thanks to its hero, Daniel Boone. Nearly forty Indians had lost their lives, and a much larger number had been wounded, while from the brave little garrison but two men were killed and four wounded. Their ammunition had been nearly exhausted, but now they "picked up a hundred and twenty- five pounds of bullets Battened against the sides of their fort." Years afterwards, as is reported, Boone said, " Never did the Indians pursue so disastrous a policy as when they captured me and my salt- boilers, and taught us \yhat we did not know be- fore, the way to their towns and the geography of their country ; for though at first our captivity was considered a great calamity to Kentucky, it resulted in the most siLrnal blessincr to the country." From this time the tide of emigration to Ken- tucky set in strongly, and after the close of the Revolution the population still more rapidly increased. In i 776 Kentucky was made a county of Virginia ; in 1790, a territory ; and two years later, a state. 114 AMERICAN PIONEERS Boone's life after the defence of Boonesborough was quite as changeable as it had been before. He lived in various parts of Kentucky until i 788, when he moved with his family to a place called Point Pleasant, near the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Here was his home for ten years or FLOATING DUWN THE OHIO more, till, at the age of sixty-four, he again be- came a pioneer and with his wife, children, and grandchildren took up his march for the far dis- tant land beyond the Mississippi River. In nu- merous boats these nature-loving people floated down the Ohio and ascended the Mississippi to the town of St. Louis. In St. Charles County, Missouri, they made their new home. DANIEL BOONE II5 At Cincinnati Boone was asked why, at his time of life, he had left the comforts of a home again to subject himself to the privations of the frontier. "Too crowded !" he replied with feel- ing. " I want more elbow-room." After he was seventy years old he coidd scarcely be expected to shoot w^th the accuracy of his youth, but he was still widely celebrated as a trapper. He made frequent journeys into the western wilderness after beaver-skins, going even as far as the present state of Kansas; and once, when he was eighty years of age, he made a journey to the great game fields of the Yellow- stone. From these long trips, occupying several months, he would return well laden with valu- able skins. When he was past seventy-five years of age, he did not forget that he had left unpaid debts in Kentucky. So, as he had accumulated con- siderable property, he made a trip to his former home and paid off in full every debt. Then, as he turned his steps once more towards his new home in Missouri, he had the satisfaction of feeling that at last he was "square with the world." The closing years of his life were spent with his son Nathan, at whose home he died Septem- ber 26th, 1820, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. ii6 AMERICAN PIONEERS It may seem strange that a man who through his whole life had been so exposed to hardships should have lived to such a good old age. His open-air life must in a great measure account for this. ■■yiH - ^1 , . J>| Wmifh CHAPTER X SIMON KENTON 1755-1836 'T^^HE pioneers of the Atlantic slope had a ■^ much more comfortable time than the early emigrants who crossed the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains and settled Ken- tucky, Tennessee, and the region north of the Ohio River. The settlers of the country then often called " Kain-tuck'-ee " were a hardy race. They were generally rough and uncouth in their manners and often knew very little about gram- mar or books of any kind. But they were brave men who bore hardships and privations without complaint. Daniel Boone, James Harrod, George Rogers Clark, George Yeager, and Simon Kenton were prominent among the pioneers of the country south of the Ohio. Kenton was a native of Virginia and went to Kentucky when he was about eighteen years of age. From that time till his death, sixty-three years afterwards (1836), his life was filled with the most thrilling and Ii8 AMERICAN PIONEERS romantic adventures, sufferings, tortures, and escapes. He had heard from George Yeager glowing descriptions of the " wonderful land of cane, " lying somewhere south of the Ohio, This land was extremely fertile, the climate mild and delightful ; and thousands of deer and elk were scat- tered on the wide plains. Kenton, Yeager, and Stra- dor, three inex- perienced young men, resolved to find this Eden of the New World. Day after day they floated down the Ohio and after many hardships and disappointments built a fort in northern Kentucky. They did not sup- pose that there were at that time any other white persons in the region. When they learned that sometime before, Boone had come from North Carolina into Kentucky, Kenton left his own fort and joined Boone. They became fast friends, and their lives afterwards ran along together. SIMON KENTON SIMON KENTON 119 When war with the Indians broke out, Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, appointed Ken- ton a spy. In this campaign the young man displayed great courage, sagacity, and endurance. At one time, utterly regardless of his own safety, he saved the life of Boone by a bold stroke. It happened in this way : At an early hour in the morning a few Indians attacked Boone's fort. Kenton and one other man sallied forth and re- turned their tire. Then Boone and ten men rushed out to drive away the sav- ages. P'orty Indians with a fierce war-whoop sprang up from an ambush, and the battle was instantly fierce and rapid. Boone was wounded and fell. One of the foremost Indians with an exulting yell sprang toward Boone and with a flourish raised his hatchet to strike the blow which would rid his people of their greatest foe. Kenton, quick as the flash of his trusty musket, laid the Indian low; and, in spite of the shower of bullets that flew thickly around hini, picked up his comrade and, darting past them all, succeeded in carrying his burden LORD DUNMORE I20 AMERICAN PIONEERS of one hundred and seventy pounds safely within the fort. " Well, Simon," said Boone to him, as Kenton tenderly laid him upon the Hoor, "you have behaved yourself like a man to-day." Not long after, when Kenton was attacked by a large number of savages, Boone with his party sud- denly appeared on the scene and rescued his friend. At one time Kenton and two others lay all day on the edge of a cornfield, watching a Shaw- nee town. During the night they walked safely through its streets and lanes and ran off a dozen or more horses from the corral. Later, however, Kenton was captured by these Indians. He was alone in the forest when an Indian rode up to him, extending his hand and saying, " Broder, broder." Before Kenton could defend himself, the Indian threw his arms around him and pin- ioned him. Then, grasping him by the hair of his head, he shook him till his teeth rattled and his head swam. The other Indians now came up and stripped Kenton of his clothing. Then, mad with uncontrollable rage, because he had stolen their horses — as well they might be : who can blame them ? — they prepared to give him the most degrading punishment known to the Indian race. This was a severe whipping over SIMON KENTON 121 the bare back. They surrounded their victim and fell upon him all at once, lashin;^ him with- out mercy over the head and shoulders with their tough hickory ramrods and with equally tough switches from the beech trees. Meanwhile they taunted him with words like these : " You want Injun hoss, hey ? You hoss-steal, you !" Then they bound him tightly upon the back of a half-broken colt. When this was thoroughly done, they struck the colt and set up a hideous yell. They expected that the animal would at once dart off madly through the thick woods. Had this taken place, death would soon have come to the helpless rider. The colt thwarted their purpose by making a few springs and jumps in and near the path and then returning quietly and taking his place in line with the other horses. The Indians with their ponies took up their march and continued it the rest of the day. Then Kenyon was again subjected to the most cruel sufferings. For an entire week he suffered torture after torture. Beaten by any one who chose to in- dulge in the pastime, he ran the gauntlet from town to town. He was bound to the stake ; but the thongs were cut, and he was saved for fur- ther suffering. Once he made a vigorous effort to escape, broke away and ran for the canebrake. 122 AMERICAN PIONEERS But there were too many Indians. He was soon surrounded by horsemen and retaken. It was then decided that he should be burned. Here another party of Indians came in, and one of them turned upon Kenton, threw him to the ground, and, pounding him unmercifully, de- INDIANS GLOATING OVER THEIR PRISONERS manded his name. " Simon Kenton," was the reply. His assailant stopped beating him and gazed into his haggard face. Then he lifted him from the ground, gave him a friendly em- brace, and said, " Don't you remember me, Kenton ? I am Simon Girty." This Girty was a renegade white man that had turned Indian. He afterwards joined the SIMON KENTON 1 23 British and fought the Americans in the Revolu- tion. This terrible enemy to his race had never been known to show any mercy to a white pris- oner, but now he became strangely compassion- ate. Telling the Indians that himself and the prisoner had been early friends, he made an earnest plea for his release. He reminded them that he had never before asked mercy for one of his own race, and he promised that if they would pardon his friend he would be faithful to them forever and never ask favor of them again. For a time at least Kenton was saved. Under the tender care of Girty he rapidly recovered, but a number of Indians from the villages further north came and demanded vengeance. Another council was held. Girty again and again made most earnest pleas for his friend's life, but the tide was against him. At last, convinced that he could not save him, Girty turned to Kenton and said, " Well, my friend, you must die," and at once left the council-house. The Indians now resolved to take Kenton to one of their villages known as Waccotomica. When they started on their journey, almost all the people of the vicinity joined the company. Girty, on horseback, soon overtook them and told Kenton that he had many friends at Wac- cotomica, and that he would go in advance and 124 AMERICAN PIONEERS try once more to save him. It was all in vain. So Girty left the town, that he might not wit- ness the horrible end that he had tried so hard to prevent. Girty was a traitor, a renegade, a man of evil deeds; but this is one bright spot in the dark picture of his life. Again, as they entered tli(^ town, Kenton was subjected to the brutal lashings of the Indians. Just as his trial was going on in the council-house and he was standing at the door, who should confront him but the noted Indian chief, Logan. "Well, young man," said Logan, "these men seem to be very mad at you." "Yes, sir, they certainly are." " Well, don't be down-hearted. They will send you to Sandusky, and I have sent off two run- ners to take your par.t." SIMON KENTON I25 Even Looran's influence was not strong enouofh to save him. But just here came another turn of fortune's wheel. A trader named Druyer appeared and, admiring Kenton's bearing and pitying his sad case, resolved to save him, if possible, from being burned at the stake. These Indians were at that time allied with the British, and the British headquarters were at Detroit. Druyer told the chiefs that the gov- ernor of Detroit was then preparing an expedi- tion against Kentucky and wanted correct infor- mation reorardincr the condition of the settle- ments there. Therefore he asked the chiefs to allow him to take Kenton to Detroit. He prom- ised to bring him back as soon as he had given the governor the information sought. To this the Indians finally consented. Druyer took Kenton to Detroit and delivered him over to the British officers. Here he stayed until he was over the effects of the terrible beatings he had received. Then his love of freedom and his longing to see his friends once more induced him to make another break for liberty. With ten other prisoners he set out to return to the Falls of the Ohio. The journey took him, by a round-about way, fully five hundred miles throuo"h a wilderness swarmine with hostile In- dians. In spite of all the difificulties, he sue- 126 AMERICAN PIONEERS ceeded in reaching his friends. What surprise, what rejoicing there was when he appeared ! He had long ago been given up as dead. Such were the hardships, fightings, and suffer- ings of the brave pioneers who first settled the present state of Kentucky. It is well for us, in these later days of peace and plenty, to study now and then the perils of those who first brought civilized life to the fertile valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Indian weapons CHAPTER XI GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 1752-1818 ^ I ""HERE were dreadful days in Kentucky during the first years of tlie American Revolution. The English had possession of all the old Erench settlements north of the Ohio River, They urged on the red men to make attacks in Kentucky and offered rewards to those who would kill the most people. Indians seemed to hide behind every stump and in every hollow. It was hardly safe for a man to ride out into the forest or for a woman to walk across the clearing from the house to the stable. The white men followed the plans of the red men. Takino- their rifles in their hands and a few days' provisions on their backs, they would cross over into the enemy's country to plunder and kill. Such retaliation did more to continue the horrors than to stop them. The Indians learned to respect the marvelous skill of the Kentuckians in using their rifles or " big knives," but their hate grew with their respect. 128 AMERICAN PIONEERS iMnally a youno^ Virginian, George Rogers Clark, thought of a way to end the warfare. His plan was this : to march with a company of men into the enemy's country and capture the old r rench villages of Kaskaskia and Vincennes. If Ik; coidd do this, he would accomplish two things. He would put a stop to the In- dian expeditions, be- cause their guns and ammunition and hatchets were suj)- plied at these forts. 1 le would also win the country north of the Ohio River for the Americans. It was a bold and dar- (;k()K(;k koceks < lark inor plan, but Clark was a man who did not know the meaning of fear. 1 lis difficulties began almost at the beginning. He rc^alized that even the fearless Kentucky fronticM'smen would hesitate to enlist for such an expedition. The journey would be a thousand miles to Kaskaskia and back ; all the Indian tribes were hostile ; the French might be also ; and no one knew how many companies of GEORGE ROGERC CLARK 129 English soldiers might be at the forts. Clark was well on his way before he told his men where they were really going. A number im- mediately deserted, and less than two hundred embarked in the boats for the journey down the Ohio. But Clark would not let even the small- BOONE'S trail (1775) AND CLARK'S CAMPAIGN (1778-9) ness of his force discourage him. He knew that skill and courage and quickness could ac- complish more than numbers. It was necessary to proceed rapidly if they were to reach Kaskaskia before the news of their coming. The boats were rowed, two men at each oar, night and day for four days. Then instead of going round by way of the Missis- 9 130 AMERICAN PIONEERS sippi, which would have been the easiest route, Clark landed his nu;n and took up his march through the forest. When he reached Kaskas- kia, he found that not a whisper of his under- taking had preceded him. (^An American who happened to be in the villaj^e openetl the i^ates for the invaders^ One company followed alij^ht that shone from a window. It was in the house occupied by the governor who was fast asleep in his bed. The captain entered, put his hand on the man's shoulder, awakened him, and told him that he was a prisoner. The story is told that the garrison and the villagers were having a merrymaking that night, and that Clark entered the hall where the young men and women were dancing. No one paid any attention to him as with folded arms he stood leaning against a doorway. Finally an Indian who had been lying on the lloor rolled over and recognized him. He sprang up with a war-whoop, and instantly the fun ceased. Clark quietly told them to go on with their dancing, only to remember that they danced under the American rule antl not under the British. Whether this story is true or not, it shows how completely Kaskaskia was surprised. The r^rench were terribly frightened. They had heard so many stories of the fierce " big knives," GEORGE ROGERS CLARK I3I that they expected to be put to death in tlie most barbarous fashion. TrembHui;- with fear the men came to Chu"k and beg'oed him to sa\e their wives and chikh'en. They offered to L^'iv^e anything- and to do anything, even to be sold as slaves, if he would have mercy. Clark replied that he IkuI come to Kaskaskia not to make slaves, but to make free men. He did not come to kill women and children, but to put an end to the destruction of women and childrc;n in Kentucky. The I'^'ench listened at first with astonish- ment, then with joy. Their sad faces grew bright and brighter as they understood the meaning of Clark's words, and they hurried off to their homes to tell the wonderful news. Then laughter and singing took the place of sobs and sighs. The houses were throwm open ; the streets were decorated ; many colored pavilions were built ; and processions w^ere formed to show their joy. When the French learned that Clark was planning to march to Vincennes and the other forts, they told him that there was no need of that. There were only a few English soldiers at the forts. The Frenchmen at Vincennes would be just as glad to get rid of their English mas- ters as they at Kaskaskia had been. They 132 AMERICAN I'lOiNEERS would send some of their own men to tell their brothers the joyful news. Colonel Clark con- sented to their plan, though he did not forget to send a spy along with the delegation to see that they remained true to their promise. The French- men were honest, and thus without bloodshed the forts came into the hands of the Americans. Up in Canada it was with anything but pleas- ure that the English heard of Clark's successes. An expedition was immediately sent out under General Hamilton to retake the forts and cap- ture Colonel Clark. Hamilton marched first to Vincennes. There were only a few Americans at the fort — Captain Helm, the commander, and one or two others. Of course Helm had no hope of holding the fort against such a superior force, but he would not surrender without an ap- pearance of defense. He loaded a cannon and placed it in the gateway of the fort. When the English came near, he stood by with a lighted torch in his hand. " Halt ! " he cried in a loud voice. Hamilton stopped his army and demanded the surrender of the fort. " No one shall enter until I know the terms," Captain Helm replied. " You shall have the honors of war," said Hamilton. GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 133 Helm then surrendered. General Hamilton was naturally provoked at the trick that had been played. Helm was kept a close prisoner, but was kindly treated ; for he was a merry man, and Hamilton found him good company. It was now winter time, and the English de- CAI'TAIN HELM SURRENDERING FORT VINCENNES TO IIIE ENGLISH cided to wait for spring before capturing Kas- kaskia and George Rogers Clark. But Colonel Clark was neither idle nor waiting for spring. Through a Spanish friend. Captain Vigo, of St. Louis, he had learned that many of the English soldiers had been sent back to Canada. Vigro had been captured near Vincennes and had been 134 AMERICAN PIONEERS kept a prisoner for some time. Finally General Hamilton allowed him to go free if he would promise not to do anything on his way to St. Louis that would harm the British cause. Cap- tain Vigo readily made the promise and hurried home. But he remained in St. Louis only long enouofh to chancre his clothes and oret a new stock of provisions. Then he went as fast as his boat could go to Kaskaskia. Colonel Clark said, " If I do not capture Gen- eral Hamilton, General Hamilton will capture me." He trot tog^ether a force of one hundred and seventy men. Part of them were his own Kentuckians, every man of whom he could trust as he could trust himself. The rest were French volunteers, and he was not sure of a single one. They set out the first week of February on what was to be one of the hardest marches ever known. When the snows are melting and the rivers have overflowed their banks, travel is very diffi- cult in southern Illinois and Indiana. Even at the present day, when roads have been made and bridges built, it is bad enough. One hundred and twenty-five years ago, when there were no roads and no bridges, the country was almost impassable. The mud was deep everywhere, and much of the way the ground was covered GEORGE ROGERS CLARK I 35 with water. Frequently it reached to the knee, oftentimes to the waist, and sometimes even to the breast. Through this half-frozen water and through this mud these one hundred and seventy men marched the two hundred and forty miles to Vincennes. If Clark had not always led the way, if he had not known just how to keep up the spirits of the men, if he had shown the slightest sign of dis- couragement, they never would have reached their destination. When the way was hard, Clark would start a favorite song. At night he always had some kind of feast or dance to take away the memories of the hardships of the day. He was everywhere, cheering, encouraging, urg- ing, and usually the men responded. But one morning they refused to go on. The night before had been cold, and the water had frozen over. Colonel Clark urofed and threat- ened, but the men would not move. In one of the companies was a little drummer boy. He was called the " little antic drummer boy," because he was so full of tricks and mis- chief. In the same company was a big sergeant, tall and broad and strong. Clark placed the drummer boy on the shoulders of the sergeant and told them to lead the way. They plunged into the ice and water, the drummer merrily 136 AMERICAN PIONEERS beating the charge. Clark waving his sword above his head and shoutinof " Forward! " fol- lowed. They had to break the ice before them with their hands, but the men forgot their ill temper and went on. After that each day was worse than the day before, and the last day was THE SERGEANT AND THE DRUMMER BOY the worst day of all. They arrived before Vin- cennes thoroughly exhausted, but their coming was a complete surprise. General Hamilton was having a game of cards with Captain Helm when the shots began rattling around the chim- ney. Helm jumped up crying, "Clark has come ! " GEORGE ROGERS CLARK 1 37 The Captain kindly warned the EngHsh sol- diers to keep away from the port-holes. " Clark's men," said he, "will shoot your eyes out." The British did not believe that they could be injured by rifle-shots at such a distance ; but they did not know that the Kentuckians had trained them- selves not to miss at that distance a mark the size of a silver dollar, and that a port-hole would be a large target for them. General Hamilton was forced to surrender, though he had cannon and ammunition, and Clark had only his rifles. The English were fresh and well fed, while the Americans were tired out and nearly starved. The English flag was hauled down ; and Vincennes came into the possession of the Americans, never to be lost again. How many men suffered all their lives because of the hardships of their early days, no one will ever know. Their self-sacrifice and endurance should be a matter of pride to all Americans ; and we should honor the memory of such pio- neers as these Kentuckians and of such a leader as George Rogers Clark. CHAPTER XII RUFUS PUTNAM 1738-1824 T>UFUS PUTNAM was one of the many Americans who have accomphshed great ends simply through unllinching determination to be and to do something. He was born in Sutton, Massachusetts, and when he was only seven years old his father died. Two years after, his mother married Captain Sadler, an inn- keeper. Rufus's new father was a very ignorant man, who not only cared nothing for books or knowledge of any kind for himself, but did not want others to care for these things either. So Rufus was not sent to school or given any books ; and if in some way he obtained one, he was not allowed to use it. His stepfather laughed at all his efforts ; but this did not lessen his determi-. nation to increase his knowledge. Sometimes Rufus was given pennies for doing jobs for the guests of his father's inn. These he saved and with them bought powder and shot for an old gun he had. Then, in his spare RUFUS PUTNAM 139 minutes, he went hunting- for partridges ; and with the money he got from their sale, he bought a spelHng-book and an arithmetic. But he found Httle time to use them ; for his da3^s were well filled, and in the evening after his work was done he was not allowed to use a candle. After he was nine years old, he went to school only three weeks ; but he was so determined not to grow up in ig- norance, that he was able to get a fair knowledge of arithmetic and ge- ography. In his later life he was sorry that he had not paid more at- tention to irrammar and writino- but he was his own teacher and " knew not where to begin or what course to pursue." By the time he was eighteen years old, Rufus was as large and as strong as a man. He was nearly six feet tall and had broad shoulders and long, powerful limbs. He could endure great RUFUS IM^INAM I40 AMERICAN PIONEERS hardships without being wearied and could hold his own in any encounter that required strength and muscle. So it was not surprising that when war broke out between the French and English colonies in America, he became a soldier, and that he served all through that long struggle. After the war closed, he went back to his home at Rutland, Massa- chusetts, where the old house is still stand- ing. But whether he was tilling his farm or buildinor mills or hunting in the forests, he was alwa)'s learning something new or try- ing to make more use- ful the knowledge he already had. He had become an expert land-surveyor and at the time that he left his trade and his family and joined the Revo- lutionary Army he was already well known in his profession. General Washington soon found that in one of the first regiments that had en- listed after the battle of Lexington, there was a very valuable man. That man was Putnam, and he was set to work laying out camps and throw- GEORGE WASHINGTON RUFUS PUTNAM I4I ing up fortifications around Boston. So success- ful was he that Washincrton wrote to the Con- tinental Congress that the man who had educated himself without the aid of schools and teachers was of more value than the French officers in the army who had been under military training all their lives. Putnam was promoted to the rank of chief enorineer and later to that of creneral. When the war was over and America was free, and soldiers and officers went back to their homes, some found that their farms were not so valuable as they had been before the war, six or seven years past. The women and the boys had done the best they could ; but weeds had overrun the grain fields, and the cattle had died or had been taken to feed the army. Some who had had trades found that their places had been taken by others. The soldiers had been paid for all their hard years of suffering in promises and not in money, and promises go but a little way in restocking farms and setting up trades. There seemed no chance for these men in their old homes. Many beoran to wish that they could oo to some new place where people were not so numerous and where they could make new homes for themselves and their families. General Putnam took up the cause of his discouraged fellow-soldiers and 142 AMERICAN PIONEERS helped to obtain land for them in the o;reat coun- try bcyontl the mountains and north of the Ohio River, where few white men had ever been. One December day a company of carpenters and mechanics set out from Danvers, Massachu- setts, for the West. It was their i)lan to go to the upper part of the Ohio River and there build a boat which should carr)' the settlers down the river. The next month a larger company set out. January seems a strange time to start on a long journey overland in those days. We must remember that there were no steamboats and no railroad trains. The whole distance must be traveled in slow-going wagons, on horseback, or on foot. There were mountains to be crossed antl roads to be broken. It would take many weeks to go from Boston to Pittsburg. Why did they not start in the spring when traveling- would be easier ? Because they wanted to reach their new homes in time for the spring planting. Then they would have food to keep them through the next winter. The travelers met with many difficulties. In the mountains the snow was so deep that the horses could not pull the wagons through it. Sleds were built, and all the baggage was un- packed and packed over again on the sleds. Even then the horses could not make a way, and RUFUS PUTNAAr I43 the men had to oo before and di'o- out the road. When they reached the river, they were disap- pointed to find the boat unfinished. The weather had been so cold that the carpenters had made little progress. In time, however, everything was ready ; and the strange, clumsy craft swung out into the stream and lloated down with the current. The hopes of the travelers rose as they went on. The weather grew warm and spring- like. The grass became green, and the trees put out their leaves. Everything seemed to grow larger and more abundant than back in stony New England, and the country looked very fair indeed. On the seventh day of April, 1788, the ]\Tay- Jlou'cr, as the boat was called, drew up beneath little b'ort Ilarmer at the mouth of the Mus- kingum River. The guns of the fort fired a salute, and the officers and soldiers gave the settlers a hearty welcome. The men jumped ashore with their axes in their hands, and imme- diately their strokes rang out in the clear air. On this day was begun the town of Marietta, the first permanent settlement in what was to be the great state of Ohio. Yet it was not the first ; for when General Putnam began to lay out the streets of the town and divide up the land for farms, he found that somebody had been there before them. Everywhere were scattered 144 AMERICAN PIONEERS i^rrcat mounds and high embankments. Some seemed to have been used for burial places, some for fortifications. Who built them ? Not the Indians ; for Indians never built anything more permanent than bark wiowams or log-houses. I-'roin a />/ti/t THE MARIK/ITA MOUND AS IT LOOKS 'lO-DAY When were they built } The forest covered them. Some of the trees when cut were found to be hundreds of years old. The Indians said that the mounds had been built long- ago by people who had come from the West. Where they went and why they went, the Indians could not say ; and no one has ever been able to tell. On the top of the highest mound General Putnam built a fort large enough to hold all the colonists and strong enough to protect them RUFUS PUTNAM I45 from the Indians. Around It the settlers built their cabins. Soon fields were cleared and planted. The corn grew rapidly in the rich, black soil. Stories of its growth were taken back to the East by every stray traveler. "It grew nine inches in twenty-four hours," wrote one settler. Another, who went back for his family, said to his neighbor, " Why will you waste your time cultivating such land as this ? Out in the West we have to stand on tip-toe to break off an ear of corn ; while here you have to stoop down," And still another, a grave doctor of divinity, wrote, " I would as soon get lost in it on a cloudy day as in a cedar swamp." Of course people were wild to go to the new land. They came in all sorts of boats, by the hundreds and by the thousands. We must not suppose that there were no difficulties, and that every year even in Ohio was a good year. There came a starving time when the settlers lived on roots and herbs and " the children cried for bread." An early frost had destroyed the crops, and the Indians had driven off the deer. Much suffering would have followed if it had not been for the kindness and the generosity of a Mr. Williams, who had a plantation across the Ohio River in western Virginia. He had har- vested his large crop early, and it had not been 146 AMERICAN PIONEERS touched by the frost. Nowhere else could corn be bouor-ht for less than a dollar and a half a bushel. Williams sold it for fifty cents to all who came. If any were too poor to buy, he let them have corn just the same ; but nebody how- ever rich could have a large quantity at one time. Men who wanted to help themselves at KORT WASlllNGTO.N', TIIK liEGlNNlNc; OF CINCINNATI the expense of the poor and suffering" tried to buy up his entire stock. They offered a large price for it. " No," said Williams, "you shall not have a single bushel." There was another man to whom the early settlers of Ohio owed a great deal. His name was John Chapman, but he was more commonly called "Johnnie Appleseed." He was a peculiar man RUFUS rUTNAM 147 wlio always went barefoot in summer and wore a broad- brimmed pasteboard hat to keep off the sun. He never carried a gun and never took the Hfe of any creature. Alone he had set out on the banks of the rivers little apple orchards. He fenced them in with brush, and year after year pruned and cared for them. As settlers came to the new country, they found here and there A MIDMCHT ESCAI'E TO THE FORT orchards waiting for them. Johnnie Appleseed was loved by everybody, white man and red alike ; and within recent years a monument has been erected to his memory at Mansfield, Ohio. But there was trouble ahead worse than famine. The Indians had been watching with jealous eyes the forests fall and the corn grow. The region north of the Ohio had been their hunting ground, and they had said that no white man should ever plant corn in Ohio. Now they said, "Before 148 AMERICAN PIONEERS th(j tvvcs shall again put forth their leaves, there shall not remain the smoke of a sinolc white man's cabin west of the river." General Putnam gathered the families of Mari- etta within the fort. Men who had keen eye- slight and knew how to read all the sio-ns of the TIIK OHIO KIVKK AliOl'l' l85<' A'lar Mtiysz'illfy Knit lie Ay forests were selected to range the woods and watch for the first appearance of a retl man. One Sunday, when everybody was at church, one of these rangers suddenly appeared at the door. The word " Indians ! " was enough. The roll of the tlruni sounded, the minister stopi)ed his sermon ; the men seized their guns, which were close at their sides ; the women and the RUFUS PUTNAM I49 children hurried to the shelter of the fort. The quiet of the Sabbath Day was broken by the sound of arms and the quick word of command. All was bustle and commotion. Fortunately, this time it was only a false alarm ; but it was not always so. Later, houses were burned and plundered, women and children were killed, and fierce bat- tles were fought. Finally the Indians were com- pletely defeated, and there was peace once more in Ohio. Then again settlers came over the mountains from the East. Settlements were started which grew into towns and then into great cities. Comfortable houses took the place of rude cabins, and Ohio grew to be rich and prosperous. In its troubles and in its prosperity, General Putnam was ever a safe guide. He was always ready to give his assistance and his counsel. Me helped to found schools and colleges ; he built churches and never refused to aid any good cause. Many men, perhaps of greater ability than he, have since his time guided the affairs of the State ; but Rufus Putnam will ever be lovingly known as the Father of Ohio. CHAPTER XIII WILLIAM CLARK I 1770-1838 N Caroline County, Viroinia, just before the breakino^ out of the Revohitionar)^ War, was born a child who became a famous pioneer, first in Kentucky and af- terwards in Mis- souri. II is name was William Clark; and he was a younger brother of George Rogers Clark, of whom we have heard in a previous chapter. They were the sons of a sturdy and honest couple, John and Ann Rogers Clark. In their home were ten children, four girls and six boys. Four of WILLIAM CLARK 151 these boys distinguished themselves in the Rev- olution. William was the youngest of the six and too small to be a soldier then ; but later on, there came plenty of opportunities for the little red-headed brother to serve his country faith- fully. When he was fourteen years old, his father moved the family to Ken- tucky. Their new home was just south of Louisville, and they named it Mulberry Hill. Here then William Clark orrew to man- // ■ jy — y^ hood.^ In those ^^-^^^^'"''^^^^^^ a^^c^^r^^ days there was plenty of game in Kentucky — buffalo, deer, and bear. William was a famous hunter and excelled the Indians themselves in imitating the bark of the wolf, the hoot of the owl, and the whistle of the whip-poor-will. At an early age he became acquainted with the methods of Indian warfare. He was scarcely eighteen when he was appointed ensign in the 152 AMERICAN PIONEERS army, and four years lator he was made lieu- tenant. William Clark and Meriwether Lewis had been l)oys tog'ether in Virginia and had become close friends. Lewis was private secretary to President Jefferson ; and in 1803, at the request of the President, he was appointed by Congress to command an exploring expedition across the continent to. the Pacific Ocean. Jefferson told him that hv. could choose his own lieutenant, and he at once named his friend, William Clark. rh(? party under Captain Lewis and his lieu- tenant was made up of nine young men from Kentucky, fourteen soldiers, and several other persons. The military leader of the expedition was really Clark, and his knowledge of Inchan life had much inlliience upon its success. In the spring of 1804 the expedition set out from St. Louis. The whole town turned cnit to see them off. As the boats pushed away from the bank the fort fired ^ salute and the people cheered and waved their handkerchiefs. When they had glided out of sight, the townspeople turned to tlunr homes prophesying that they would nevcn" return. J h(;ir fears were not strange, for the country to be explored was then entirely unknown. In most portions of it no white man had ever been. No one knew what WILLIAM CLARK 153 inoiiiUain ranocs were there, what lakes, rivers, or Iiuliaii tribes. The Missouri brought down a great vohi me of water from somewhere; but where it came from, no one knew. There were no raib-oads in those (.la\s and no mails in that [)art of the country. One year went by ; two years ; antl still no news of the ex- plorers had been brought in b)' wan- dering hunters. The people of St. Louis and Presi- dent Jefferson him- self beoan to fear that the party had been either lost or killed by the In- dians. ThcMi one day, at the end of twenty-eight months, some boats were sighted comino- down the Missouri River. They were the boats of Lewis and Clark. The good news travcded fast, and the people turned out to give them a hearty welcome. LEWIS IN TUli CUSTUMK SCOUT II' A WESTKRN 154 AMERICAN PIONEERS In those twenty-eight months Lewis and Clark had crossed the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific and returned. They had been most fortunate all the way. Adventures and narrow escapes they had had, to be sure, but only one of their men had died and only one had attempted to desert. They had gathered great store of in- formation about the country for the use of the white settlers that followed in their track, and the knowledge that Clark gained of the charac- ter and habits of the Indians made a difference in the whole after-history of the territory and state of Missouri. William Clark now settled in St. Louis. Con- gress made him brigadier-general for upper Louisiana, and President Madison appointed him governor of Missouri Territory, an office which he held for eight years, until Missouri became a state. After that he was, until his death, superintendent of Indian affairs west of the Mississippi. Let us now see what were the conditions in St. Loiiis one hundred years ago. Just before Lewis and Clark started out on their long jour- ney, the whole vast territory of Louisiana was sold to the United States by Napoleon Bona- parte. It extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the present boundaries of Canada and from the WILLIAM CLARK 155 Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. People complained that President Jefferson had gone ^ CVn^ \Winnipeg CESS ION 1!N1.\1NS the slow-going oxen were the first to reach their destination. Burnett and two others bought a mining claim for which they promised to pay three hundred dollars in gold dust. They "rose at daylight, ate breakfast by sunrise, worked until noon, then took dinner, went to work again about half-past twelve, quit work at sunset, and slept under a canvas tent on the hard ground." They were 214 AMERICAN PIONEERS fortunate in their claim, and soon every man was making twenty dollars a day. Mr. Burnett tells us that it was very easy to discover when the miners quit work in the evening what success they had had during the day. "When I met a miner," he writes, "with a silent tongue and downcast look, I knew he had not made more than eight or ten dollars ; when I met one with a contented but not excited look, I knew he had made from sixteen to twenty dollars ; but when I met one with a glowing countenance, and quick, high, vigorous step, so that the rocks were not much if at all in his way, I knew he had made from twenty to fifty dollars. His tongue was so flexible and glib he would not permit me to pass in silence, but must stop me and tell me of his success." When Mr. Burnett had made a favorable start, he rose rapidly. Being a lawyer, he naturally entered the political field. He took an active part in the affairs of the territory of California, and when it was admitted as a state of the Union he became candidate for governor. A story of his campaign illustrates the rapid growth of Cal- ifornia. Before the election Mr. Burnett went to San Francisco. " When I left the city six weeks before," he "said, " I knew a large portion of the people of the place ; but upon my return, PETER H. BURNETT 21$ I did not know one in ten, such had been the rapid increase in the population. I was surprised to find myself so much of a stranger, and I said to myself ' This is rather a poor prospect for governor.' " However, he was elected the first governor of California and remained in office a little over two years. Then he resigned, as it was necessary for him to give all his time to his private affairs. He was successful in his law practice and gained considerable property. He interested himself in many lines of work, was the author of several books and pamphlets and many articles for the newspapers. Among his writings his book en- titled "The Recollections of an Old Pioneer" is justly deserving of a high place in the annals of our nation. Part II PIONEERS OF REFORM Government CHAPTER XIX THOMAS JEFFERSON 1743-1826 T r was Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, who wrote the Declaration of Inde- pendence. " When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they THOMAS JEFFERSON 2l8 AMERICAN PIONEERS should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalien- able rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These words, every school boy should com- mit to memory. Thousands of American youths have learned the entire Declaration. Let us learn, at least, something of the life and charac- ter of its author, one of the country's foremost pioneers of governmental reform. Thomas Jefferson's ancestor, John Jefferson, a Welshman, was a member of the first Virginia legislature, even before the Pilgrims landed from the Mayflower at Plymouth. The father of Thomas Jefferson, Peter Jefferson, was a well- to-do farmer in Virginia. His plantation in- cluded nearly two thousand acres, and over thirty slaves were employed on it. Thomas Jefferson was born in the year i 743. When he was four- teen years old, his father died. Jefferson grew up a tall, raw-boned, freckled youth, with sandy hair, large feet and hands, thick wrists, and prominent cheek bones. But he stood erect, was agile and strong, and as his comrades de- scribed him, fresh, heaithy-looking, and hand- THOMAS JEFFERSON 219 some. Though he was quick to learn, he studied hard and industriously, sometimes fifteen hours a day ; for at seventeen he entered William and Mary College at Williamsburg. Williamsburg was the capital of the colony. It stood upon the summit or divide, midway between the James and the York rivers. The THE COLLEGE OF \VILLL\M AND NL\KY, AS 11 Al'l'KAKS lO-UAY main street was called " The Duke of Glouces- ter Street." It was about a mile in length, and on it stood most of the principal houses, although " The Governor's Palace," as his house was called, was on a side street further north. Here stood the famous Bruton Parish Church, built of bricks imported from England. It still stands and is to-day one of the leading churches of the place. 220 AMERICAN PIONEERS It has three historical communion services. One was used by the old Jamestown church, one was given to it in the time of Queen Anne, and the other in the reign of George III. The baptismal font is the very one used in the Jamestown church, at the baptism of Pocahontas. Here, at one end of the Duke of Gloucester I ;/rt>;^; ^3 ■', .PALA CEA?_» S ■^i BRUTON PARISH CHURCH aI I cemfteryI I RALEIGH TAVERN □ DuUu of Gloucester Street POWDER HORN o WILLIAMSBURG IN COLONIAL DAYS Street, at the junction of the two roads which lead to the James River and to Yorktown, stood the house of Burgesses, where Patrick Henry delivered his speech against the Stamp Act. Here stood the Raleigh Tavern, with its " Apollo Hall," where the patriots of the Revolution were accustomed to meet and discuss their plans. Here, too, stood the strong brick " Powder Horn," from which Governor Dunmore took the powder THOMAS JEFFERSON 221 to send aboard a British vessel.* And here at the other end of The Duke of Gloucester Street, at the junction of the two roads from Richmond and Jamestown, stood, where still they stand, the buildings for the College of William and Mary. It was while Jefferson was at William and Mary College that Patrick Henry made his famous speech. The young student was deeply stirred by the eloquence of the orator. When he was an old man, after he had served as Presi- dent of the United States, and had retired to private life in his beautiful home at Monticello, Jefferson used to. delight in telling the story of the eventful day when Patrick Henry thrilled the members of the House. " Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third." . . . "Treason! treason!" shouted the loyalists. It was a breathless moment. Paus- ing an instant, and looking around him with the utmost coolness, he added in calm and quiet * Tliis happened two days after the battle of Lexington, Mass. In the middle of the night a company of marines landed from the schooner Magdalen, which was anchored in the river near Wil- liamsburg. Silently they loaded Governor Dunmore's wagon with fifteen half-barrels of gunpowder, and before mornin-g it was stored away on board the vessel. The people of Virginia were very indignant when they learned of the seizure of the gunpow- der. A company was formed which marched to Williamsburg and compelled the governor to pay for the powder which he had turned over to the British. 222 AMERICAN PIONEERS tones, — "may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." Williamsburg was famous not only for law and scholarship, but for culture and refinement. Here Jefferson made the acquaintance of Gov- ernor Francis Fauquier. The Governor was ex- ceedingly fond of music, and once a week he had MONTICEI.LO, JKI'I'F.USON's IIOMK a party at his fine, large house. His guests were invited to bring their instruments. Jefferson, who was a great favorite with the Governor, was a skillful player on the violin and a popular o;-uest at these ijatherintj^s. When he was twenty-four years old, he was admitted to the bar. At that time he had al- ready taken upon himself the management of his THOMAS JKFl'KRSON 223 father's estate, and had been elected justice of the peace. A few years later he built his new house on the summit of a high hill, about three miles from Charlottesville. This place he called " Monticello," which means a small mountain. I'^or more than fifty years antl until his death, this was his home and the home of a ha|)py family. Monticello is a beautiful spot. The house which Jefferson built more than a hundred and thirty years ago still stands just as he left it at his death, though three-quarters of a century have passed. Some of the furniture purchased and carried there during his lifetime is there to-day. The large, low, mostly one-story house stands in the middle of a wide lawn of many acres, which is entirely surrounded by a thick forest of native trees. The land slopes down from the mansion on three sides ; on the south side is a large, nearly level lawn, which was made with great labor, by Jefferson's orders. Jefferson built subways leading from the cellar underground to the surface a long distance down the hill. During the War of the Revolution, when Colonel Tarleton and his legion swept through the Carolinas and northward into Vir- ginia, he made an atrc;mpt to capture Jefferson, then Governor of Virginia. The Governor was 224 AMERICAN PIONEERS forewarned, just in time. As Tarleton's advance cavalry galloped up to the north front of Monti- cello, the Governor passed through his subway to the road on the east front, mounted his horse, and without being seen by Tarleton's men rode through the woods to the house of Edward Car- ter, and thus escaped capture. Soon after Jefferson's marriage, the dispute with England about her right to tax the Ameri- can Colonies without their consent became so bitter that it was evident that war must soon follow. In March, 1775, Patrick Henry made his speech, so familiar to all, in St. John's Church in Richmond, the burden of which was " We must fight" ; but it was more than a year after that before the Congress was ready to issue its declaration of independence. On the seventh of June, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, the oldest member of the Virginia delegates, moved that "Congress should declare that these United States are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states . . . and that a confeder- ation be formed to bind the colonies together." This motion was thoroughly debated in the Con- gress and a committee of five was appointed to draft the resolution, or Declaration of Independ- ence. Jefferson was chairman of this commit- tee, and he himself alone wrote the first draft. THOMAS JEFFERSON 225 It was slightly changed, and the declaration that the colonies were independent of British rule was adopted on the second of July. From the painting by Chapp JEFFERSON READING TO THE COMMITTEE THE FIRST DRAFT OF THE DECLARATION Then followed a sharp and critical discussion of every sentence of the entire document as sub- mitted by Jefferson's committee. With some changes the "Declaration" was finally adopted, 15 226 AMERICAN PIONEERS July 4th, 1776. The turning point was on the second of July. John Adams, who was the prin- cipal defender of the motion throughout the debate, thought that the second would be the day celebrated ; but, as the entire "Declaration " was passed on the fourth, that day has been observed ever since as the anniversary day. In writing to his wife, John Adams said, "The second of July, i 776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great Anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, bells, bon- fires, and illuminations, from one end of the con- tinent to the other." JefTerson was noted for many public acts be- sides writing the Declaration of Independence, For nearly ten years after its passage he devoted himself to changing the old Colonial laws of his state so that they would conform to the beliefs and aims of the new Republic. Hitherto Vir- ginia had maintained a State Church which was supported by a tax levied upon tax-payers. All people were expected to attend the Established Church, and preachers of other denominations THOMAS JEFFERSON 227 who attempted to hold services were fined and imprisoned. In 1776, Jefferson succeeded in having a bill passed which allowed men to wor- ship as they thought best, whether in the State Church or in dissenting churches. Nine years later, a law was enacted which gave complete religious freedom throughout the State. Jeffer- son regarded this bill as one of the most impor- tant triumphs of his life and mentioned it in his epitaph for , , THE AUTOGRArU Ol" JKFFERSON the monument that should mark his grave. James Madison, also, threw the whole force of his power as an orator and statesman in aiding Jefferson in the passage of this bill. JefTerson was instrumental also in abolishing the law of entail and primogeniture. This old English law gave to the eldest son all the lands belonerine to the father at the time of his death ; and these lands could not be sold, but must pass from father to son. It belonged to a system of aristocracy, and Jefferson considered that it had no place in the laws of a republic. By the new statute, Virginians could dispose of their lands as they thought fit. JefYerson served his state as a member of the House of Burgesses, was delegate to the Conti- 228 AiMERiCAiN PIONEERS nental Congress, Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State in President Washington's cabinet, Vice-President with John Adams, and later, for two terms President of the United States. In 1809 he retired from the Presidency and was succeeded by James Madison, his lifelonor friend. For seventeen years after his withdrawal from TIIK UNIVERSITY OK VIRGINIA AT THE TIME OF JEFFERSON's DEATH political life, Jefferson devoted himself to the improvement of his five thousand acres of Vir- ginia land, and to the founding of the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville. The plan and the course of study were almost entirely the product of Jefferson's active brain. He spent a great deal of time for many years in superin- tending the laying out of the grounds and the erection of the buildings of this important insti- tution. THOMAS JEFFERSON 229 Jefferson lived to be more than fourscore years of age. The time of his death was singu- lar, in that it occurred on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and on the same day that John Adams, his predecessor in the Presidency died. Jefferson desired to live to see the fourth of July, and his wish was granted. A little while after midnight he enquired, " Is it the Fourth ? " and being told that it was, he seemed to be content. He was buried near the summit of Monticello. A plain granite shaft, eight feet high, marks his last resting place. On it is chiseled the following, which was found among his papers, in his own hand-writing : Here was buried THOMAS JEFFERSON Author of the Declaration of Iiulependence, Of the Statute of Viroinia for Religious Freedom, And Father of the University of Virginia. CHAPTER XX JAMES MADISON 1751-1836 J JAMES MADISON AMES MADISON was the " Father of the Con- stitution " and a fit successor in the Presidency to the au- thor of the Declaration of In- dependence. Both men were pioneers of governmental re- form. Both were Virginians, Jefferson the elder by eight years. Each became President of the United States — Jefferson the third, and Madison the fourth. Each served two terms. Each lived to be more than fourscore years old. Each had a beautiful Virginia home — Jefferson's at Monticello, in the interior of the State, and Madison's at Mpntpellier, forty or fifty miles farther east. Madison himself says of his ancestors that they "were not among the most wealthy of the coun- try, but in independent and comfortable circum- JAMES MADISON 23I Stances." His first ancestor in America was John, who obtained a tract of land on Chesapeake Bay, north of the York River. James was the eldest of seven children. His early teacher was a Scotchman. Later he finished his studies pre- paratory for college under the instruction of the clergyman of the parish. When he was eighteen years old, he was sent to Princeton for his college training. He was graduated in 1772, studied law, and was admitted to the bar. Troublous times were close at hand, and James Madison was a sturdy patriot. He ardently adopted the cause of the Colonies in their strug- gles with the British Parliament and joined hands with Washington, Henry, and Jefferson. In 1776 he was a delegate to the convention that planned the Virginia State Constitution. Then he was a member of the Continental Congress. Afterwards, in 1787, came the great Federal Convention that framed the United States Con- stitution, which has now been the supreme law of our country for more than a century. Madison and Washington were among the delegates from Virginia. Washington was chosen president of the Convention. Before the Con- vention met, Madison had prepared a proposed outline of the Constitution and had submitted it to the other members from Virginia. This was 232 AMERICAN PIONEERS known as the " Virginia plan." It proposed an entirely new national government with three dis- tinct brandies. The legislative department was INDEPENDENCE IIAI.I,, I'll II.ADI.l.l'llI A, WHERE THE DECLARATION OK INDETKNUHNCK AND Till': CUNSTnUTlUN WERE SIGNED to make the laws ; the executive, to enforce the laws ; and the judicial, to interpret them. This plan was very similar to that which several of the states had adopted for their state govern- JAMES MADISON 233 ment. If it were accepted, it would make two complete systems of law, one for the state and the other for the nation, moving one within the other. One writer says of it, " It was one of the longest reaches of constructive statesmanship ever known in the world, and the credit of it is due to Madison more than to any other one man." The Constitution was adopted by the Conven- tion. Whatever faults it may have had, it has carried the country forward with a rapid pace for more than one hundred years of great pros- perity, freedom, and happiness. Gladstone, the great English statesman, said of it, "It is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." On the chair in which Washington sat as President of the Convention was carved a sun upon the horizon with its diverging rays shoot- ing upward. After the Constitution had been adopted, and while the members were gathered about the raised platform, waiting their turn to sign their names, Benjamin F'ranklin, who was standing near Mr. Madison, rubbing the glasses of his spectacles, said to him, " I believe paint- ers have found it difficult to tell whether a paint- ing of the sun upon the horizon is intended to represent a rising or a setting sun. I have often, during our debates here, looked upon that sun 234 AMERICAN PIONEERS carved on the back of the President's chair, and wondered whether it represented a setting or a rising sun. But now at length I have the hap- piness to know that the sun of America is rising and not setting." The Constitution was agreed to by the Con- gress, but it could not become the law of the country until it had been accepted by the several states. Now came the severest bat- tle of all. One state after another adopted it. Thr-ee ratified it that same year — Dela- TON AS PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL Ware, PennSyl- CONVENTION ^^^'^^^ ^^^ ^ ^^ Jersey ; and before the first of the next June five more — Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, and South Carolina — also had adopted it. One of its provisions was that it should go into effect for the states approving it as soon as nine had ratified it. Eight had already accepted it, and only one more was needed to make the Constitution the law of these nine United States of America. CHAIR AND TABLE USED BY WASHING- JAMES MADISON 235 Just at this time Virginia called a convention to ratify or reject the Constitution. Its enemies made every effort to prevent its adoption. It was knov/n that North Carolina and Rhode Island were opposed. It was hoped that New York and New Hampshire would vote against it, especially if Virginia refused to give it her support. Hence every effort was made to elect delegates to the Virginia Convention who were opposed to its adoption. Naturally Madison wished to be in that convention. He had been foremost in making the Constitution, and now it was on trial. Should it be accepted by his own state, its success was assured. Should Virginia refuse its support, it would probably fail. A little while before the time for electingr dele- gates to this Virginia Convention, a new difficulty appeared that made it doubtful if Madison could be elected. There was in the lower end of the county an eccentric preacher, named John Le- land, who was opposed to the Constitution. He was a rough, uneducated man with a strong and vigorous mind and an iron will. Durine the war he had been a soldier under Washington, and later he had been imprisoned for preaching without a license. He had pffeat influence with the people ; and " It was no vain boast," says a recent writer, " to siy that such a man as John 236 AMERICAN PIONEERS Leland would not only carry the members of his church and his whole neighborhood, but also all the middle-class people of Orange County, even in sight of Montpellier." Mr. Madison saw his dancjcr and determined to have an interview with him. So, one morn- ing, he mounted his horse and rode toward the lower end of the county to find Leland. About noon he met him, riding up the turnpike. Still sittincf on their horses they discussed until they were tired the only (luestion then talked about in Virginia. They dismounted, tied their horses to the swineine limbs of a giant oak, and sat down to argue the question further. Leland was opposed to the Constitution because he thought that it would form a powerful government that would be con- trolled by the wealthy people, and would soon take away the liberties of the common people. He, himself, had fought and bled to be freed from such a government. By such a government MADISON S IIOMK y\T MONTl'KI.I.IER JAMES MADISON 21"] he had been forbidden to preach as he thought was right and had been cast into a dungeon. Madison reminded him that he himself had contended in the State legislature for full reli- gious liberty ; that his father had led the Orange County militia in the Revolution ; and that his brother William, with him, had poured hot shot into the lines of Cornwallis at Yorktown. He presented his arguments with great skill, and they talked until the ^ sun was lost behind /g^,,.,^ ^^^..^^^"^^ the western hills. ^_,, Til- ^"^ AUTOGRAI'It OF MADISON 1 hen Leland jumped up from his seat, extended his hand, and said, " Mr. Madison, I will vote for you." "Then," replied Madison, "you will elect me." The day of election came. Leland and his followers went to the polls and voted to a man for Madison. He was elected, and his eloquence and his masterly arguments turned the conven- tion in favor of the Constitution, in spite of the brilliant oratory of Patrick Henry. These two men were the most active debaters upon the floor of the convention and made the longest speeches. In favor of the Constitution, Madison spoke more than fifty times, and against it Henry spoke more than thirty times. On the 26th of June the vote was taken and 238 AMERICAN PIONEERS Virginia adopted the Constitution. Five days before, New Hampshire had passed the same vote. A month later New York followed, and measures were taken to start the new government under the Constitution. It was more than a year later, and not until after the new nation had begun its course, that the " Old North State " came into line. Finally, lit- tle Rhode Island adopted it, and the union of the thirteen colonies was ac- complished. The country recognized the ability and the patriot- ism of James Madison and rewarded him for his years of faithful work for her interests. He was a lead- ing member of Congress for eight years during the first four Congresses, eight years Secretary of State under Jefferson, and eight years Presi- dent of the United States. For nearly twenty years after retiring from the Presidency he lived a quiet but useful life at his beautiful home at Montpellier, greatly beloved by the entire people. THE GREAT SEAL OF THE UNMEI) STATES. ADOPTED IN 1782 CHAPTER XXI ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1809-1865 A BRAHAM LINCOLN'S grandfather, an- other Abraham Lincoln, went to Kentucky in the early pioneer days because his friend, Daniel Boone, had gone there. He had consider- able property for those times, and he bought sev- eral large tracts of land. One day while at work in the clearing with his three boys, he was killed by an Indian. The eldest boy, Mordecai, ran to the house. The second boy hurried to the fort for help, while the youngest, a little fellow only ten years old, was left in the field. The Indian was just stooping to pick him up, when a rifle shot came whizzing through the air. Mordecai was a true marksman. The bullet hit the Indian in the breast, and the little brother was saved. This ten year old boy — his name was Thomas ---now had to fight his own way in the world. He did whatever odd jobs he could for the settlers, and finally learned the carpenter's trade. He became known as a good workman, to be sure, 240 AMERICAN PIONEERS but one who had very little push or ambition. Still in one way or another, he got together money enough to buy a farm. Of course he did not pay very much for it, for land was cheap ; but we must remember that then it was harder to find chances to earn one dollar in money than it is to make ten dollars now. He built a little log cabin of one room, fourteen feet square. It had a chimney, a door, and a window. Its only furniture was what he had made himself. The cabin was like hundreds of others in Ken- tucky. It was no better, no worse. To this cheerless cabin he brought his young wife ; and here his three children were born, two boys and a girl. One boy died when a baby. The other was Abrnhnm, the hero of our story. Of Lincoln's early life we know very little. He almost never spoke of it himself, and only a few AliRAHAM LINCOLN ABRAHAM LINCOLN 24I stories have come down to us. One of them is of his narrow escape from drowning. He and a friend went across a creek to hunt partridges. A narrow log bridged the stream, which was swollen by the rain. Abraham fell in and could not swim ; neither could his friend, but the latter got a long pole antl finally succeeded in pulling the half-drowned boy to shore. There he rolled him and pounded him until he was himself again. "Then a new difficulty confronted us," said this friend when telling the story afterwards. " If our mothers discovered our wet clothes, they would whip us. This we dreaded from experi- ence and determined to avoid. It was June, the sun was very warm, and we soon dried our cloth- ing by spreading it on the rocks about us. We promised never to, tell the story, and I never did until after Lincoln's death." When Abraham was seven years old, his father moved across the Ohio River into Indiana. All the household Q-oods were carried on the backs of two horses. When the family reached their new farm, even the seven-year-old boy was given an axe to help in clearing the land. They built a little shed for their first home. Only three sides and the top were enclosed ; the other was entirely open to the weather. In this shelter the family lived not only through the summer, but 16 242 AMERICAN PIONEERS through the next winter. Just imagine all the cold and suffering they must have endured in those long, bleak months ! B)^ the next spring Thomas Lincoln had built a cabin, but it was only a little better than the camp house. I o be sure it had four sides and a loft ; but there was no floor, no glass, not even oiled paper at the windows, and the doorway was without a door. The furniture which they had made themselves was as rude as the house. Down stairs a rough, uncomfortable bed was fastened to the wall, but Abraham slept on a pile of leaves in the loft. Mrs. Lincoln died not many years after she moved to Indiana, and the next year was a ter- rible time for Thomas Lincoln and his little family. Then he went to Kentucky, and when he returned he brought home a new mother for his children. A better day began immediately in the little loor cabin. This Mrs. Lincoln was a woman of action and strong character, and she had a heart full of love. She had three children of her own, but she had lov^e enough to spare for the boy and the girl she found in her new Indiana home. Her thoughtfulness and sym- pathy had a great deal to do in making Abraham the great man he was. He loved his step-mother in return and was ABRAHAM LINCOLN 243 always kind to her. Long years afterwards, when he was dead and she was a very old woman, she said, " Abe was a good boy, and I can say what scarcely one woman — a mother — can say in a thousand. Abe never gave me a cross word or look and never refused, in fact or appearance, to do anything I re- quested him. He was a dutiful son to me always. I think he loved me tridy." His mother was not the only one who loved Abraham Lincoln. Few ever had any dealinors with him who did not honor and love him. As he grew older he became very tall and strong. No one could lift more or use the axe to greater advantage than he. " My ! how he could chop !" said his cousin. " His axe would flash and bite into a sugar tree or sycamore, and down it would come. If you heard him felling a tree in a clearing, you SAKAH HUSH LIiNCOLN, AbKAUAM Lincoln's stkp-mother 244 AMERICAN PIONEERS would say that three men were at work by the way the tree fell." Still it was not his strength alone that made him in great demand among the farmers. His kindness to all, animals as well as children, and his willingness to do anything and everything, made him a welcome member of any family. The farmers sometimes complained that he wasted his time and that of the other hands, be- cause he liked to get up on a stump and make speeches on all sorts of subjects ; but he worked so fast and to such good purpose when he did work, that he more than made up for this idle time. In fact, his employers themselves rather enjoyed the speeches and admired him for his ability. Lincoln's honesty was another trait that won him the respect of his neighbors and the name "honest Abe." At one time, while he was serv- ing as a clerk in a store, he found that he had charged a customer six and a quarter cents too much. That night after the store was closed, he walked three miles to return the money. Later in life, when he failed in business, he was owing eleven hundred dollars, a large sum for that time and place. He jokingly called it the "national debt " ; though he said, " It was the greatest obstacle I ever met in life. I could not earn the ABRAHAM LINCOLN 245 money except by labor, and to earn by labor eleven hundred dollars besides my living seemed the work of a life-time." It was fifteen years before the debt was paid, but then it was paid to the last cent. Abraham Lincoln's school days amounted to about a year all told. He was rather slow, but he mastered every lesson. He became the best speller in the county, and was barred out of the spelling matches because nobody else had a chance of winning if he was in the line. His educa- tion was obtained from books, not from schools. He had a few choice volumes of his own ; the Bible, " Robinson Crusoe," " Pilgrim's Progress," and two or three others. These he read and re- read until he knew them by heart. He borrowed everything readable in the neighborhood for miles around. When lie could not get anything else, he read the dic- COSTUME ACTUALLY WORN BY A MATRON OF ILLINOIS IN THE DAYS OF LINCOLN'S YOUTH 246 AMERICAN PIONEERS tionary and apparently found it as interesting as a story. When in his reading of a borrowed book he came across a passage that seemed to him to be worth remembering, he copied it in a blank book. In his spare moments, when not reading, he would write compositions and work out examples in arithmetic. Paper was too scarce to be wasted ; so he did his sums and wrote his compositions on the back of the wooden fire-shovel, and when it was covered he shaved it off and covered it again. His father did not always sympathize with his desire to learn, but his mother arranged matters so that his time was his own when his day's work was done. His cousin said, "When Abe and I returned to the house from work he would go to the cupboard, snatch a piece of corn bread, take down a book, sit down, cock his legs up as high as his head and read." His mother took care that he was not disturbed and "let him read on," she said, "until he quit of his own accord." When he was twenty-one, Lincoln started out for himself. He attempted many things — be- came store-keeper, postmaster, surveyor, captain in the Black Hawk War, member of the State legislature of Illinois. He studied law and was admitted to the bar. All this time he kept grow- ABRAHAM LINCOLN 247 ing in mental ability and power and in the esti- mation of his associates. As a lawyer, he showed the same traits that had given him in his youth the name of " honest Abe " ; and many stories are told of his refusal to have anything to do with dishonest cases. He used to say that if he attempted to plead a doubtful case, the jury would see that he thought Lincoln's surveying instruments the defendant guilty, and convict him. Once he refused a case with these words : " Yes, there is no reasonable doubt but that I can gain your case for you. I can get a whole neighborhood at loggerheads. I can distress a widowed mother and six fatherless children, and thereby get for you six hundred dollars, which rightfully belongs, it appears to me, as much to them as it does to you. I shall not take your case, but I will give a little advice for nothing. You seem a sprightly, energetic man. I would 248 AMERICAN PIONEERS advise you to try your hand at making- six hun- dred dollars in some other way." It was natural for one who had such ability in public speaking and such a large circle of friends to go into politics. It was a time when great questions were disturbing the nation. The North and the South were dai- ly growing far- ther and far- ther apart over the question whether it was right or wrong to keep men and women in slavery. Lin- coln was born in a slave state, LINCOLN IN 1S57. 3nj so .^ei-e his father and mother, but they had become op- posed to slavery. Before the time for the election of President came around in i860, Lincoln had grown so prominent in the West that his fame had ex- tended all over the nation. He was nominated ABRAHAM LINCOLN 249 for President with great enthusiasm, and was elected the next autumn. His election caused tremendous excitement in the South. South Carolina immediately declared that she was no longer a part of the Union. Other states fol- lowed her example, and the terrible War of Secession began. It was a war between people of the same race, a war between brothers, and no war can be so bitter or so sad as this. We are more and more clearly seeing, as the years go by, how fortunate the nation was to have at its head at this time a man like Abra- ham Lincoln. When it was first suo-orested to him to become a candidate for the Presidency, he did not wish to. He fcdt that he could do better work for the nation in some other place ; but when he was elected he was not one to shirk his duties, no matter how hard they might be. He said to a friend, " I see the storm coming and I know that God's hand is in it. If He has a place and work for me, and I think He has, I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but truth is everything." Few men would have had the wisdom and pa- tience that he showed when there was so much need for wisdom and patience ; but the suffer- incrs of the soldiers and the sorrows of the women and children who were left behind in the 250 AMERICAN PION'EERS many homes both North and South nearly wore him out. We have already seen how his kind heart was ever touched by any call for help and sympathy. His long body grew thinner and thinner, and the sad lines about his mouth grew sadder and sadder. At times he would hardly eat and could not sleep, and then it seemed to him that there was not a ray of light anywhere in all the darkness. A beautiful story is told of the conversation Lincoln had with a company of ladies who had called at the White House. It was at a time when he THE AUTOGRAPH OK LINCOLN was mucli discou raged, attd when his mouth "looked as if it never smiled." Many of the visitors wished that they had not come. Just then a little Quaker lady said some- thing to him, and at once a great change came in his whole appearance. " Friend Abraham," she said, "thee need not think thee stands alone. We are all praying for thee. The hearts of the people are behind thee, and thee cannot fail. Yea, as no man was ever loved before does this people love thee. Take comfort, Friend Abraham, God is with thee ; the people are behind thee." "I know it," he answered; and his voice trembled. "If I did not have the knowledge ABRAHAM LINCOLN 25 1 that God is sustaining and will sustain me until my appointed work is done, I could not live If I did not believe that the hearts of all loyal peo- ple were with me, I could not endure it. My heart would have broken long ago. " You have given a cup of cold water to a very thirsty and grateful man. I knew it before. I knew that good men and women were praying for me, but I was so tired I had almost forgot- ten. God bless you all." During the second year of the war, President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The story of this proclamation is most interest- ing. President Lincoln had long had it in mind; and though some people, impatient of delay, had urged him to issue it at an earlier date, he and his cabinet felt that the nation as a whole was not ready for it. He decided to wait until the Union army had gained a decisive victory ; and although the proclamation was already written, he laid it away in his desk for two months. Finally came the battle of Antietam. When the news reached Washington that General Lee had recrossed the Potomac, President Lincoln called together his cabinet. After a little general talk, he told them that he had just been reading a book by Artemus Ward and asked them to lis- ten to a chapter that he thought was especially 252 AMERICAN PIONEERS funny. The cabinet enjoyed the reading, but wondered why he had summoned them at such a time just to hear a chapter from an amusing book. Suddenly the President grew grave. He re- minded them that several weeks before he had THE NATIONAL CATITOL AT WASHINOTON brought an important matter before them, and they had decided that it would be best to lay it aside for awhile. " When Lee crossed the Potomac, I made a promise," he said, " as soon as his army should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a proclamation of emancipation. I said nothing to any one, but I made the promise to myself and to my Maker, lliat army is now ABRAHAM LINCOLN 253 driven out, and I ani going to fulfill that promise. I have got you together to hear what I have written down." After the reading the cabinet discussed the proclamation, and a few slight changes were made. That afternoon It was given to the news- papers, and the next morning it was read all over the United States. This was the preliminary pro- clamation, as it was called, and was really a warn- ing that on New Year's Day, 1863, the President would declare all the slaves in the seceding^ states free men. The second Emancipation Proclama- tion was signed and went into effect on that day. President Lincoln had been standing for three hours in the Blue Room of the White House shaking hands with the long line of visitors who had come to the New Year's reception. When the last visitor had ijone, he went into his office, took out the Proclamation and signed it. His hand was so stiff and tired that he could hardly hold the pen, and he said to his Secretary of State when he had written his name that people seeing it would think that he hesitated, when, instead, his whole heart was in it. Two or three years later, when the war was ended, an amendment to the Constitution was adopted, by which all slaves were freed and slavery in the United States was prohibited. 254 AMERICAN liUisEERS Less than a week after Lee's final surrender, President Lincoln was shot and killed. Imme- Augustus Saint Gaut^i'its STATUE OF LINCOLN IN LINCOLN I'ARK, CHICAGO diately joy was hushed ; sorrow took the place of gladness. All classes of people mourned for him. The North and the South together lamented ABRAHAM LINCOLN 255 his loss. Al! his enertxies throug-hout those four years of war had been used to defeat the Con- federates, yet they had come to know that he was their true friend. The character of Abraham Lincoln is in many ways worthy of imitation. He had his faults as has every man, but they have been almost for- gotten because his virtues were so many. Lin- coln was not great because he was President. He was great because he made the best use of every opportunity that came to him. PIONEERS OF REFORM Education CHAPTER XXII JOHN HARVARD 1607 1638 IV/rANY of the men who first came to Massa- chusetts had been graduated from En- glish universities. They had hardly built their homes and planted their farms in the new land, be- fore they began to be troubled about the educa- tion of their children. Because their lives were to be spent in the wilderness was no reason why they should grow up in ignorance. Perhaps the wilder- ness would not always be a wilderness. The chil- dren and the children's children must be fitted to perform well their parts in the life that was to come. To send the boys back to England to be edu- cated was unwise in many ways. Why not start a college in America? So only six years after the JOHN HARVARD 257 coming of the fathers, a sum of money was appro- priated A place was chosen across the river from Boston, in Newtown ; and in memory of the University at Cambridge, England, where so many of the Puritans had been to school, the name of the town was changed to Cambridge. For one reason and another there was consider- able delay in getting the college started. The delay might have been much longer, if a certain young man had not arrived in Massachusetts about this time. His name was John Harvard ; and until recently people have known very little about him except that he was a minister, that he died, and that he left money to the new college. Now, scholars have discovered that his mother lived when a girl in a house that is still stand- ing in Stratford-on-Avon not far from William Shakespeare's home ; and that his father was a butcher and kept an inn near London Bridge. We know that he had nine brothers and sisters, that his father died at the time of a great plague, that John Harvard went to college, that he mar- ried, and that he came to America ; but we still have to guess at much that makes the story of a man's life interesting. Yet for all this, John Harvard's name will be known as long as America shall last. John Harvard settled in Charlestown and at 17 258 AMERICAN PIONEERS once became interested in all that concerned the little colony. Amon^ the things that were much talked about was the new college over in Cam- bridge. People soon learned to love the young minister, and they grieved when he died after being in America only a little over a year. When INTEKIOK OF THE GUAMMAK SCHOOL AT STRATFORD-ON-AVON, UNCHANGED SINCE THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY his will was opened, it was found that he had left his library and half his property to the col- leo^e at Cambridge. The library was a very small one compared with even the private libraries of the present day ; and the gift of money was very mean compared with JOHN HARVARD 259 the great gifts that men of wealth now give to col- leges. Yet, it was a large gift for that time, and it was enough to start the new school. The col- ony showed its gratitude by voting " It shall bee called Harvard College." A president was ap- pointed, a building was erected, and students began to at- tend. In a few years the college be- came so well known that people over in England gave money to carry on its work, and even sent tiieir boys to Harvard to be educated. Harvard students of to-day would consider college life two hundred and fifty years ago very strict and very severe. Perhaps student life of to-day will seem as strange to Harvard men two hundred and fifty years hence. The first build- ing had only two chimneys, one in the kitchen and one in the hall where the students ate and studied when it was too cold to sit in their rooms. All the students were obliged to eat together at " commons," as it was called. The food was ' ignni/ iH^^fiiX'if^^ i'V Paul AVrw r HARVARD COLLEGE IN 172O 26o AMERICAN PIONEERS poor and badly served, and the stewards were not compelled to wash up the dishes. Breakfast was ready in the summer time at sunrise, and in the winter as soon as it began to grow light. A small can of muddy coffee, a biscuit, and a bit of butter made up the breakfast for each student. At dinner three days in the week he had a pound of meat boiled, and a pound of roasted meat the remaining days. With the meat were served two potatoes, and, on boiling days, cab- bage, wild peas, and dandelions, in their season, and some kind of pudding. The upper-classmen were served first and then the lower-classmen. Often times the latter's share was pretty small Cider was the only thing to be had in abundance. This was brought in in a large pewter can and passed around the table from student to student, each one drinking his share from the common dish. Supper was usually eaten in the rooms and consisted of a bowl of milk and a piece of bread. College life was a serious matter and the stu- dent's time was well filled. Much attention was paid to the- study of the Scriptures. Every morn- ing in the college chapel each student was obliged to translate into Greek a portion of the Bible printed in Hebrew. In the evening he must translate the English version into Greek. On JOHN HARVARD 261 Sunday he must pay good attention to the ser- mon, for not only must he give its text and divi- sions, but he must repeat long portions of it. This was not an easy task by any means. Ser- mons in those days were long and difficult to remember. Students were obliged also to know Latin thoroughly. If one student met another in the college yard he did not call out a cheery " Hello !" Oh, no ! Whatever he said must be said in the Latin tongue. There were many laws in the early times, defininof what a student could do and could not do. The things he could do were few, but the things he could not do were many. If he broke the rules, he might be reproved or fined. If he persisted in breaking the rules, he was whipped. On such an occasion the students were all gathered in the library. The culprit was brought in before the president and the other officers of the college. After his sentence was read he knelt, and the pres- ident offered prayer. Then the prison-keeper at Cambridge gave the whipping ; ten lashes if the offense was very bad, fewer if it was slight. The president closed the exercises with another prayer, and the students filed out. The punishment was not yet over. The offender must sit alone at meal-time, and he might be prevented from grad- uating with his class. 262 AMERICAN PIONEERS College life fell the heaviest upon the freshmen, and they must have drawn a breath of relief when the first year was over. They were obliged to run errands for the upper-classmen and were at their beck and call outside of study hours. No freshman could wear his hat while talkine to THE COLLEGE YARD Al" HARVARD TO-DAY the seniors, and even in the college yard he must eo bare-headed unless his hands were full or the weather was stormy. This custom of taking off the hat to the upper-classmen was continued many years and was then broken up by a fresh- man who afterwards became a professor in the college. One day he refused tg take off his hat, and the JOHN HARVARD 263 upper class man went to President Willard and complained. " Go to Hedge's room," said the President, "and tell him that I want to sec him immediately, and do you come back with him." The senior gladly hurried off on his errand. " Come, Hedge," said he. " You must go with me to the President's study. I have complained to him about your not taking off your hat, and he told me to tell you he wanted to see you im- mediately. I guess you have got to take it now. Come quick." "Certainly I will go," replied the freshman. He put on his hat, and the)- walked out cf the room together. The moment they reached the yard, the senior stopped and said, " Come, take off your hat, sir. I am going to have no more of this thing I can tell you." " Very well, sir," replied Hedge, and took off his hat. " There, sir, my hat is off, and now, take off yours." The senior looked at his clinched fists and hesitated. " Take it off, sir. immediately," said the freshman firmly, "or I will knock you down." When they reached the President's study he said, " How is this ? D. says that you do not take off your hat when you see him or meet him in the college yard." 264 AMERICAN PIONEERS Hedge replied, " I don't like the custom. There is no law ordering or enforcing it, I be- lieve. In the college yard or out of it I am per- fectly willing to take off my hat to any gentleman who shows me the same courtesy." The senior then told the story of what had occurred on the way. " Oh ! " said the President. "Hedge took off his hat the moment you asked him to do so, did he not ? " Yes, sir. " What did he do then ? " " He told me to take off my hat or he would knock me down." "Well, what did you do ? " " Why, sir, I didn't want to fight or be knocked down, so I took off my hat." " Well," answered the President, "I think that MONUMENT EUKCTKI) AT CHARLESTUWN, MASSACHUSETTS, IN 1828, BY " THK GRADUATES OF THE UNIVERSITY OK CAMBRIDGE, NEW ENGLAND ... IN PIOUS AND PERPETUAL REMEMBRANCE OF JOHN HARVARD " JOHN HARVARD 265 is a very good rule for you and the others to follow. If you don't want to be knocked down, take off your hat to those from whom you expect or desire a like courtesy to you." From a very small beginning has grown the largest of the American universities. Its one building has increased to scores ; its professors number hundreds instead of tens ; and its stu- dents, thousands instead of twenties. Now col- leges and universities are to be found in every state of the Union, but Harvard was the first, the pioneer college, and as such will ever be dear to the American people. The Royal Arms of Massachusetts CHAPTER XXIII HORACE MANN 1796-1859 TTORACE MANN was born in the town of Franklin, Massachusetts, just before the beginning of the nineteenth century. His father owned a small farm, but had very little other property. He died when Horace was thirteen years old, and after that the boy hardly knew what play or holidays meant. Work began at sunrise in the morning and frequently continued until after dark. In the summer he attended to the various duties of the farm ; in the winter he went to school, but still had the chores to do and any other work that would earn a penny. Life was a hard treadmill, but it did not at all prove that "all work and no play" made Horace a "dull boy." However, "all work" did under- mine his strength so that he suffered from ill- health all his life. The school that Horace attended was like most of the country schools of that day, barren and uncomfortable. There were no bright, pleas- HORACE MANN i^y ant schoolrooms, airy in summer and warm in winter. There were no comfortable seats, no convenient desks. There were no pictures on the walls, no blackboards, no globes, no maps, no books of reference. Children had little in those days to make school pleisant or interesting. School life, like the home life, was stern and full of drudgery. • The district school- houses had but one room. The seats were long- benches runninor around three sides of the room, and in front of them were rude planks for desks. The studies were mostly confined to "the three R's," as they were called, " readin', ritin', and 'rithmetic." If a boy did not expect to go to college he was thought to be sufficiently educated for all practical purposes if he could read and write and was able to keep his business accounts. The school books were dry and uninteresting. They were bound either in leather with paste- board foundation, or else with thin, wooden sides, covered with paper and with backs of leather. HORACE MANN 268 AMERICAN PIONEERS Each child bought his own books ; and if he had no money to buy a book, he had to go without and pick up his lessons the best way he could. Because school books were scarce and difficult to obtain, they were carefully kept and highly prized. Horace earned his books by braiding straw. In later years he wrote, " I was taught to take care of the few books we had as though there was something sacred about them. I never dog-eared one in my life, nor profanely scribbled upon title pages, margin, or fly leaf ; and would as soon have stuck a pin through my flesh as through the pages of a book." Probably the most important school book of that time was Webster's " Blue-back Spelling Book." It was prepared by Noah Webster, who made the famous Webster's Dictionary which has grown to such a great size in the present day. Webster considered that the " spelling book does more to form the language of a na- tion than all other books," and most teachers and parents of that day agreed with him. A boy or a girl who could spell down all the others at school or at the spelling matches was held in high honor. An amusing story from a little book, " The District School As It Was," well illustrates some of the spelling methods and other customs HORACE MANN 269 of the old-time school. In a certain district was a famous speller called " Memorous," because no word was too long or too hard for his memory to retain. " It happened one day that the ' cut and split ' for the fire fell short, and Jonas Patch was out A SCHOOLROOM WHEN HORACE MANN WAS A BOY wielding the axe in school time. He had been at work about half an hour, when Memorous, who was perceived to have less to do than the rest, was sent out to take his place. He was about ten years old and four years younger than Jonas. " ' Memorous,' said the master, ' you may go out and spell Jonas.' 270 AMERICAN PIONEERS " Memorous did not think of tlie Yankee sense in which the master used the word ' spell ' (that is, to relieve some one of work) : indeed, he had never attached but one meaning to it, whenever it was used in reference to himself. So he put his spelling-book under his arm, and ran to the wood-pile with the speed of a boy rushing to piay. " 'Ye got yer spellin' lesson, Jonas ?' was his first salutation. " ' Haven't looked at it, yit,' was the reply. ' I mean to cut up this great log, spellin' or no spellin' before I go in. I had as lieve keep warm here choppin' wood, as to freeze up there in that cold back seat.' " ' Well, the master sent me out to hear you spell.' " ' Did he? Well, put out the words, and I'll spell.' " Memorous being so distinguished a speller, Jonas did not doubt but that he was really sent out on this errand. So our deputy spelling-mas- ter mounted the top of the wood-pile, just in front of Jonas, to put out words to his pupil, who still kept on cutting out chips. " ' Do you know where the lesson begins, Jonas?' " ' N o, I don't ; but I s'pose I shall find out now.' •' 'Well, here 'tis. Spell A-bofh-i-na-tion.' HORACE MANN 27 1 "Jonas spells. ' A-b-o-m, bom, a-bom (In the mean time up goes the axe high in air), i, a-bom-i (down it goes again chuck into the wood), n-a, na, a-bom-i-na (up it goes again), t-i-o-n, tion, a-bom-i-na-tion.' Chuck the axe goes again, and at the same time out flies a furious chip, and hits MemoroLis on the nose. " At this moment the master appears at the corner of the schoolhouse. 'Jonas, why don't you come in ? Didn't I send Memorous out to spell you ? ' " ' Yes, sir, and he has been spelling me ; how could I come in if he spelt me out here ?' " At this the master's eye caught Memorous perched upon the top stick, with his book open upon his lap, rubbing his nose, and just in the act of putting out the next word of the column. " ' Ac-com-mo-da-tion,' pronounced Memorous in a broken but louder voice than before, for he had caught a glimpse of the' master and wished to let him know that he was doing his duty. " This was too much for the master's gravity. He perceived the mistake, and, without saying more, wheeled back into the schoolroom, almost bursting with the most tumultuous laugh he ever tried to suppress. The scholars wondered at bis looks and grinned in sympathy. 272 AMERICAN PIONEERS " In a few minutes Jonas came in, followed by Memorous with his spelling-book. " ' I have heard him spell clean through the whole lesson,' he exclaimed, ' and he didn't spell hardly none of 'em right.' "The master could hold in no longer, and the scholars perceiving the blunder joined in with his laughter : laughing twice as loud and up- roariously in consequence of being permitted to laugh in school time and to do it with the master." A book that had been used a much lonsfer time than the Webster's Speller was the " New England Primer." This little book combined religious teachings with the A, B, C's. The al- phabet began with, " In Adam's fall We sinned all." and ended with Zaccheus he Did climb the Tree His Lord to see." Another strange book of the early times was "A Lottery Book for Children." On one side of the leaf were two pictures, on the other was a letter of the alphabet. The pupil tried to pierce HORACE MANN 273 the letter by sticking a pin through the picture on the other side. After each trial the leaf would be turned ; and it was expected that by p THE iPRlMERt t ENLARGED^ f A Otg' an cafy and pteifant ^ ^ Guide to the Art of Reading. ^ ^; Adorn'd with Cuts, ^ **' To u'VfVfi art added, *^ I The AfTembly of Divines, | % and Mr. Cotton's i^ f CATECHISM, 8ca f t ^ f If S T O N: ^ J Pflited by E Draffr. for B. ^ ^3 -Jo TITLE PAGE OF A COPY OF " THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER," PUBLISHED ABOUT I785 the time success was reached, the letter would be so firmly fixed on the mind that it never would be fororotten. The schools were kept in summer and in winter. In summer the teacher was usually a 18 274 AMERICAN PIONEERS woman, for then all the big boys and girls were kept busy on the farms. In winter the teacher was a man, for strength was necessary to hold the unruly boys to their tasks. Birch rods, the ferule, and the strap were important furnishings of a schoolroom. In fact many teachers knew better how to use the svvitcli than how to use the school books. And they knew better how to use books than how to bringr out the talents of tlie children in their care. Poor little Horace Mann, whose mind was so full of thouorhts that he must use his h nosers to express them, was smartly called to order by a crack across the knuckles when he attempted to make some drawings. He used to think in after years that he might have become a poet or an artist if his teachers had only understood him better. No wonder that he said that his teach- ers were "very good people but very poor teachers." Finally Horace came under the care of a master who inspired him with a desire to go to college. Up to this time he had been to school not more than eight or ten weeks in any year. He was now twenty years old, and in four months he learned Latin enough not only to enter college but to enter it in the sophomore class. This severe study was a terrible strain, and he HORACE MANN 275 felt its effects all his life. After he left college he studied law, taught Latin and Greek, opened a law office in Boston, and later was elected a member of the Massachusetts legislature. He made a name for himself in all these professions. Horace Mann became a member of the Gen- eral Court at a time when the attention of the people was being called to the condition of the public schools. The schools had been started many years before, indeed almost as soon as the first settlers came to Massachusetts. It was the thought of the fa- thers that all children must be taught to read " lest that old deluder, Satan, should keep men from the knowledge of the Scrip- tures." The schools so well begun had got into a bad state as the years went by. The bet- ter class of parents would not send their children to the public schools, and few attended who could afford to pay tuition at private schools. Now, in the hope of restoring the old custom of having the rich and the poor educated to- STATUE OF HOKACK MANN IN KRONT OF THE .STATE HOUSE IN HOSTON 2/6 AMERICAN PIONEERS gether, a committee was appointed to reform the public schools. Mr. Mann became its first sec- retary and upon him most of the work fell. He entered upon his duties feeling that an oppor- tunity for great usefulness had been given him. " What surprises me as most extraordinary in relation to my new office," he wrote to a friend, " is that every man inquires concerning the salary or makes remarks that look wholly to the comparative honor of the station, while no man seems to recognize its possible usefulness." In spite of ill-health Mr. Mann was a great worker. His motto in life was " Count that day lost whose low descending sun Views at thy hand no worthy action done." He now found a chance for all the hard work he could do. Most people thought that the schools did not need reform. Some considered that they were good enough as they were. Others thought that better schools would mean more taxation and therefore objected to a change. Even the best of the teachers opposed his plans, but Mr. Mann kept doggedly at his purpose to improve the schools. " If the Lord will, I will," he wrote after the miserable failure of a teacher's convention that he had tried to hold. " That is, I will work in this moral as well as physical sand- HORACE MANN 277 bank of a country until I can get some new thing to grow out of it." He was Secretary of the Board of Education for twelve years, and during this time many things began to grow. Normal schools for the training of teachers were started ; conventions for the discussion of plans were instituted ; books HORACE MANN SCHOOL, UNDER THE AUSl'lCES OK 1 EACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK CITY: SO NAMED IN RECOGNITION OF THE WORK OF HORACE MANN were improved and multiplied ; and appliances increased. With better teachers and better methods, came better results ; and once more the people began to have confidence in their schools. Other New Enofland states followed the ex- 278 AMERICAN PIONEERS ample of Massachusetts, and from New England the reform spread all over the country. New methods have continually taken the place of out- worn methods, until now the public schools of America are the best that can be found in any land. Mending the Quill-Pen CHAPTER XIV MARY LYON I 797- I 849 \\ZE have seen in the last two chapters how anxious the first settlers in America were that their children should have an education, but most of their thought was spent on the education of iheir boys. When Harvard was started, no one had even dreamed that a girl ought to go or would ever wish to go to college. Why should a girl go to college ? She could not be a minister, or a lawyer, or a doctor. It was her duty to look after the affairs of the household ; and she did not need Greek to cook, or Latin to spin, or mathe- matics to weave. Even the grammar schools were not for girls. The grammar schools were to fit boys for college ; and as girls did not go to college, they did not go to the grammar schools. Just a hundred and fifty years went by after the establishment of public schools before girls were permitted to enter the schools of Boston. Then they were opened to girls only in the sum- mer months when most of the boys were busy 28o AMERICAN PIONEERS with out-of-tloor duties. What was true of Bos- ton was true of other towns and villages through- out the colonies. What little a girl knew about books, she learned at home, or at the minister's, or at a " dame school." As " dame schools " were usually kept by old women who were taken care of by the town, the amount of instruction that a girl could get at one of these schools was small indeed. Women had very little time or use for many things that women now- a-days think they cannot get along without. We must remember that clothing and food could not be bought at the stores as they can be now. In those days most people lived on farms where almost everything that they ate or wore was pro- duced. Wool was cut from the backs of the sheep that browsed in the pastures. It was carded, spun, woven and made into garments and blankets by the women of the household. Flax was grown in the fields, made into cloth and fashioned into sheets, tablecloths, and under gar- AN (U.D-lASlllUNEU LUUiM MARY LYON 28 1 ments. Women braided straw for hats, knit stockings, gloves and mittens, churned butter, set cheese, dried fruits and vegetables for winter use, and looked after the many needs of their large families. The girls were given their home duties almost as soon as they could walk, and even a child of four has been known to knit her- self a pair of stockings. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, most people thought that if girls knew how to read they had about all the " book learning" that was needed. It was not necessary for them to learn to write, for very few women ever had occasion to write a letter ; and if they had to sign their name to a deed or some other legal paper, " a mark " would do just as well as their written name. As for arithmetic, " All a girl needs to know," some one said, " is enough to reckon how much she will need to spin to buy a peck of potatoes in case she becomes a widow." Said another, " If you expect to become a widow and have to carry pork to market, it may be Well enough to study mental arithmetic." The story is told of a girl who tried to study arithmetic by herself. The problems in interest bothered her, and she went to her elder brother for help. " I am ashamed," said he, " of a girl who wants to study interest." 282 AMERICAN PIONEERS Of course here and there were women who could write good letters, do problems in algebra, and even read Latin. The less fortunate women spoke of them with awe and admiration. Horace Mann tells us that when he was a boy a young woman who was said to have studied Latin visited at his father's house. " I looked upon her," he wrote, "as a sort of goddess." As the years went on, a change came in the condi- tion of the people in the colonies. The towns and villages grew larger, people had more money, and more things could be bous^ht at the stores. A woman's time was not so fully occupied with so great a variety of duties as heretofore. Girls were not so much needed at home, and it was necessary for them to go out to earn a little money. They became dissatisfied with their limited knowledge. They wanted to learn what the boys learned. One little girl went so far as to sit on the door-step of the schoolhouse so that she could hear the boys recite their lessons. So the schools were in AS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN LOOKED WHEN MARY LYON WAS A GIRL MARY LYON 283 time opened for girls as well as for boys, and schoolmistresses began to take the place of mas- ters in the smaller schools. As the common schools did not give all that parents now wanted for their children, academies and seminaries were started here and there. There were people who thought that some of these institutions did almost more harm than good. One father said, " I spent a thousand dollars on the education of my daughter. I would give another thousand to undo it. She has been made vain, frivolous, and discontented with the plain, simple habits of home." Other academies — and there were many of them — were wise and helpful in their training, and some of the best have continued to the present day. Old- fashioned people were much troubled by these schools and by the new branches that girls now studied. " Who shall cook our food, or mend our clothes, if girls are to be taught philosophy and astronomy ?" they said. They little realized that the school would make them better cooks and housekeepers. At the time all these changes were going on in the thought and condition of the people in America, Mary Lyon was born in Buckland, Massachusetts. She grew up as did the other girls in the neighborhoofl, was taught to sew, to 284 AMERICAN PIONEERS knit, and to spin, attended the district school and there learned to read, to write, and to spell. She learned her lessons faster than the other girls, however, and wanted to go further and to do more than was demanded by the teacher. One day she asked if she might not study grammar. In four days she had learned the contents of the whole book. Later on, when she was a student at Sanderson Acad- t;my, her teacher L^ave her a Latin grammar to study to keep her from going through the whole course while her mates were learning a few lessons. Li three days she had mastered the book so that she could recite it from beginning to end. It is said that tliat recitation lasted until after dark, and that her schoolmates forgot their work and the time of day as they listened to her perfect an- swers to the master's questions. The girls admired her, but they were never MARY LYON MARY LYOJJ 285 jealous of her ability, because she was always ready to help and to encourage them, no matter how busy she was herself. While attending the academy, she earned her board by service in a household near by. She proved a good worker in the home as well as at school. A gentleman once asked the man in whose family she worked, " Well, this Mary Lyon is a wonderful girl, isn't she ? They say that none of the boys can keep up with her. But how is it about her work ? Does she really do anything or do you just give her her board?" " Well," was the reply, " Mary wings the pota- toes." This meant that she brushed off with a wing all the dust and dirt from the potatoes that had been roasted in the ashes of the open fireplace. What else she did the story does not tell, but the questioner understood that whatever she did, no matter how simple, was done thoroughly and well. Mary Lyon's school life amounted to only a few months all told, although it extended over many years. Her father died when she was seven years old, and most of the money for her tuition she was obliged to earn herself. When only fifteen, she kept house for her eldest brother. He paid her a dollar a week, which 286 AMERICAN PIONEERS seemed a large sum to her and for which she was most grateful. " I never saw any such dollars before, nor have I since," she once said. " They were mine, and my dear brother had given them to me. I did weep over them." A NEW ENGLAND KITCHEN. !■ IKKl'IArK Willi IIAKE-OVEN AT THE RIHHT, SPINNING-WHEEL STANDING AT THE LEFT ; ON THE FLOOR, A RUG MADE OF STRIPS OF COTTON, BRAIDED AND SEWED BY HAND Later she taught school and received seventy- five cents a week for pay besides her board. She became much discouraged over this first school and thought that she would never make a good teacher. Others used to think so, too. " She will never equal her sister as a teacher," MARY LYON 28/ they said. In after years Miss Lyon used to say to her pupils, "If you commence teaching and do not succeed, teach till you do succeed." That was what she did herself. She became very popular as a teacher and was so beloved by the different families with whom she boarded, that each one would have been glad to keep her all the time. She was just as ready to help the busy mothers as she had been to assist her schoolmates. When Mary Lyon was twenty-four years old, she decided to cro to school airain. The Rev- erend Joseph Emerson had started an academy at By held, Massachusetts, which gave more ad- vanced work for women than any other school at that time. It was this school that she wished to attend. Her friends opposed her plan for various reasons. Perhaps some thought that already she knew more than a woman ought to know. Others thought that the journey was too long and expensive, as Hyfield was a long distance from her home. Still others might have thought that she was too old to go to school. Her mother, however, told her to go, and she set out for Byfield. It was before the days of the rail- road, and the journey that now can be made in a few hours then took three days. "You can hardly understand," she said in after years, 288 AMERICAN PIONEERS " what a great thing it was to get to Byfield, It was almost like going to Europe now." At the academy she began to look upon a higher education in an entirely new way. Pre- viously she had studied because she loved to study and for the pleasure she got from it. Now she began to see that the more she knew the more chances for usefulness would come to her. This feeling increased as she began to teach again, and she now wished that she might start a school that would give to girls advantages for study not only greater than could then be found anywhere else, but such as would train them for wider usefulness. This unselfish view of the advantages of a higher education she constantly tried to keep before herself and her pupils. " Young ladies," she would say, " never ask to live simply for yourself. Live for the good of others." She felt that God had given women a great work to do in the world, and this work could not be well done unless their brains were as thoroughly trained as their hands. Through many years she worked and prayed. Friends came to her aid who were ready to help her with their money, their time, and their sym- pathy. Though at times their faith in the un- dertaking failed, her own never faltered. At last, in the autumn of 1837, everything was ready MARY LYON 289 and the day for the opening of the new school was at hand. Miss Lyon, who before had been so brave, now began to fear for the success of her school. " When I look forward to Novem- ber 8th," she said, " it seems like looking down a precipice of many hundred feet which I must MOUNT HOLVOKE FEMALE SEMINARY ; THE FIRST BUlLiUNG UF MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE descend." Thus was started Mount Holyoke Seminary, the first school that gave anything like a colles^e training to grirls. Mary Lyon remained at its head for twelve years. Her beautiful character and life influ- enced every girl who came into the school. 19 290 AMERICAN PIONEERS When the girls left it, they desired in their turn to make the most of their lives and opportunities for the good of the less fortunate. Many of them went as missionaries to heathen lands. When Mary Lyon died she was mourned the whole world around. "Is she missed?" some THE TALCOTT ARBORETUM, MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE, CONTAINING A COLLECTION OF RARE TROPICAL PLANTS one wrote soon after her death. " Scarcely a state of the American Union but contains those she trained. Long ere this, amid the hunting grounds of the Sioux and the villages of the Cherokees, the tear of the missionary has wet the page which told of Miss Lyon's departure. The Sandwich Islander will ask why his white MARY LYON 291 teacher's eye is dim as she reads her American letter. The swarthy African will lament with his sorrowing guide. The cinnamon groves of Cey- lon and the palm trees of India overshadow her early deceased missionary pupils. Among the Nestorians of Persia and at the base of Mount Olympus will her name be breathed softly as the household name of one whom God has taken." Now Mount Holyoke Seminary has become Mount Holyoke College. Now, in this country, instead of one school where girls can receive a college education, there are almost as many col- leges for women as for men. No longer is any brother ashamed of a sister who wishes " to learn interest." Rather is he ashamed of her if she does not wish to learn interest and much besides. CHAPTER XXV SAMUEL G, HOWE - , 1801-1876 VT'OU have all heard of the yacht races off Sandy Hook on the Jersey coast. Year after year up to the present time ( 1905), an English yacht has crossed the Atlantic to win the cup that America has so long held. Each year the English boat has gone home again, de- feated, because the American yacht has outsailed and outclassed her in every way. You all re- member hearing- about the Reliance and the Columbia and perhaps some of the other boats ; but did you know that they were built by one firm of boat-builders, and that its president is John B. Herreshoff, a blind man? John Herreshoff has been blind since he was fourteen years old, but that has not kept him from making a place for himself in the world. Many of the fastest yachts, he has modeled with his own hands ; and his knowledge of all kinds of sea-going craft is so great that he can tell whether they can sail fast or slow, how much SAMUEL G. HOWE 293 wind and storm they can stand, and all about their value by passing his fingers over the mod- els. He also manages all the business affairs of the company, which makes torpedo boats for the American and European navies, as well as fast yachts for international races. Five hundred or even one hundred years ago, it was thought im- possible for blind people to earn a living except by begging. They were often neg- lected and some- times were even harshly treated. As time went on, men's hearts grew more tender to the sufferings of all unfortunate crea- tures, and more was done to make the life of the blind happier. Yet even then they were not taught to look out for themselves, and few could read or write. About seventy-five years ago, Samuel G. Howe, a young physician, gathered a little class of two or three blind children to his father's SAMUEL G. HOWE 294 AMERICAN PIONEERS house in Boston. In teaching them, he made use of methods he had seen in Europe and of many more that he had planned for himself. With great patience and care he made for them a book with raised characters by pasting string on cardboard, in the form of letters of the alpha- bet. He also manufactured raised maps and with these taught lessons in geography. With fingers instead of eyes, the children learned to read ; and after a time when they had made considerable progress, he took them to various places to show what the blind could do. People became so much interested in Doctor Howe's pupils that one man gave his home, and others gave money, that the work might be en- larged and more unfortunate children helped. In this way the famous " Perkins Institute for the Blind" was started. It would be impossible to tell of all the joy and blessing and opportu- nities for usefulness that this school has given to hundreds of boys and girls. One little girl said, after she had been at the school a short time, " I don't mind it now beinfj blind, because I can go all around and I can sew and wash dishes and have my lessons and do just like other people." And many, many more do not mind being blind since they too can read and work SAMUEL G. HOWE 295 like other people. Horace Mann once said, " I would rather have built up the Blind Asylum than have written Hamlet, and one day every- body will think so." Doctor Howe liad shown that the blind could be taught. It had already been clearly proved that the .deaf and the dumb could learn. But the blind had ears to help them and the deaf had eyes. How could a child that had neither sight nor hearing be taught? The question had been discussed, but no one had attempted to answer it. One summer while on a vacation trip to New Hampshire, Dr. Howe heard of a little girl who was not only blind and deaf and dumb, but who could not smell and could taste but little. She had been like other children until she was two years old. Then a severe attack of scarlet fever had left her in this sad condition. Only the sense of touch had been preserved, and all her knowledge of things about her must come to her through this sense alone. As soon as she was able to walk she began to make explorations about the house. She followed her mother wher- ever she went and felt everything she did, and in this way she learned to sew and to knit a lit- tle. It was almost impossible to talk with her except by a few signs. A pat on the head she knew meant that her friends were pleased with 296 AMERICAN PIONEERS her ; a pat on the back told her that she had done wrong. Doctor Howe immediately became interested i ./ DR. HOWE TEACHING LAURA BRIDGMAN in little Laura Bridgman, and asked permission to take her to Boston in the autumn. All that summer he studied the problem of how he could SAMUEL G. HOWE 297 teach the child to know what people said and to express her thoughts so that others could under- stand. It seemed an impossible task, for she had only fingers with which to learn what most chil- dren use eyes, ears, nose, and tongue to get. Doctor Howe once said " obstacles are things to overcome," and with the greatest patience he and his assistants set to work to overcome Laura's obstacles. They selected a few articles of every- day use — a spoon, a key, a knife, a fork, a chair — and pasted upon each its proper name in raised letters. Laura's tiny fingers were guided over the articles and over the labels until her instruc- tors felt that she knew that the raised letters of the word key went with the key itself and that the label that spelt fork belonged with the fork. The next step was to give her the labels and the articles separately. She placed the label key upon the key and the other labels in their proper places and was rewarded by a gentle pat on the head. After this Doctor Howe gave her the separate letters of the different words, and she arranged them in their right order. At first she did not seem to take much interest in the work; but within a few days her mind began to awake, and then her teachers could hardly keep pace with her eagerness to know the name of everything she could put her hands on. 298 AMERICAN PIONEERS Then she was taught to use the deaf and dumb hand alphabet. In this alphabet, different posi- tions of the fingers mean different letters. Laura would put her hand over the hand of a person using these finger-letters, and through her sense of touch she could read off what was meant. Soon her own little fingers would spell out words so rapidly that it was often difficult to follow her. One of her early teachers, Miss Drew, says, " I shall never forget the first meal taken after she appreciated the use of the finger alphabet. Every article she touched must have a name, and I was obliged to call some one to help me wait upon the other children, while she kept me busy in spelling the new words." Laura taught the other blind children about her the use of the deaf and dumb alphabet, and so with their fingers they were able to talk together on each other's hands. She had much trouble in learnino; the irre^u- larities of the English language, which even children with eyes and ears find difficult. She easily understood that the word //and me'dnt just one hand and that if she added s, hands meant more than one. Therefore she wanted to form all plurals by adding s and thought that all nouns that ended in s were in the plural. The story is told that one of the crirls in the institution had the mumps. Laura learned the name of the SAMUEL G. HOWE 299 disease and soon after had it herself, but only on one side. Some one said to her, " You have the mumps." " No," she replied, " I have the mump." The formation of different tenses of verbs also perplexed her. When she had learned the difference between jump and jiimpcdy she thought that she must always add cd to form the past tense of every verb. One day at dinner she asked if she should say cat, eatcd, and when told that it was cat, ate, she was very much amused and laughed heartily. Six months after Laura left her home in Han- over, her mother came to visit her. The child was playing with other children and was entirely unconscious that her mother was watching her with tears running down her cheeks. Laura hap- pened to run against her, and at once her inquisi- tive little fingers began to feel her dress. She did not know it and returned to her play. Her mother gave her a string of beads which she had worn at home. Laura instantly remembered them and with delight felt them all over and put them round her neck. Mrs. Bridgman then tried to put her arms around her child, but Laura would not stay with her and went back to her playmates. Again something from home was given her, and again she recollected that it came from Han- over. Laura now seemed to understand that the 300 AMERICAN PIONEERS visitor was not a stranger, but some one whom she ought to know. She felt her mother's hands all over, and her face plainly showed that she was trying hard t:) remember who the visitor was. LAUKA DKIUGMAN TEACHING A FELLOW I'Ul'lL TO READ A HOOK OF RAISED LETTERS Her mother drew her to her and kissed her, and then the child recognized her. Her school friends no longer drew her away, and she nestled down happily in her mother's arms. When Mrs. Bridgman went home, Laura did not want to go SAMUEL G. HOWE 3OI with her, though she cried heartily at the parting. She seemed to reahze that only with Dr. Howe could she learn what she now so eagerly wanted to know. The rest of the story of Laura Bridgman's life is too long to tell at this time. We would natur- ally think that a life shut up behind the prison bars of blindness, deafness, and dumbness would be a cheerless one, but Laura grew to be a happy woman. She was able in part to earn her living by the work she did with her hands, and she was also a great help to Doctor Howe in teaching blind and deaf children. Her progress was watched with great interest by the people of England as well as of the United States. Doctor Howe became known the world over ; and schools were started in other parts of this country and in Europe which made use of his methods of teaching. Soon after opening the Perkins Institute, Doc- tor Howe was faced with a new difficulty. There were only three books in the whole school that the blind could read. In fact there were very few books anywhere that the blind could use, and these were heavy, unwieldly volumes, printed in Europe on coarse paper, in clumsy raised let- ters. Dr. Howe called the attention of the public to the uselessness of teaching the blind to 302 AMERICAN PIONEERS read, unless books were provided for them. People used to say that all that Doctor Howe needed to do was to wave his wand, and every- body would do his will. Contributions of money began to come in, and soon the amount was sufficient to start a new printing establishment in America. Meanwhile Doctor Howe had been doing CONGRESSIONAL LIHKARY AT WASHINGTON, D. C., IN WHICH A ROOM FURNISHED WITH EMBOSSED-LETTER BOOKS IS SET APART FOR THE BLIND something besides collecting money. With the help of a clever printer, he had invented a print- ing press that would produce better work than the European presses. When the books ap- peared, they were neat volumes, printed on thin paper, in simple letters that could be read easily SAMUEL G. HOWE 303 with the fincrers. The whole of the New Testa- ment was put into two books, though, if a Euro- pean press had been used, twelve volumes would have been required. Before long all sorts of books with raised letters were printed, and their price was brought within the means of the blind. Doctor Howe was not satisfied to make hap- pier the life of the blind and the deaf only. He found time to help any who were in distress or were unfortunate. He assisted Miss Dix in her work for the insane ; he helped Horace Mann in his school reforms ; he was a friend to the slaves and to the poor and to the sick everywhere. People so loved and trusted him that they were glad to assist him in all his plans ; but when he asked his acquaintances to help him start a school for idiot children, they thought that at last he had gone too far. "What do you think Howe is going to do now?" said one gentleman to another whom he met on the street. "He is cTointr to teach the idiots! Ha, ha, ha!" And everybody else laughed at the idea that there could be any chance for boys and girls who were born with de- fective brains. Doctor Howe declared that if a child had brain power to learn anything, h(^ had mind enough to learn more. He persisted in his efforts and finally succeeded in carrying out 304 AMERICAN PIONEERS his plans, and a happier day began for another neglected class of children. • Would'st know him now ? behold him The Cadmus ot the blind, Giving the dumb lip language, The idiot clay a mind. "Walking the round of duty Serenely day by day, With the strong man's lieart of labor And the childhood's heart of play." When you have learned the entire story of Doctor Howe's unselfish life, you will want to read the whole of Whittier's poem "The Hero." Dr. Howe was not made at all sad by his in- timacy with sorrow and suffering, but ever kept his happy, boyish spirit that sometimes in his school days used to break out beyond all bounds. It is told that after he left college and was ashamed of some of the tricks he had played there, he called on the president, intending to apologize. The president did not receive him very cordially and sat down in a chair at some distance from his visitor. Howe moved, and the president pushed his chair further away say- ing, " Howe, I am afraid of you now. I'm afraid that there will be a torpedo under my chair be- fore I know it." When Doctor Howe died, Laura Bridgman SAMUEL G. HOWE 305 spelled out into the hand of every one she met, "I have lost my best friend"; and the children in the idiot school said, " He will take care of the blind in Heaven. Won't he take care of us, too ?" Everyone who had ever been helped by Doctor Howe felt that he had lost his kindest friend. "Prisoners bewail him, blind men weep for him The dumb lament, idiots mourn, The insane cry out for him, And the slaves sit down in the dust." CHAPTER XXVI SAMUEL C. ARMSTRONG 1839-1893 ** I ""HE War of Secession had not ended before the people of this country discovered that they had a great problem to solve. What was to be done with the four million freedmen ? For nearly two hundred and fifty years they and their fathers had been slaves. The men and the women were strong in body, but they were like children who had never been taught to care for themselves. They knew how to work, but they had worked only under the eye of an overseer who kept them to their tasks. Whatever they had earned belonged to their masters ; what they had to eat and to wear was given to them. They knew nothing about saving or economizing ; few had ever had any responsibility ; and most of them could neither read nor write. What should be done for these poor and ignorant people ? The negro said, " Teach me to read and to write " ; and he went to work to learn the mys- teries of the spelling-book and the copy-book. SAMUEL C. ARMSTRONG 307 After the Emancipation Proclamation, some negroes were enlisted into the army, and in their tents the spelling-book and the Bible were often found lying side by side with the musket and the knapsack. People from the North opened schools here and there in the South for the freedmen, but only one man was wise enough to see that at that time tiiey needed to be tauorht something besides the letters of the alphabet in order to make them useful citi- zens of the United States. And this man was Samuel C. Armstrong. General Armstrong was born in the Sandwich Islands, where his parents were missionaries. There he had seen how much more successful were t'^e schools which taught the natives the use of their hands as well as their brains, than were the schools which made use of books alone. He suggested to a society of Northern people that SAMUEL C. AKMSTKUNG 308 AMERICAN TIONEERS they start a school in the Southland where the freedmen could be taught not only to earn their living after they were graduated, but to pay their own way while they were in the school — a school that should train them to go out into negro com- munities and teach not only the children, but the men and the women how to live industrious, honest, pure lives. People said, "Schools on this plan have been attempted before and have been given up. It won't pay." " Of course," replied General Armstrong, " it won't pay in a money way, but it will pay in a moral way. It will make them men and women as nothing else will. It is the only way to make them good Christians." A tract of land of one hundred and twenty-five acres was bought at Hampton, Virginia, and buildings were built. Close by this very place, two hundred and fifty years before, the first ship- load of slaves for America was landed. General Armstrong had had no expectation of being closely connected with the school. He had sug- gested the plan and supposed that others would work it out. One day he received a letter say- ing that the one who had been first chosen for principal had declined and asking him if he would take the position. He had just before SAMUEL C. ARMSTRONG 309 been offered a fine business opportunity ; but he answered" Yes," to the letter. "Till then," he said, " my own future had been blind. It had only been clear that there was a work to do for the ex-slaves, and where and how it should be done." He remained at the head of the school until his death, and to him is due the wonderful A COOKING CLASS Al HAMPTON INSTITUTE success not only of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, but of other schools in the South, which were started on the same plan. More negroes asked for admission to the new school than could be taken care of. Fathers and mothers who were too old to go to school them- selves were willing to m:;ke almost any sacrifice that their children mlHn ro. It was some time 3 TO AMERICAN PIONEERS before accommodations were sufficient for the number of students ; but the boys cheerfully lived in tents during the cold winter weather, so anxious were they to learn the white man's ways. The boys were taught the proper care of horses and cattle, how to till the land so that it would raise the largest crops, how to make bricks, how to build houses and barns and to follow different trades. The girls were taught how to make clothes, to take care of the sick, and to cook in wholesome and economical ways. No shiftless or poor work was accepted. Gen- eral Armstrong continually kept before them that any work, no matter how humble, should be done thoroughly, with the whole heart. This idea of the dignity of labor was entirely new to the freedmen In the old days they had worked only because they had to work. Now the stu- dents were paid for what they did on the school farm and buildings, and in turn they paid for their tuition and for their clothes with the money that they earned. Thus they learned the use and the value of money, as they never could have learned it if the school and its advantages had been a free gift to them. Hampton Institute was started to help the negroes , but t^n years after its beginning, an- other down-trodden race asked for admission. SAMUEL C. ARMSTRONG 311 There had been an insurrection of Indians in the West, and a company of chiefs were brought as prisoners to old Fort Marion, in St. Augus- tine, Florida. Colonel Pratt had charge of them, and he believed in keeping them busy. The grounds of the fort were stony and there was little that they could do there, so he found work for them in the town. At first people hesi- tated to employ them, but the Indians worked with such good-will and to such good purpose that they soon had all the work they could do. Colonel Pratt also taught them to read and write. He gave them pencils and paper and then, writing the alphabet on the rough walls of the fort, he pronounced the letters carefully and the Indians copied them. The ladies of the town also came to the fort to teach them ; and the Indians became so interested that when their days of captivity were over, twenty-two decided to stay in the East. "We have started on God's road now," said Lone Wolf, " because God's road is the same for the red man as for the white man." Colonel Pratt asked the Hampton Institute to open its doors to them, and they were admitted. The instructors wondered how the Indians and the negroes would get along together, but the red man went cheerfully to work and learned 312 AMERICAN PIONEERS as well as the black man how to use the hoe and the plow, the hammer and the trowel. A year or two afterwards another company of Sioux In- dians arrived at Hampton, forty boys and nine girls. It had been hoped that there would be as many girls as boys; but the Indians were much more willing to send their boys than their THE BARN Al IIA.MI'ION I.NS 111 U IK girls, because in an Indian household, the women do all the work, and the girls were needed at home. The new comers were a wild-looking set. They were dressed in the native Indian costume, with bright-colored blankets thrown across their shoulders and their lonof hair braided in two braids and decorated with pi3Lyz» S ' ♦ABChOEfGHIKLMS: S HOPQRJTUV W 21 i ^ XY^ $: ^ ^ §icd ifiii i^im^^p.'^ (. 2 ■ * /■ ■ ^ * ■ ^ ( ;g NeefoatoDvratfii, «* f ^'^ ■ ■ • ^T A PAGE OF EI.IOl'S " INDIAN PRIMER," PRINTED AT CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, IN 1669 winter, year after year, throughout his long life. He quickly learned their language, spent much time in their wigwams, told them of God and of Christ, and tried to help them lead pure lives. 21 322 AMERICAN PIONEERS The sons of the forest would gather around him as though he were their father, and often puz- zled him by their questions. "What is a spirit? " they would ask. "Can the soul be inclosed in iron so that it cannot escape?" "Shall I know you in Heaven ? " " Our little children have not sinned ; whither do they go when they die ? " " In Heaven, do they dwell in houses, and what do they do?" "When you choose magistrates, how do you know who are good men, who can be trusted to do right ? " Eliot never tired of answering their many queries and instructing them in the way they should serve God by a better way of living. He taught the women to spin and the men to plant, to hoe, and to harvest ; and he formed among them praying bands, who should worship the only living and true God, and help each other. His love for them and his ceaseless efforts to benefit them won for him all hearts whether in the houses of the white men or the " smoky cells" of the natives. It was in 1660 that John Thorowgood, an English writer, first of all called him " The Apostle to the Indians." The name was so appropriate that he has been so called to this day, and no other man has received the tide. Eliot's " praying bands " were formed in seven JOHN ELIOT 323 towns where Indians lived, around Boston, and in Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, along the shores of Cape Cod, and indeed toward the west, among the Nipmucks in Dudley, Oxford, and Uxbridge. Two Indians from Martha's Vineyard took the entire course of study at Harvard College. One was graduated and re- ceived his diploma, but the other was drowned just before Commencement came. About the year 1650 Eliot formed an Indian church at a place now known as South Natick, but his greatest work for the red man was his translation of the entire Bible into the Indian language. This book was printed at Cambridge and was the first Bible published in America. While Eliot was at work on his translation, he came to the fifth chapter of Judges, verse twenty- eight. This reads, " The mother of Sisera looked out of a window and cried through a lattice." He knew of no Indian term for " lattice," so he asked several natives for the right word. They did not seem to understand what he meant though he carefully explained that a lattice was a kind of wicker-work or netting. Finally an old Indian gave him a long unpronounceable word ; and, as he could not do better, Eliot put it down. Long afterwards, when he had become more fa- miliar with the Indian tongue, and was revising 324 AMERICAN PIONEERS ^^;i^I^^i^^-i^-^->^-^>^^^'^>^i>^^^ii^^?.^?-?t?l»M WUNNEETITANATAMU'E Di UP-BIBLUM GOD I NANEESWE p; NUKKONC testament! KAH WONK ig WUSKU TESTAMENT. | ••a! his work before giving it to the printer, he was surprised and amused to find that the word meant an eel-pot ! The Indian eel-pot was a sort of double basket, wo- ven of willows and so arranged that eels could swim in, but, once in, could not get out again. John Eliot, noble man, unselfish, all his life living the "golden rule" ! Most men would have thought that the work of a large flourishing church like his was enough for any pastor, but Translated : "The Whole Holy Bible of God, Up wiS wilUno" llsO both Old Testament and also New Testament. "^ This turned [into Indian] by the Servant of tO eudurC mucll SUf- Christ who is called John Eliot. Cambridge : . . . Printed by Samuel Green and Marmaduke fcrmg and maUy Johnson, i66^ " • .• •/ i privations it he might better the life of one red man of the forest. When he died, thousands rose up and called him blessed. A little while before his nob afoowcIvC JOHN ELIOT- Jg PriotaiooptuOipc S-mial Cr,i„ kjh M^mMf JM-- ,|JJ 'ii'^fmmm^mwmmm%tat From "Early Bibles of America^" by JoIdi Wright^ D.D. Thovias Whittaker INDIAN TITLE PAGE OF THE ELIOT BIBLE OF 1663 JOHN ELIOT 325 death at the great age of four score and six, some one inquired of him how he was, and he replied, " Alas, I have lost everything ; my understanding leaves me ; my memory fails ; my utterance has gone ; but, I thank God, my charity holds out still ; I find that rather grows than fails." His last words were " Welcome, joy-" " His youth was innocent ; his riper age Marked with some act of goodness, every day ; And watched by eyes that loved him, calm and sage, Faded his last declining years away. Cheerful he gave his being up, and went To share the holy rest that waits a life well spent." CHAPTER XXVIII PETER CARTWRIGHT 1785-1872 TN the early pioneer days in the West, only the larger villages had churches and pastors. The frontiersmen were too widely scattered to gather together every Sunday and were often too poor to pay the salary of a settled preacher. Therefore they were dependent upon the occa- sional visits of a travelinor circuit-rider for their sermons, their funeral services, and their wed- dings. A circuit-rider's parish often extended over a distance of five hundred miles. He rode his rounds on horseback and held meetings here and there, sometimes in a little log church, more often in a barn or a house, most frequently in the open air with a stump for a pulpit. His work finished in one place, he rode on to the next settlement, returning again in three, four, five, or six weeks, according to the time it took to go the rounds. These circuit preachers were earnest men who did much hard work and got very little pay. PETER CARTWRTGHT 327 Their whole salary for a year was frequently but forty dollars, which would not buy many books or luxuries. In fact some of them were men of little education and were rough in speech and manners. They dressed in homespun woven and made into garments for them, frequently by the women of their parishes. They slept at any house that would open its doors to them or else camped in the open air. They had to encounter heat, cold, storms, swollen rivers, and, worst of all, des- perate men. There- fore, it was nec- essary that they should be strong in body, quick in wit, and of great piety and zeal. One of the most noted of these preachers was Peter Cartwrig-ht. He rode the circuit for over fifty years and in that time preached fourteen thousand, six hundred sermons. His first circuit was in Kentucky and Tennessee. The settle- ments were far apart, and it took him four weeks PETER CARTVVRIGHT 328 AMERICAN PIONEERS to complete his circuit. Then he had two days' rest before he began his rides again. Cartwright was at this time under twenty years of age, and much of his early success was due to his youth. Wherever he held a meeting, the people would flock to hear "the Kentucky boy." It was at the close of one of his first appoint- ments that he started back toward his father's home. He had been gone three years and was in a sorry state. His clothes were patched and torn ; his horse was blind ; his saddle was nearly worn out ; his bridle was ready to drop to pieces at any moment. He had but seventy-five cents in his pocket, and five hundred miles to travel. " No use to parley about it," he said. " Go on I must, or do worse." He decided to go as far as he could with the money he had, then stop and work awhile and travel on agfain. He had not ridden far before he met a woman he knew. " How are you off for money.?" she asked. "I expect you have received but little in this circuit." " I have just seventy-five cents," he replied. She asked him to her house ; but when he re- fused her invitation, she took out a dollar and gave it to him. It was all the money she had with her. The dollar and seventy-five cents lasted until PETER CARTW RIGHT 329 he reached the Ohio River. He had nothing with which to pay his fare across and was about to ask the ferryman to trust him for the twenty- five cents, when Colonel Shelby, his father's neighbor, rode up. " Peter, is that you?" he cried. "Yes, Moses, what little is left of me." " Well, from your appearance, you must have seen hard times. Are you trying to get home ?" " Yes." "How are you off for money, Peter?" the Colonel then asked. " Moses, I have not a cent in the world." " Well, here are three dollars, and I will give you a bill of the road and a letter of introduction till you get into the barrens at Pilot Knob." Cartwright thankfully accepted the Colonel's help and rode on until he passed Pilot Knob, and his money was again gone. Night came on, and it was necessary for him to seek shelter at an inn. He told the landlord that he had been from home three years and that his money was gone, but he offered him the few books that he had in his saddle-bags and an old watch. The man told him to " light and be easy " and would take neither watch nor books. When Cartwright reached home his father gave him a new suit, a fresh horse and harness, 330 AMERICAN PIONEERS and forty dollars. He was now ready for his next appointment. Bishop Asbury once gave him the circuit that included the town of Marietta in Ohio. Cart- wright did not want to go to Marietta. It had a considerable population ; the people had come from New England, and their customs were dif- ferent from those of the Kentucky pioneers. He was afraid of " the Yankees," as he called them, because he had heard that they lived en- tirely on pumpkins, molasses, fat meat, and black tea ; that they could not bear long sermons, and that they were always criticizing " us poor backwoods preachers." Cartwright went to Bishop Asbury and begged him with tears to put some one else in his place and let him go. The bishop took him in his arms and said, " No, my son. Go, in the name of the Lord. It will make a man of you." " Ah," Cartwright thought, " if this is the way to make men, I do not want to be a man." But he took his circuit. In his autobiography Cartwright wrote, "If ever I had hard times it surely was this year." He found Marietta a good school, however, for he was obliged to study his Bible more thoroughly than ever before in order to hold his own in his PETER CARTWRIGHT 331 discussions with the people. " I had to battle or run," he said ; and as he never hesitated to do his part in any encounter, he did not run. Cartwright made use of every opportunity to preach a sermon ; and though many of his methods were peculiar and could never have been used in a more civilized country, he met with wonderful success in his work and helped thousands of people to lead better lives. One evening, according to his own story, he rode up to an inn and asked for accommodations for the night. He was told that there was to be a dance there, and that probably he would not find it a pleasant place to stay. He decided to remain and later on went into the dance hall. A young woman seeing the stranger by the door went up to him and asked him to dance. Cartwright quickly determined to try an experi- ment. He took her by the hand and walked into the center of the room. The negro musician im- mediately began to tune up his violin, but Cart- wrip-ht told him to wait. He then said that he never took any important step without asking God's blessing He knelt in the center of the floor and compelled his partner to kneel with him. The company was -surprised, to say the least. The negro fled to the kitchen crying, " What de matter ? What is dat mean ? " Cartwright offered his prayer and preached his sermon, and it resulted 332 AMERICAN PIONEERS in his forming a church there with thirty-two members. In that rough time and place the rowdies fre- quently tried to break up the camp-meetings, and the preachers were often obliged to meet them in A CAMI'-AIEKTING GROUND OF 1 HE WEST Open battle with sticks and staves. A central place was chosen for a camp-meeting ; and the people for miles around came in their wagons, pitched their tents, and remained several days. Meet- ings were carried on night and day by different preachers. At one of these camp-meetings the PETER CARTWRIGHT 333 leaders had had an unusually rough time, but had succeeded in overcoming their tormentors. After quiet had been gained, Cartwright said to one of the other preachers, " I feel a clear conscience to preach, for under the circumstances we have done right. Now I ask you to let me preach." " Do," the men replied, " for there is no other man on the ground that can do it." The camp was lighted, the trumpet blown, the people collected, and Cartwright preached as though he had never been engaged in a fight in his life. He was clearly the favorite with the younger people as one other story will show. Another camp-meeting had been much disturbed by a com- pany of boys. Cartwright went back and told them that they ought to hear the preacher. " Oh ! if it were you we would gladly hear you," they cried. " Boys, do you really want to hear me ? " he asked. "Yes, we do," and the answer came with an enthusiasm that showed they meant what they said. " Well, if you do, go and gather all those in- attentive groups and come to the grove two hun- dred yards south, and I will preach to you." Two or three hundred collected and sat down 334 AMERICAN PIONEERS in the shade. Cartwright mounted a stump and preached an hour or more, and they listened attentively. When Cartwright was an old man, he was sent from Illinois to a general conference of the Methodist Church at Boston. His fame had reached even to the East, and people were anx- ious to hear the pioneer preacher of the West. He received an invitation to preach one Sunday morning in a Boston church. He realized that Eastern congregations were accustomed to very different addresses from those that would interest a backwoods audience. So he made careful prep- arations and preached what he thought was his best sermon in a grave and dignified manner. Of course he made a complete failure. He was not himself, and it was the real Peter Cartwright that the Boston people wished to hear. They were disappointed and did not hesitate to say so. " Is this Peter Cartwright of Illinois, the old western pioneer?" some one asked after the service. " Yes, I am the very man." " Well, brother, we are much disappointed. You have fallen much under our expectations. We expected to hear a much greater sermon than you have preached to-day." " How can it be helped, brother ? " he replied. PETER CARTWRIGHT 335 " I did as well as I could and was nearly at the top of my speed." The next time he was asked to preach, he pre- pared his sermon with even greater care and de- livered it in the same quiet way. Again he failed to interest the people and was so hurt and dis- couraged that he did not want to preach again in Boston. "Your good people have not got enough sense to know a good sermon when they hear it," he said. When he was invited to preach at the Seamen's Bethel, its pastor said, "Why don't you take off your coat and roll up your sleeves and give it to them in true Western style?" " If you will let me preach as we do in the West, I have no objection to preaching to your congregation or anywhere in Boston," he replied. That night Cartwright gave his sermon as though he were speaking to one of his old con- gregations in the woods. This time his audience was not disappointed in him; and after that, wherever he spoke, the room was filled to over- flowing. The old pioneer days have long since passed away in Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. To-day Peter Cartwright would be as much out of place there as he was fifty years ago in Boston. In fact long before he died the 336 AMERICAN PIONEERS fine churches and the pipe organs and the edu- cated ministers that were rapidly increasing in the West made him heart-sick. His methods and his preaching were fitted only for the rough pioneer life of the time. He gave his people what they wanted and served them faithfully through a long, busy life. (^ •- 4:d^ea;<2>*i5f Fort Dearborn, the Beginning of Chicago, Illinois, in 1810 CHAPTER XXIX DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX 1 805-1 887 TN all past ages the weak, the lame, the blind, the insane were supposed to be beyond cure or even help. Only within recent years have the stronor tried to better the condition of those they once despised. As the teachings of Christ have been more thoroughly understood and more closely followed, a brighter day has dawned for the unfortunate and the oppressed. The story of the education of Laura Bridgman urged forward all lovers of mankind to renew their ef- forts to help other sufferers. The reformation and the useful lives of such men as John B. Gough and Jerry McAuley encouraged many to make an earnest effort to break their bonds of drunkenness and sin. In former days insane people were too often judged to be under the control of Satan, and any effort to lessen their sufferings or to improve their condition seemed the same as helping the evil one. In England, more than a century ago, 338 AMERICAN PIONEERS the Society of Friends had estabHshed an insti- tution called " The Retreat," which was very successful in its care of the insane. In this coun- try, as early as 1750, Benjamin Franklin and others added a department for these unfortunate people in the new Pennsylvania Hospital ; but very little was done for their benefit, either in this coun- try or in Europe until DorotheaDix, withstrong, unyield- ing purpose began her heroic work. It was a great under- taking, but she was in every way fitted for the ser- vice. Most persons would have been overcome by the greatness of the task and the many discourage- ments ; but whatever Miss Dix fairly began, indeed what she once fully decided upon, was sure to be a success. It could not be otherwise. Dorothea Dix, from early childhood, had seen the hard side of life. Her younger years were far from happy. From the time she was twelve, DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX 339 her home was with her grandparents in Boston. They were well-to-do and highly respectable, yet they starved her heart and stunted her imagina- tion. Her home was a grim and joyless one; and she herself said later in life, " I never knew childhood." Yet it would seem that the very hardness of her early life only fitted her for her life-work. She took up the problem of bettering the condition of the more unfortunate portion of our race, with a will and a determination that would stop at no denial and yield to no obstacle. After some years of successful teaching and after two years of travel in the West Indies and in Europe, her mind was opened to the neglect and the sufferings of the weak-minded and the insane. Indeed, people to-day can scarcely be- lieve the conditions which she found to exist in all the states of our country as well as in Europe. In the hospitals of Great Britain the patients were confined in cells with no floors but the earth, with no windows, and with no ventilation. The straw upon which they slept was changed once a week and at this time only were the occu- pants taken out into the open air. They received very little medical treatment, and what they did have was the opposite of what should have been given them. Instead of being strengthened by 340 AMERICAN PIONEERS proper food and care, they were bled regularly once a month and weakened by medicines. " This has been the practice," said a physician, " for long years before my time, and I do not know of any better way." Miss Dix visited the pris- ons, the hospitals, and the insane retreats in every state this side of the Rocky Mountains, and what she found everywhere was appalling: " Insane persons confined in cages, closets, eel- DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX 34I lars, Stalls, pens ; chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience." In one case an insane man had been confined for years in a dungeon or cell " from six to eight feet square, built entirely of stone — sides, roof, and floor," with no light, no fresh air, no heat even in winter, and no ventilation. This is only a single example of what Miss Dix found here and there in all parts of the country, and the story is too dreadful to repeat. Let us draw a veil over the sad picture and follow Miss Dix to see what success she met in chanofinyf the treat- ment of the insane. In the city of Providence there was a small asylum that gave to its patients wise and kind care, but it was too overcrowded to do the work it wished to do. Miss Dix determined to solicit funds from a Rhode Island merchant of large means, to enlarge the buildings. Like many men absorbed in the pursuit of wealth, he had acquired so great a passion for money getting that it was well-nigh impossible to persuade him to give away a single dollar. Every one to whom she made known her plan smiled, and some re- minded her that she might as well try to get "milk out of a stone." However, she called at the house of the close-fisted millionaire and had an interview with him. 342 AMERICAN PIONEERS Through force of habit, he sought to put her off by talking about the weather and any topic but that for which she had come. Miss Dix kept her good humor, until at last she rose from her chair and with "commanding dignity" said, " Mr. Blank, I wish you to hear what I have to say. I wish to bring before you certain facts, involving terrible suffering to your fellow-crea- tures all around you — suffering which you can relieve. My duty will end when I have done this, and with you will then rest the responsibil- ity." Then she told, with a feeling that she could hardly control, the pathetic story of what she had seen with her own eyes in the state of Rhode Island — case after case of most inhuman cruelty like that related above. He listened spell-bound till she ended and then said abruptly, " Miss Dix, what do you want me to do ?" "Sir, I want you to give fifty thousand dollars toward the enlargement of the insane hospital in your city." " Madam, I'll do it !" was the answer. This was Miss Dix's second victory. The first had been the securing from the Mas- sachusetts legislature two hundred thousand dollars for the hospital for the insane at Wor- cester, DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX 343 Thus was begun, not much more than sixty years ago, a movement which has changed the whole opinion of the people of our country, and indeed of the countries of Europe, as to the con- dition and the needs of the unfortunate insane. All has not been done for them that is needed, but a complete change has been made in their treatment. Time will fail to tell of the g-reat work done by Miss Dix for the insane and for criminals as well, in our own country and in Europe. She was so eager and so enthusiastic that people could not resist her appeals for help. They opened their hearts and their purses. During the ten years between 1850 and i860 she prob- ably obtained more money as gifts for purely benevolent purposes than any other person ever secured, in the Old World or the New. Even the children in the homes where she visited gave their toys to the poor children that Miss Dix was trying to help. When the War of Secession broke out. Miss Dix at once offered her services to the Secretary of War as a nurse ; and during those terrible four years of bloody strife and fierce battles, she spent her time in improving the hospitals and relieving the sufferings of thousands upon thou- sands of the sick and the wounded. 344 AMERICAN PIONEERS When the war was over and peace once more spread her white wings over our broad country, Miss Dix set herself to work to raise the funds to build a monument in memory of the six thou- sand soldiers who were buried in the National Cemetery near Fortress Mon- roe. Her heart had been so touched by the heroism of the soldiers and their patience when sick and suffer- ing, that she was determined that the stone for this monument should be the best that could be obtained. She visited quarry after quarry until CARING FOR THE WOUNDED ON THE HATTLEFIELD she found a granite that was hard enough and beautiful enough to satisfy her. To-day in that National Cemetery, under the shade of cedars and magnolias, more than twelve thousand Union soldiers sleep, while the monument, seventy-five DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX 345 feet in height, stands guard by night and by day. " It promises to stand for centuries unless an earthquake should shake it down," she said when it was lifted to its place. Our heroine now took up again her hospital service and for years carried on her Christ-like work, especially in the southern states. She succeeded in getting aid from the legislatures of thirteen states for state lunatic asylums. She was the direct means of founding, or enlarging, thirty-two hospitals including two entirely new asylums at Halifax and at St. John. Then by her influence in her last days, there were added to this list two more in far-away Japan, with others still to follow. When the great Chicago and Boston fires came, she collected large sums of money from her friends, and quietly and with good judgment searched out for herself where help was most needed to lessen the wide-spread distress. At length, when more than fourscore years old, and ill and worn out with her work, she was invited to make her home in the Asylum in Trenton, New Jersey, the first of the many insti- tutions founded by her. There, for five years she lingered, cheered by the letters and visits of many devoted friends. She died on July 19th, 1887, and was buried in Mount Auburn Ceme- 34^ AMERICAN PIONEERS tery at Cambridge, Massachusetts. One who witnessed her death and burial wrote as follows : "Thus has died and been laid to rest in the most quiet and unostentatious way the most useful and distinoruished woman America has yet produced." The Old Jail in New Yorl< City CHAPTER XXX JOHN BARTHOLOMEW GOUGH 1817-1886 nr^HE famous temperance lecturer, John B, Gough, in the story of his Hfe tells us the following incident, which is here somewhat short- ened : " On the last Sunday evening of October, 1842, I wandered out into the streets thinking of my lonely and friendless condition. My frame was much weakened by long indulgence in alco- holic liquors, and was little fitted to bear the cold of winter. " As I shuffled along the sidewalk, some one tapped me on the shoulder. It was the first touch of kindness which I had known for months. He said, * Mr. Gough, I believe.' ' That is my name.' I replied. ' You have been drinking, to-day.' ' Yes, sir, I have.' ' Why do you not sign the pledge ?' I considered for a moment or two, and then informed the strange friend that I had no hope of ever becoming a sober man ; that I was with- 348 AMERICAN PIONEERS out a single friend in the world who cared for me or what became of me ; that I fully expected to die soon, — I cared not how soon, or whether I died drunk or sober ; and in fact that I was in a condition of utter despair. " The stranger regarded me with a kind look, took me by the arm and asked me how I should like to be as I once was, respectable and esteemed, well clad, and sitting as I used to, in a place of worship, enabled to meet my friends as in old times — in fact become a useful member of society. " ' Oh,' I replied, •I should like all JOHN li. GOUGII these things well enough ; but such a change cannot be pos- sible.' " ' Only sign our pledge and I will warrant that it will be so. Sign it, and I will introduce you myself to good friends, who will feel an interest JOHN BARTHOLOMEW GOUGH 349 in your welfare and take pleasure in helping you to keep your promise. Only, Mr. Gough, sign the pledge, and all will be as I have said , aye, and more too.' " Oh, how pleasantly fell those words of kind- ness and promise on my crushed and bruised heart ! A chord had been touched which vibrated to the tone of love. Hope dawned, and I began to think that such things as my friend promised me might come to pass. " ' Well,' I said, ' I will do it.' " ' When ? ' he asked. " ' I cannot do it to-night, for I imtsf have more drink presently ; but I certainly will to- morrow night.' " ' We have a temperance meeting to-morrow evening, will you sign it there?' '"I will.' " ' That is right,' he said, grasping my hand. ' I will be there to see you.' "'You shall,' I remarked, and we parted." That night Gough drank till he was very drunk, staggered home, threw himself upon his bed and lay in a stupor until morning. He de- scribes in a most pathetic manner his condition the next day, but tells us that when evening came he attended the temperance meeting and signed the pledge, in the presence of a large company. 350 AMERICAN PIONEERS " In my palsied hand I with difficulty grasped the pen ; and, in characters almost as crooked as those of old Stephen Hopkins on the Declara- tion of Independence, I signed the total absti- nence pledge and resolved to free myself from, the inexorable tyrant — rum." Here was the turning point in the life of the man. He had been a confirmed drunkard, tlis young wife and child had died in poverty, after which his downward career had been rapid. Now there was a chance for a better life. Would he succeed in reaching it ? or would he fall back again as so many had done before him ? John Bartholomew Gough was a native of Kent County, England, His father was a pri- vate soldier in the British army. His mother was a good woman who tried to start her boy on the road to industry and an honorable life. When he was twelve years of age, he was sent over to America with a family of English emi- grants. At fourteen he drifted to New York City. He apprenticed himself to learn the book- binder's trade and earned two dollars and fifty cents a week, two dollars of which he paid for his board. Later he sent for his mother and sis- ter to come from England to live with him. Then in the cold winter, when business was dull, the boy and his sister lost their positions. The JOHN BARTHOLOMEW GOUGH 35 I family moved into a garret. They had neither food nor fuel for many days. His mother became ill ; and in desperation one day the boy rushed out, pawned his coat, and bought a little meat and broth for her. But the poor mother died and was buried in a pauper's grave. Then began his downfall. Yielding to the influence of bad company, for more than nine years he went from bad to worse. Drunkenness is a terrible vice, and finally be- comes a disease from which recovery is extremely difficult. But although he had been a confirmed drunkard, Mr. Gough conquered his craving for drink and became a man. After signing the pledge, he was filled with a burning desire to help other drinking men to reform. A bitter experience, however, was before him. Deceived by others and led into temptation, twice Mr. Gough yielded and fell ; but he quickly recov- ered himself, acknowledged his fall, and started anew. Then began a remarkable career of honor and usefulness. John B. Gough became the most popular orator of his age and the greatest tem- perance lecturer the world has ever seen. For nearly forty years he was busy, early and late, never sparing himself in his endeavors to ad- vance the cause of temperance in this country 352 AMERICAN PIONEERS and the British Isles. He was honored and loved by all. His mind was always alive to the humorous, and he enlivened his lectures with amusing inci- dents to illustrate the point he wished to make. At one time he mentioned the word " compro- mise." He said that many medical men were coming up over all England with compromises. He remarked, " I don't like compromises. Com- promises remind me of a story that a negro once told." Then in his inimitable way he told how one negro met another and said, " Sambo, does you know dat I was sorely tempted t'oder night? Yes, sir, I was sorely tempted ; but bress de Lord I 'stood de temptation." " Why, how was dat ?" said Sambo. " Well, you know, Misser Jonsing's shoe store. I was in dere t'oder evening an' I look up on de shelf an' dere stood a new pair of boots, dat would jest fit me — I knowed — jest mysize, number four- teen — jest my size, an' my old boots all wore out at de side and de bottoms all frew, an' I needed a new pair dreffuUy. Jess den, Misser Jonsing went out an' left me dere all alone. Den de debel said, * Did you eber see such a nice pair ob boots? Take 'um, take 'um.' But the Lord stood by an' said, ' Let dem boots alone. Don't take 'um. Dat's stealin'.' Dere was de Lord on one side JOHN BARTHOLOMEW GOUGH 353 alone, an' dere was I an' de debel on de oderside, — a clear majority. Now I might ha' taken dem boots an' put 'em under my coat here an' gone out an' nobody 'ud known it. But, bress de Lord, I 'stood de temptation. I compromised an' took a pair ob shoes instead." This shows how well Mr. Goucrh could use an anecdote to interest and convince his hearers ; and he did convince them. Here is another of his illustrations : " Many persons complain that we attack a good thing. A gentleman once said to me that we were attacking that which was a very excel- lent thing under certain circumstances. A friend of mine on one occasion said to me that whiskey had saved a great many lives, and I thought that I would tell him a story. I said, ' You remind me of a boy who wrote a composition about "Pins." He said, 'A pin is a very queer thing, with a round head and a small point. If you stick pins into you they hurt. Men use pins when the buttons are off. You can buy pins for five cents a paper ; and if you swallow a pin it will kill you ; and they have saved thousands of lives.' " The teachersaid, ' Why, Jimmy, how do you mean that they have saved thousands of lives ? ' " ' By people not swallowing them,' was the reply. So we allow that whiskey has saved 23 354 AMERICAN PIONEERS thousands of lives by people not swallowing it." At another time he told of a gentleman who contended that alcohol was a food, that it im- parted strength and therefore it must have nour- ishment in it. Mr. Gough questioned the state- ment that it imparted strength. The man replied that one under the influence of intoxicants could do what he could not have done without the liquor. Mr. Goueh then said that one could do under excitement what he could not have done without the excitement, although no additional strength had been imparted. His opponent objected: "No, no. If there were activity and excitement imparted, there must have been nourishment imparted." " But," Mr. Gough replied, " if you break into a hornet's nest, there is no ' nourishment ' received there ; but there is a great deal of excitement. I tell you, you would do under such circumstances what you would never do otherwise, and perhaps you would run faster than ever you did before in your life, without a particle of strength or nour- ishment having been given you." John B. Gough swayed his audiences in a most powerful manner. Few, if any, orators in the wide world during the forty years of his public life exerted a broader, deeper, or more weighty JOHN BARTHOLOMEW GOUGH 355 influence for good. After his second extended tour through England, Scotland, and Ireland, Mr. Gough sailed for home in August, i860. His last lecture in London was given to an im- mense audience in Exeter Hall, where he had spoken ninety-five times. Those who had signed the pledge in Exeter Hall had subscribed for an elegant Bible which was then presented to him. In it were written the names of the numerous givers, and it was indeed a beautiful gift. Mr. Gough says : " When the Bible was presented I rose to reply, and no school-boy, on his first appearance, could have felt more embarrassed. I knew not what to say. At last, I said, ' My dear friends, as I look at this splendid testimonial of your good- will — rich in morocco and gold — beautiful as a work of art and skill — I think of another book, a little one, broken, torn, ragged, and imperfect — you would hardly pick it up in the street — but to me, precious as your gift is to-night, more precious is that little book. " ' On the illuminated fly-leaf of this I read : " Presented August 8, i860, to John B. Gough, on his leaving England for America, by those only who signed the pledge after hearing him in Exeter Hall, London." On the brown, mildewed fly-leaf of the other book are these words : " Jane 356 AMERICAN PIONEERS GoLigh, born August 12, 1776. John Gough, born August 22, 181 7. The gift of his mother on his departure from England to America." Two gifts and two departures.' " As I began to review the two past experiences AUUIENCE CHEERING JOHN GOUGH IN EXETER HALL, LONDON since I left home, thirty-one years before, the flood of recollections came over me, combined with the tender associations connected with fare- well, and I stammered, became nervous, and unable to proceed. As I stood there, the unshed tears filling my eyes, Tbomas Irving White rose, and taking me by the hand, said : 'God bless him! Give him three cheers.' The audience JOHN BARTHOLOMEW GOUGH 35/ Started to their feet and with waving of hats and handkerchiefs, gave them with a will. That unsealed the fountain and I bowed my head and cried like a very boy. " Prayer was offered and afterwards the exer- cises continued, and I told them that this splen- did book should occupy an honored place in my home ; but the little, old, battered Bible of my mother should lie by its side. And there they do lie, on a table procured for the purpose — the two books remain together, as mementoes of the past, and the realities of the present, till God shall call me." After his death, in 1886, Joseph Cook said of him, "Two nations, now the foremost on earth, mourn a fiery man of Kent. Humanity mourns ; for this man had fire in his emotions, in his imagination, in his intellect, in his will, and in his conscience. He has addressed more than eight millions of hearers, given more than eight thou- sand addresses, and traveled more miles on his lecture tours than would reach twenty times around the globe." In the great temperance movement that has done so much, especially in the United States and in Great Britain, for the elevation of the human race, he certainly was a pioneer — a mas- ter workman that needeth not to be ashamed. 358 AMERICAN PIONEERS KEY TO PRONUNCIATION a as a in ate. a " " at. a " " arm. a " " all. a " " air. a " " i-