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ISSUED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY 
 OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN RESOLUTION 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK 
 OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 THE STORY OF A YOUNG PEOPLE'S 
 PILGRIMAGE TO HISTORIC HOMES 
 
 ELBRIDGE S! BROOKS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE CENTURY BOOK FOR YOUNG AMERICANS," 
 "HISTORIC BOYS," "A BOY OF THE FIRST EMPIRE," ETC. 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS AND MANY OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE CENTURY CO., NEW YORK 
 

 Copyright, 1S96, by The Century Co. 
 
 The De ViNNe Preu. 
 
^ 
 ^^^-^^^^f 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Office of the President-General, National Society 
 OF the Daughters of the American Revolution. 
 
 Washington, D. C, June i8, 1896. 
 
 The organization of the National Society of the Daughters of the American 
 Revolution was the outgrowth of that notable epoch in American history when from 
 the Pacific coast the tidal wave of patriotic enthusiasm started, and by its might and 
 power kindled in the hearts of men and women interest in the Colonial and Revolu- 
 tionary periods which had so long lain dormant. 
 
 The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution was organ- 
 ized in Washington, D. C, October 11, 1890. Its objects are: "(i) To perpetuate 
 the memory and the spirit of the men and women who achieved American Indepen- 
 dence, by the acquisition and protection of historic spots and the erection of monu- 
 ments ; by the encouragement of historical research in relation to the Revolution, and 
 the publication of its results ; by the preservation of documents and relics, and of 
 the records of the individual services of Revolutionary soldiers and patriots, and by the 
 promotion of celebrations of all patriotic anniversaries. (2) To carry out the injunction 
 of Washington in his farewell address to the American people : ' To promote, as an ob- 
 ject of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge,' thus 
 developing an enlightened public opinion, and affording to young and old such advan- 
 tages as shall develop in them the largest capacity for performing the duties of American 
 citizens. (3) To cherish, maintain, and extend the institutions of American freedom, 
 to foster true patriotism and love of country, and to aid in securing for mankind all 
 the blessings of liberty." 
 
 To-day the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, 
 numbering fourteen thousand five hundred, supplemented by the organization of the 
 National Society of the Children of the American Revolution, numbering fourteen 
 
VIII IN"rR<iI)ltJTIOX 
 
 hundred and thirty, whose motto is, " l*"or God and country," stand united, to main- 
 tain the objects of tlie National Society as presented in the constitution and by-laws 
 of the DauglUers of the American Revolution. 
 
 By the authority of the National Hoard of Managers this brief introduction is 
 written, and it is a free-will offering. It may be well, further, to state that the 
 National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution have no other interest 
 in "The Century Book of Famous Americans" than to wish it all success in its 
 endeavor to place before the youth of our country an account of the lives of some of 
 the men who have helped to make America famous. 
 
 Letiti.x Gkeen Stevenson, 
 
 President- General. 
 
 THE CiARDEN AT MOUNT VERNON. 
 
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 SOME BOSTON SPIRES. FROM A PRINT (1758> IN THE KING'S COLLECTION IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In Boston Town i 
 
 T/ie Birthplace of Franklin — Tin- Story of James Otis — Tories and Traitors — 
 The Webster Buildings — The Samuel Adams Tablet — The Father of the Revo- 
 lution — A Novel Pili'rimase. 
 
 II In the Home of two Presidents 17 
 
 Qiiincy Granite and Qiiincy Men — The Little Old Houses — " Sink or S^i'ini " 
 — On Pentis Hill — A Great Father and His Famous Son — An Historic 
 Afansioii. 
 
 Ill In the Old Colony 33 
 
 From Plymouth to Duxliury — The Puritan Capiat i: — The J I ehter Farm — 
 Marshfeld by the Sea — Daniel Ji'ebstcr's Story — The Home of a Great Ameri- 
 can. 
 
 IV In the Nation's First Capital 
 
 Neiii York's Greatest Man — A Tour of the Old Town — Famous Men and His 
 toric Points — The Story of Alexander Hamilton — A Peinarkaldc Character. 
 
 49 
 
 V The Home of the Liberty Bell . 65 
 
 Where Franklin Lived — An Fxtraordinary Man — The Story of a Helpful Life 
 — Landmarks and Relics — Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. 
 
 VI At the Gateway of the West 83 
 
 Philadelphia's Place in History — A New Plan of Plgrimage — In the Mouth of 
 the Chesapeake — The Old Dominion — Richmond and Patrick Henry. 
 
X TABLE 0¥ CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VII A Famous Old Capitai 103 
 
 Richmond on the James — A City Set on a Hill — Relus and Reminders — A 
 JeffiTsonian Atmosplten — Xo Sectionalism in Heroism. 
 
 \"lll With the Sage of Monticello 117 
 
 At Charlottesville — Up the Little Mountain — The House with Two Fronts — 
 The Grave on the Mountain — The Story of a Statesman. 
 
 IX In Tin: Hi.le-Grass Country 137 
 
 Cher the Hills into Kentucky — The Three Giants — The Champion of a 
 Mistake — Calhoun's Story — The ''Millboy of the Slashes" — Blue-grass Land- 
 scapes — Ashland, the Home of Henry Clay. 
 
 X In and Around the Hermitage 157 
 
 Jack's Discomfiture — Beautiful Kentucky — The Dark and Bloody Ground — 
 Louis-Alle Hospitality — Glimpses of Jackson — At the Hermitage — Old 
 Alfred's Reminiscences — Relics and Stories — The Home and Character of Old 
 Hickory. 
 
 XI Besiue the Mississippi 173 
 
 Uncle Tom's Latest — Mammoth Cave Explorers — The Birthplace of Lincoln 
 — Across the Prairies — By the "Father of Waters" — Where Grant got His 
 E.xperience — .-/ Leader's Life — A Herd's Death. 
 
 XII At Lincoln's Home 193 
 
 The Mississippi Valley — Honeers of France — Ln Lincoln's Duid — The Sim- 
 plicity of it All — The American — A '■'Rebel's" Tribute. 
 
 XIII liv THE Potomac 211 
 
 /// the Big City of the West — Across Ohio — Ln the Land of Romance — The 
 Great White Dome — At Mount Vernon — The Greatest of Men. 
 
 XIV Talking it Over 233 
 
 Famous Americans in Washington — Homeward Bound — A '■•Quiz" in Fame- 
 study — Lmfressions — Patriotism — Memories — Good-hy. 
 
 Index 251 
 
THE CENTURY BOOK 
 OF FAMOUS AMERICANS. 
 

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 MOUNT VERNON IN 1796. 
 
THE CENTURY BOOK 
 OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN BOSTON TOWN 
 
 The Birthplace of Franklin — The Story of James Otis — Tories and 
 Traitors — The Webster Buildings — The Samuel Adams Tablet — 
 The Father of the Revolution — A Novel Pilgrimage. 
 
 HEY had left the Old South Meeting-house with its revo- 
 lutionary relics, and were slowly sauntering down the sunny 
 side of Milk street when Jack seized his uncle's arm. 
 
 " Look over there, Uncle Tom ! " he cried. " See what it 
 says on that building: 'The Birthplace of Franklin.' Why, 
 I did n't know that Franklin was born in Boston. I thought he was a 
 Philadelphian." 
 
 " He was an American, Jack," Uncle Tom replied. " I sometimes think 
 he was the first real American. But he was Boston born and bred. You 
 ask Roger. I imagine every boy who goes to the Boston Latin School and 
 tries for the Franklin medal knows of the clause in Franklin's will that tells 
 the story. 'I was born in Boston,' it says. 'I owe my first instruction in 
 literature to the free grammar schools established there.' And so he set 
 aside five hundred dollars, the interest from which was to provide, forever, 
 for silver medals for ' the most deserving boys ' of what afterward became 
 the English High and Latin schools of his native town. But, though born 
 in Boston, Philadelphia was the home of Franklin for the greater part of 
 his life." 
 
 "Why, yes; of course I know that, Uncle Tom," Marian declared. 
 " Don't you remember the story. Jack, about Franklin's first day in 
 Philadelphia ? " 
 
THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 "To be sure I do," broke in Jack; "that 's when he saw the girl who 
 afterward became his wife, with a loaf of bread under each arm, eating 
 another." 
 
 Marian laughed so merrily at this that people in the street turned to see 
 who could be so very hilarious in the shadow of the Old South. 
 
 "Now, is n't that just like Jack? " shecried. "You'd think 
 <lin's wife who was eating the bread. And how 
 ne walk the streets with a loaf under each arm 
 another? Franklin did n't have three hands, 
 
 a loaf too many in the story," Jack con- 
 hat of that ? Franklin could have eaten it 
 one could. He was smart enough to do 
 so that 's where he was born, is it? " 
 spot," said Uncle Tom. Some people 
 declare his birthplace was down 
 }y on Hanover street, but it now 
 
 seems pretty certain that the little 
 Milk street house was the right 
 one." 
 
 " But not in that tailor's shop, 
 surely," said Christine. "Why, it 
 does n't look nearly old enough.'' 
 " Of course not," Marian de- 
 cided. " Why, Franklin was born 
 
 in when was he born, Uncle 
 
 Tom ?" " 
 
 '• Seventeenth of January, 
 1 706," promptly replied her uncle, 
 who, as all the boys and girls de- 
 clared, was always "great on dates." 
 " I 'm afraid," he continued, 
 "your making the birthplace of 
 I'Vanklin out of that iron building 
 across the way about equals Jack's 
 three arms, though I must say 
 that the stories all uphold Jack's 
 three loaves." 
 
 "•Aha! Mi.ss Smartv ; what 
 
 THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON. 
 
 Kr.nkiin-sbir.hph« is opposi.c .he farther end. did I tcll you ? ' cned Jack, trmni- 
 
IX BOSTON TOWN 
 
 phantly. " I said Franklin could do it. I 'm going- to try it some 
 day." 
 
 "No; that building over there is, of course, on the site of Franklin's 
 birthplace," Uncle Tom explained. "It simply marks with its memorial 
 tablet the spot on which stood, until 
 the year 1810, the queer little top- 
 heavy wooden cottage in which Ben- 
 jamin Franklin was born." 
 
 " That was a good deal like 
 Franklin himself, was n't it. Uncle 
 Tom ? " Bert commented — " heavy 
 in the upper story, you know." 
 
 " Good enough, Bert ! " laughed 
 Uncle Tom. " Yes ; you may say it 
 was typical. I wish we had more 
 such tablets as that one over the 
 way. It is one of the best history 
 teachers for young Americans that I 
 know of — and for old ones, too," he 
 added. " But come ; let's move on. 
 There 's nothing else about that build- 
 ing to remind us of Franklin, and 
 Faneuil Hall is n't far away." 
 
 They had arrived in Boston that morning on a sight-seeing tour — 
 Uncle Tom Dunlap and his nephews Jack Dunlap and Albert Upham, his 
 niece Marian Dunlap, and her "best friend" Christine Bacon. Of course 
 you remember them — that group of wide-awake boys and girls who, under 
 Uncle Tom's guidance, " did " Washington so thoroughly, from the Consti- 
 tution to the Capitol, and studied into the making of the American nation. 
 
 In the dark doorway of Faneuil Hall Roger was waiting, according to 
 appointment, to welcome and join them. You remember him too, I hope — 
 Roger Densmore, " the boy from Boston." He was to do the honors of 
 "the Hub" for the young folks from "Gotham." 
 
 They inspected Faneuil Hall with due reverence. 
 
 "Who called it the Cradle of Liberty, Uncle Tom?" Christine inquired, 
 as they descended the stairs and walked across to Ouincy Market. 
 
 "James Otis, another famous Bostonian," Uncle Tom replied. "He 
 delivered the address of dedication when this hall was rebuilt. He was the 
 man who really started the American Revolution, you know." 
 
 "What! James Otis?" cried Jack. "Why, I thought Patrick Henry 
 
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 FRANKLINS BIRTHPLACE. 
 House formerly on Milk street, Boston. 
 
A BOSTON liOY WHO IiKrAMK KAMOUS. 
 Itenjamin Fonklin. Porn in Boston in 1706. 
 
IN BOSTON TOWN 
 
 did that — the ' gentlemen - may - cry - peace - peace - but - there - is - no - peace ' 
 
 "No; historians give the credit largely to Otis," Uncle Tom replied. 
 " He really made the first move toward independence, years before Patrick 
 Henry's fiery speech. For when, in 1761, four years before the passage 
 of the Stamp Act, James Otis, in the Superior Court of Massachusetts, in 
 this very town of Boston, resisted the granting of what were called the Writs 
 of Assistance, the first scene of the first act of opposition to British tyranny 
 was opened. ' Then and there,' declared John Adams, fifty years after, ' the 
 child Independence was born.' So, let us 
 give to James Otis the credit that is justly 
 due him." 
 
 "All right; let him have it ! " said Jack, 
 administering an appreciative and emphatic 
 slap to a particularly large beef carcass that 
 hung obtrusively in his path. 
 
 " Whereabouts did he live, Uncle 
 Tom ? " asked Bert. 
 
 " Right here in Boston, Bert,' 
 his uncle replied. 
 
 " Oh, can't we see the house ? " 
 Marian inquired. " Somehow, 
 it always makes people seem 
 more real if one can only see 
 where they once lived ; does 
 n't it, Christine ? " 
 
 "I don't believe his house 
 is standing now," said Uncle 
 Tom. " Do you know, 
 
 Roger ? " 
 
 Roger was obliged to con- 
 fess his ignorance, though he 
 said he believed there was something to do with Otis in the Old State 
 House on Washington street. 
 
 " That 's where he made the famous speech, of which I told you, 
 against the Writs of Assistance," said Uncle Tom. "We '11 go in there 
 later. And I '11 see if I can find out about the house of James Otis. His 
 was a brief but brilliant career, boys and girls ; as sad in its ending as it 
 was promising at the opening. He was a bright young Boston lawyer. 
 Engaged by the British government to look after its cases in the Boston 
 
 THE BIRTHPLACE OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 iterior view of Old State House, Boston, where James Otis delivered 
 his famous speech; chair of Elbridge Gerry ; bust of James Otis. 
 
6 THE CENTLRV BOOK OF KAMOLS AMERICANS 
 
 courts, he threw up his [josition and all its advantages, because he would 
 not argue a case that seemed to threaten the liberties of the people. He 
 became the people's champion, an eloquent and impassioned orator, a tire- 
 less worker for liberty, one of the leaders of the early Boston patriots, a 
 member of the first Continental Congress, and destined, apparently, to play 
 an important part in the drama of Independence. Then, suddenly, all 
 changed. In a coffee-house here in Boston he was set upon by a gang 
 of ruffianly Tories, knocked senseless, made an incurable lunatic, and, the 
 very year that the Revolution he had started ended in success, he was 
 killed by a stroke of lightning." 
 
 " George ! that was rough, though, was n't it ? " said Jack. 
 
 "Those horrid Tories!" e.\claim(;d Marian. "Oh — I just despise 
 them ! " 
 
 " But those were rough, hard days, Marian," salt! Tnclc Tom; "and l:)Oth 
 sides had liieir evil instruments. The fact that men were Tories did not 
 make them bad. Every one has d right to his opinion; it is the way he 
 handles his opinion that makes him either a jniblic friend or a public foe. 
 America has yet to learn and acknowledge the real service that the forces 
 of opposition have done for her development. " 
 
 "Oh, Uncle Tom, how can that be ?" demanded Bert. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that the Tories were a benefit?" cried Marian. 
 
 " In what we call the broad sense, most certainly I do," Uncle Tom re- 
 plied, "much as it inflames your ardent Americanism to hear me proclaim 
 it. The Tories of the Revolution and the Copperheads of the Civil War, 
 though detested by patriots, were themselves, as a rule, conscientious, hon- 
 est, and kind-hearted people, who loved their homes and their families just 
 as dearly as do your fathers and mothers. They meant well ; they even 
 loved their native land : but their standards were not as lofty, nor was 
 their love of country as unselfish as with those whom they opposed." 
 
 "Why, Uncle Tom!" exclaimed Marian, to whom such a doctrine 
 seemed all wrong. 
 
 "So, as I say," went on Uncle Tom, " tlie\- were really a benefit to tlie 
 nation. The intense hatred they aroused in their opponents only drew the 
 determined people closer together, and led them to stand shoulder to shoulder 
 in defense of the cause of liberty. Even those roughs who spoiled the life 
 of James Otis, when they struck down one patriot, inspired a dozen others 
 to be still more ardent in the cause he championed, and to carr\- forward his 
 work. Think of that, boys and girls, as you study the crises in American 
 history. Tories and traitors, instead of weakening our cause, helped it by 
 the spirit and will that they aroused ; and these led straight to victor)'. That 
 
IN BOSTON TOWN 7 
 
 thought will help you, perhaps, better to understand Thomson's perplex- 
 ing line : 
 
 " From seeming evil still educing good." 
 
 " Why, was it Thomson who said that ? " queried Christine. " I thought 
 it was Pope." 
 
 "No,mydear; « it was Thomson," Uncle Tom replied. " But Pope 
 wrote certain lines 1 that are even more applicable to all knotty prob- 
 £M lems of whys and wherefores. 
 
 Who know s them ^ " 
 
 No one knew just to what 
 
 hues of Pope I ncle 
 
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 IN TORY TIMES, 
 escaping from the Tories and the British. 
 
 as they paused before the historic wharf where the disguised patriots flung 
 over the offending chests of tea, he repeated the lines he had in mind : 
 
 " All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee ; 
 
 All Chance, Direction which thou canst not see ; 
 
 All Discord, Harmony not understood; 
 
 All partial Evil, universal Good ; 
 
 And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite, 
 
 One truth is clear : Whatever is, is right ! " 
 
8 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 As they passed along Summer street on their way from the old wharf 
 of the Tea Party to the enlarged and renovated State House on Heacon 
 Hill, Uncle Tom stopped short and pointed across the way to a six -story 
 business block at the corner of Hirrh and Summer streets. 
 
 THE STATUE OK BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 In front of ihc Boston City Hall. 
 
 " See anything peculiar about that building? " he asked. 
 The boys and girls studied it from top to bottom. 
 
 "'The Webster Buildings/" read Marian, looking toward the roof; while 
 Bert's eye, traveling faster, stopped at the lettering above the second story. 
 
IN BOSTON TOWN 9 
 
 "'The Home of Daniel Webster,'" he read. "Is that so? Did Daniel 
 Webster live there ? " he asked. 
 
 " I never noticed that," confessed Roger, " and I 've passed here hundreds 
 of times." 
 
 " Roger, my boy," said Uncle Tom, "you 're not the only American who 
 has no eyes for his own historic surroundings. Yes ; the city house in which 
 Webster lived once stood on that spot. Then, as now-, it was a rounded 
 corner ; but to-day, you see, it is the heart of a business center. There he 
 entertained Lafayette in 1824, and there he lived at the height of his fame." 
 
 " He was a great man, too, was' n't he, Uncle Tom ?" said Marian. 
 
 "Great in many ways," her uncle replied. "Come now, what do you 
 know about Daniel Webster, boys and girls ? " 
 
 " A great lawyer," suggested Bert. 
 
 "A great statesman," said Marian. 
 
 "A great debater," hazarded Roger. 
 
 "A great fisherman," put in Jack. 
 
 "A great American," said Christine. 
 
 " He was all of those," Uncle Tom nodded. 
 
 " He was twice Secretary of State," said Roger. 
 
 " But never President," commented Jack. 
 
 " He made a famous speech against Hayne," said Bert. 
 
 " But went back on the people who elected him," asserted Jack. 
 
 " No ; did he, Uncle Tom ? " demanded Marian. 
 
 "Why, yes ; don't you know, that 's what Whittier's poem ' Ichabod' was 
 all about," Christine announced. " Our history teacher told us that." 
 
 " Say, rather," said Uncle Tom, with a smile at the criticisms of his youth- 
 ful convoy, " that the people progressed faster than their leader. Daniel Web- 
 ster was a great man, a wise man, a noble man ; but the one great question 
 of his day, slavery, was dividing the country North and South. And when 
 a man, however ardently he loves peace and union, tries to please two peo- 
 ple at once, he has a hard time of it, and ends by pleasing neither. That was 
 Daniel Webster's case ; and Whittier's fiery verses, to which Christine refers, 
 were but the expression of the advancing thought of the people of the North 
 — too deeply roused to be calm, too strong of purpose to be discriminating. 
 They had forged far ahead of W^ebster, though he had been the idol and 
 champion of the very people who now called him recreant." 
 
 " But if he thought he was doing right," said Jack, " I call it pretty hard 
 lines to be pitched into like that." 
 
 "My dear Jack," replied Uncle Tom, "if you are ever a leader, look 
 ahead. Lead on to the end. Those who follow often push to the front. 
 
THE CENTrRY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
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 and the leader who lags behind is like the fellow who loses his rank in 
 school or ' goes down foot' — he simph ' is n't in it,' as you boys sa\. " 
 
 They crossed Washington street and in Indian file threaded the nar- 
 row and crowded sidewalk that borders the upper side of Winter street. 
 
 At a "cafion," as Jack 
 ' called it, which cleft the 
 
 blocks of tall stores on 
 Winter street and which, 
 they saw, was called Winter 
 Place, Uncle Tom halted 
 his five followers, and bade 
 them read the bronze tablet 
 set in the dead wall of a 
 great dry-goods store. 
 
 They'did so. The tab- 
 let advised them that, on 
 this corner, once stood the 
 house in which lived Sam- 
 uel Adams, " the Father of 
 the Revolution." 
 
 "How many 'fathers' 
 
 did the Revolution have, 
 
 anyway ?" demanded Jack. 
 
 "1 thought )ou told us, Uncle Tom, that James Otis was its 'respected 
 
 parient.' " 
 
 " I merely quoted John Adams's words to the effect that Otis was the 
 ' father of Independence,' " Uncle Tom explained; " and, in this land of ours, 
 the desire for independence was the forerunner of revolution." 
 
 "Then Otis was a sort of grandfather to it, was n't he ? " Jack com- 
 mented. 
 
 " Samuel Adams ! " said Christine, still reading the tablet on the wall. 
 " Did n't we see his statue somewhere down near F"aneuil Hall ? " 
 
 "Yes, in Dock Square, now known as Adams Square," replied Roger. 
 " I thought so. ' A statesman incorruptible and fearless.' That was 
 what it called him on the statue," said Christine. 
 
 "That was the man," Uncle Tom assented. " Antl lliat was the truth. 
 Here he lived, and in a green plot beyond us, just below the head of Winter 
 street, — the Old Granary Burying-Ground it is called, — he lies buried." 
 
 "Close to his old home," remarked Christine; "and we can see both 
 places. Isn't it interesting?" 
 
 THE SITE OF THE HOME OF SAMUEL ADAMS. 
 On Winter Place, Boston. 
 
IN BOSTON TOWN I I 
 
 "What relation was he to John Adams, Uncle Tom?" Bert inquired. 
 "A brother?" 
 
 "No; John Adams was his second cousin, I believe," Uncle Tom re- 
 plied. "This Samuel Adams was a great man, boys and girls, though 
 without the calmness, the coolness, or the judgment of his greater cousin. 
 Historians tell us that Samuel Adams was the architect of ruin, and John 
 Adams the organizer of law." 
 
 "That means, I suppose," said Roger, "that Samuel just tore things 
 down and John built things up, doesn't it?" 
 
 "That 's about it," Uncle Tom answered. "But an old building must 
 be pulled down before you can build a grand new one in its place. Samuel 
 
 OLD DOCK SQUARE (NOW ADAMS SQUARE). 
 A famous old Boston site. Faneuil Hall in the distance, the Adams statue in the foreground. 
 
 Adams was a rebel against the English crown from boyhood, although his 
 father was a tax-collector for the government, and Adams himself filled 
 such a position for a time. When he graduated from Harvard in 1740, his 
 commencement oration was a plea for resistance to tyranny. He held to 
 that belief all through life. He was the leader and chosen representative 
 of the people — 'the tribune of the yeomanry,' some, one has called him. 
 He ureed on the 'embattled farmers' of Lexington and Concord to fire 
 
THE CKNTIRY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMKRICANS 
 
 >i^' 
 
 //■ 
 
 • the shot heard round the world,' of which 
 voii possibly know something,' — " 
 " Emerson wrote that," said Roj^er 
 in earnest undertone. 
 
 Tell me something new, Roger, 
 m)- son," said Jack. " Do you 
 think we never went to school?" 
 " Samuel Adams was fear- 
 less, sincere, unyielding^, and 
 absolutely incorruptible," Un- 
 cle Tom continued. " He pro- 
 posed the Revolution ; he pro- 
 "' posed the Continental Coni^ress; 
 
 he signed the Declaration of In- 
 dependence, and was so sharp a 
 „,, thorn in the side of the British gov- 
 ernment and its generals that they 
 tried first to bribe and then to kill him. 
 But they- could neither bribe nor kill 
 him. He lived to .see the troops of King 
 George driven from Boston and finally from 
 America, and the principles for which he 
 labored and suffered everywhere triumphant. 
 Free America owes much to Samuel Adams. 
 On this very corner stood his home. Un- 
 cover to it, Ijuys, for it was the home of a patriot." 
 
 The enthusiastic five honored the prosaic dead wall with a Chautaucjua 
 salute, much to the astonishment of the passers-by, few of whom, probably, 
 ever knew of the existence of the tablet or the historic associations of that 
 busy corner. Familiarity rarely inspires investigation. 
 
 They " did " the old town thoroughly during their week's visit. They 
 inspected its "show places," from Copp's Hill to Dorchester Heights, and 
 from Cambridge Common to Bunker Hill. They studied the old grave- 
 yards, eloquent with the names of famous ones dead and gone ; they went 
 back into the past as far as the one remaining wall of the Old Province 
 House which Hawthorne has immortalizetl, and forward in the present to 
 the, splendid new Public Library and the unfinished Subway that burrows 
 beneath the Autocrat's dear " Long Walk." 
 
 But Uncle Tom discovered that the homes of famous men, or the spots 
 upon which such houses had stood, seemed to possess special interest. 
 
 THE GRAVE OF SAMUEL ADAMS. 
 In the southern endof OldGrjnary Burying-Ground, 
 
THE MAIN STAIRCASE IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY. 
 One of Louis St. Gaudens's " lions," in commemoration of the Massachusetts troops. 
 
14 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 "It brings you so near to them," Christine declared; and even the in- 
 tensely modern and practical Jack affirmed that it was as great fun "hunt- 
 ing up the stamping-grounds of all those old Boston fellows" as shooting up 
 to the twelfth story of the Ames Building, or seeing a ball game on Soldiers' 
 I'ield — aiul you ma)' he sure that Jack did Ijolh these things. 
 
 
 PARK STREET GATE, BOSTON COMMON. 
 The State House in the distance. 
 
 Under Roger's guidance, and with Uncle Tom as showman, they visited 
 the sites of Franklin's boyhood home and John Hancock's vanished man- 
 sion ; they found the place in Court street where the house of James Otis 
 had stood ; they looked up the sites of Warren's, Everett's, Sumner's, 
 Wendell Phillips's, and Prescott's homes; of the birthplaces of Paul Revere, 
 
IN BOSTON TOWN 
 
 15 
 
 who roused the country-side for Lexington fight, and of Morse, who in- 
 vented the telegraph — the plain wooden house almost in the shadow of 
 Bunker Hill. 
 
 "And all these are in Boston!" exclaimed Bert. 
 
 " Good for the Hub ! " cried Jack. " Is there any other town that can 
 show so many, Uncle Tom ? " 
 
 Whereupon Uncle Tom had an idea. 
 
 " He 's full of 'em," Jack declared; "but this just tops them all." 
 
 It did seem to. For it was nothing more or less than a pilgrimage to 
 the homes of famous Americans. 
 
 A BOSTON HOME IN GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHERS DAY. 
 
 " I think we can do it leisurely and as we have the chance," said Uncle 
 Tom; "and I don't believe your fathers and mothers will object. We '11 
 see about it, anyhow. So, while we are here, we may as well finish off Massa- 
 chusetts by hunting up the homes of John Adams at Ouincy, and of Daniel 
 
i6 
 
 THE CKNTLRY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 Webster at Marshfield. I "d like to see them myself. We can do it easily. 
 What do you say, boys and girls ? " 
 
 What could they say but " Good for you, Uncle Tom " ? 
 
 They said it so emphatically and delightedly that Uncle Tom believed 
 his idea to be both wise and practical, and the fifth day of their stay in 
 Boston saw them all at the Old Colony depot, en route for Ouincy, the old 
 town made famous by the two Adamses — father and son. 
 
 i'lSTON. 
 ihc AriiiKI Arboretum. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS 
 
 Qiiincy Granite and Qiiincy Men — Tlie Little Old Houses — "Sini' or 
 Swim " — On Pe?ins Hill — A Great Father and His Famous Son — 
 An Historic Mansion. 
 
 IHROUGH the lengthening line of suburban towns, now 
 beside blue water, now in sight of the misty Milton hills, 
 the tourists rode for a brief half hour; then, above the trees^ 
 they caught the glitter of a graceful dome, and Uncle Tom 
 told them they were in Ouincy. 
 
 "Famous alike for its granite and for its men," he said, as he helped 
 the girls to the station platform, and together they walked up the 
 street to the open square before the temple-like church with its gilded 
 dome. 
 
 " Out of those quarries on the hills yonder," he continued, " has come 
 the gray rock that has gone into many a noble public building ; and from 
 this old town have come men who have built themselves into the history 
 of the nation. And I think, boys and girls," he added, "that we shall find 
 the Ouincy men even more enduring than the Ouincy granite. Especially 
 the Adamses." 
 
 " Did they all come from here ? " inquired Roger. 
 
 "Those did whom we know best," replied Uncle Tom. 
 
 " I thought you said Sam Adams was a Boston boy," remarked Bert. 
 
 "So he was," his uncle answered. "But his ' forebears,' as they call 
 them, came from here ; for the Ouincy of to-day was all Braintree in Old 
 Colony days. The John Adams branch of the family, however, is especially 
 remarkable. Just think ! It gave to the republic two Presidents, a Vice- 
 President, a Secretary of State, one senator, three members of Congress, 
 and three ministers to England." 
 
 "That 's a good record for one family," declared Bert. 
 
i8 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 "Anythin^r left for anybody else?" queried Jack. 
 
 " I ouj^dit to explain, however," continued Uncle Tom, "that these dozen 
 offices represent really hut three persons — father, son, and grandsc^n — in 
 this celebrated family. ' 
 
 ■IHK JOHN ADAMS AXU THE JOHN gLINCY AUAMS HOUSES, gLTNCY. 
 
 " Hut that Jiiakes it all the more remarkable, Uncle Tt)m," Christine 
 declared. 
 
 "Besides these three," went on Uncle Tom, "the .\damses of Ouincy 
 have contributed soldiers, lawyers, legislators, educators, and writers, all of 
 whom have done splendid work for America. It is a remarkable record, 
 indeed." 
 
 "Who were the three special Adamses, Uncle Tom?" (lueried Marian. 
 " [ohn .\dams, of course — " 
 
 "John Adams, — the 'first Adams,' he is called, though eight genera- 
 tions preceded him here, — John Ouincy Adams, his son, and Charles 
 Francis Adams, his son," Uncle Tom replied. " I call this illustrious three 
 an inheritance by talent. Think of it ! John Adams, the father, was Presi- 
 dent of the United States, and had been minister to England at the close 
 of the American Revolution ; John Ouincv Adams, the son, was President 
 
JOHN ADAMS. 
 Second President of the United States. 
 
lllh thNlllRV HOOK o|- lA.MULS A.Ml.KILANS 
 
 of the United States, and had been minister to England during the War of 
 1812; Charles Francis Adams, the grandson, just missed nomination for 
 President of the United States, and had been minister to England during 
 the Great Rebellion of 1S61. Is n't that an honorable record for three 
 generations? Come! there 's our car. You have seen the spot in Bos- 
 ton upon which stood the home of ' Cousin Sam Adams ' ; now we can 
 
 look upon the 
 real houses in 
 wJiich were born 
 and bred these 
 famous Adamses 
 of Quincy." 
 
 Thereupon they 
 all boarded the 
 Braintree "elec- 
 tric," and were 
 soon skimming 
 along Franklin 
 street to where, 
 a mile beyond, at 
 the foot of Penn's 
 Hill, stand what 
 are known as the 
 "Adams houses." 
 " Nothing very 
 grand or impos- 
 ing about either 
 of those old 
 houses," was Bert's 
 critical comment. 
 " Little and 
 shabby, eh ? " re- 
 marked Roger. 
 " I should say 
 
 so!" exclaimed out-spoken Jack. "Why, I supposed the Adamses were 
 very high and mighty people with big estates and grand houses." 
 
 " Far from it," said Uncle Tom. " John Adams's father, who built the old 
 house on our left, was a thrifty Braintree farmer, worth about seven or eight 
 thousand dollars in lands and goods. But he managed to send his son to 
 Harvard, from which tlie boy graduated in 1735, and from there went to 
 
 IN PRESIDICNT JOH.N' ADAMSS DAY. 
 A taste of war with France — the '■ Boston" raking " Lc Bcrccau.'* 
 
IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS 
 
 teaching school in Worcester. John Adams was born in 1735, in the right- 
 hand front room in that Httle old house ; John Ouincy Adams was born in 
 
 HOW JOHN ADAMS HELPED MAKE THE FOURTH OF JULY. 
 Reporting the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 1767, in the red house on the right. I don't know that, in all the world, I 
 can show you another scene like this — the birthplaces of two Presidents 
 elbowing each other, and standing all these years unhonored. Now, I believe, 
 the design is to place both these historic houses in charge of societies for 
 their preservation." 
 
 The children stood silent awhile regarding these two unpretentious 
 houses, from which came two men so famous in American histor)- — and these 
 two father and son ! Then Marian exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh, Uncle Tom ! Was n't it John Adams who was the 'sink-or-swim ' 
 man ? " 
 
 "There never was any such man," declared Bert. " Our history teacher 
 told us that was just a ' fake ' speech." 
 
 "Did he say ' fake,' Bert ? " queried Roger. 
 
 Uncle Tom was a bit puzzled at this irruption ; but he was accustomed 
 to the unconventional speech of his earnest young people, and it speedily 
 dawned upon him what the ' sink-or-swim man ' meant. 
 
 " Ah, I see ! " he said ; " You mean that supposed speech put into the 
 
22 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 month of John Adams by Daniel Webster in his famous eulogy on Adams 
 and Jefferson — ' Sink or swim — '" 
 
 "Oh, 1 know that!" broke in Jack, who was not to be repressed when 
 such an opportunity offered. " 'Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, 
 I give my hand and my heart to this vote.' Say, that was not a fake speech, 
 though, really, was it, Uncle Tom? It is too good not to be true." 
 
 " If by 'fake,'" laughed Uncle Tom, "you boys mean rigged up to suit 
 the occasion, I 'm afraid it was. If my memory is correct, however, Webster 
 had authority for introducing the words into his splendid eulogy. John 
 Adams never did make just such a speech ; but he did say, in a letter to his 
 friend Sevvall, in 1774, when the colonies were feeling their way toward inde- 
 pendence, that the die was cast and he had ' passed the Rubicon.' Then he 
 added, 'sink or swim, survive or perish with my country, is my unalterable 
 determination.' " 
 
 "Give that to your history teacher, Master Bert, when you see him 
 again, 'cried Jack. " Daniel Webster knew what he was about. But, anyhow, 
 Uncle Tom, John Adams was the original fire-cracker man, was n't he?" 
 
 " Your descriptive adjectives, boys and girls, are certainly expressive, 
 even if they are a trifle baffling," Uncle Tom rejoined, laughing. " Yes; John 
 Adams was, I suppose, the father of the Fourth of July — or, at least, its 
 prophet. Only, with him, it happened to be the second of July. That was 
 the day — not the Fourth — on which the Congress passed Richard Henry 
 Lee's famous resolution, which declared the United Colonies to be ' free and 
 independent States.' That was the day of which John Adams, in writing 
 home to his patriotic wife, here in Ouincy. made his famous prophecy." 
 
 •■ What was it ? " inquired Christine. 
 
 "As nearly as I can recall it," said Uncle Tom, "John .Adams wrote: 
 • This 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 commemo- 
 rated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God. 
 It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, 
 guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of the continent to the 
 other from this time forward, forevermore ! ' " 
 
 As the children applauded the sentiment. Uncle Tom added slyly, 
 " nothing about fire-crackers in all that, Jack." 
 
 But Jack replied: "Well, all the rest of it has come true. I guess we 
 can squeeze in the fire-crackers between the guns and the bells, can't we ? " 
 And he gave a nod of satisfaction as the memories of all his Fourth of July 
 fun in summers past flashed through his mind. 
 
IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS 
 
 23 
 
 RINGING IN THE FOURTH. 
 
 They had left the "birthplace houses" behind and were climbing Penn's 
 Hill, from which little eight-year old John Ouincy Adams and his mother 
 watched the smoke of Bunker Hill fight, on a certain famous seventeenth 
 of June, and a year later watched the British fleeing from Boston. 
 
 Then Uncle Tom said: 
 
 " That mother was a remarkable woman, too. You girls must some day 
 
24 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS A.MI.KIlA.NS 
 
 get acquainted with Abigail Adams, tlie clever wife of John. But let 
 me tell you, boys, John Adams was something of a prophet. When he 
 was but a young fellow, the French and Indian war was being fought in 
 America. Its purpose was, you know, to drive the French from Canada and 
 make this continent English. That was the war that brought George 
 Washington to the front. Well, in the very year of Braddock's defeat 
 young John Adams declared that, if the English soldiers and colonists 
 could only succeed in driving out the French, the colonists would increase 
 until, in another century, they would exceed the British, and then, 'all Eng- 
 land will be unable to subdue us.' A good, clear-sighted bit of jjrophecy 
 for a young college graduate, was n't it?" 
 
 " He 's not the only Harvard man that has had brains," said Roger. 
 " Hear the boy ! " cried Jack. " I gue.ss Yale has had quite as many." 
 "Yes, and Columbia, too," said Bert. "But, there! that 's the trouble 
 with you Boston fellows. You just think Harvard — " 
 
 "Here, here!" cried Uncle 
 Tom, " we are not in Quincy to 
 fight over college supremacy. 
 When it comes to making men 
 and patriots, no school or col- 
 lege has the monopoly. Of the 
 twenty-three Presidents of the 
 United States fifteen were college 
 graduates; but among the remain- 
 ^^^ ing eight are the names of Wash- 
 
 ^fe? -,.„^ .. V A inirton and Lincoln — so, I think, 
 
 we' 11 leave the college standard 
 out of the reckoning. For, after 
 all, boys and girls, success de- 
 pends upon the man. Immortality 
 comes because of deeds, not di- 
 plomas." 
 
 " But surely. Uncle Tom," said 
 Christine, "education isnecessary." 
 " Think how much better even Washington and Lincoln might have 
 been if they had been college men," said Bert. 
 
 " 'T is education forms the common mind : 
 Just as the twig is bent the tree 's inclined," 
 
 AHk.All, AlJ.V.VlS. 
 John Adams at the age of : 
 
 quoted Roger, who knew his " Moral Essays." 
 
IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS 
 
 25 
 
 A DINNER PARTY IN JOHN QUINCY ADAMS'S DAY. 
 
 "But there you 're out, Roger, my boy," cried Jack. "Washington 
 and Lincoln were not ' common minds.' " 
 
 "Oh, well! the exception proves the rule," was Roger's comment. 
 
 " I think Roger has the best of the argument, after all," laughed Uncle 
 Tom; "especially when we remember that Washington founded a university 
 and that Lincoln was forever studying. And, speaking of Lincoln, do you 
 know that his greatest act was based upon a doctrine first propounded by 
 John Ouincy Adams — the man who was born in that old farmhouse 
 yonder? " 
 
 "His greatest act! What do you mean. Uncle Tom?" queried Bert. 
 " The Emancipation Proclamation ? " 
 
 "That's it," his uncle replied. "It was upon a declaration made in 
 Congress by John Ouincy Adams in 1836 that Abraham Lincoln rested 
 his great proclamation." 
 
 " What was it ? " asked Marian. 
 
 " It was in the course of a speech that Adams pronounced this opinion : 
 ' From the instant that your slave-holding States become the theater of war, — 
 
26 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 civil, servile, or forcitjn, — from that instant the war powers of the Consti- 
 tution extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way 
 in whicli it can he intcrfcrcil willV.' And, in a later speech, he repeated this 
 
 JOHN gllXCY ADAMS. 
 Sixth President of the United States. 
 
 bold doctrine, and declared that, in the event of such a war, the President 
 of the United States had power to order the universal emancipation of the 
 slaves." 
 
 "Why, did they say much about slavery in Adams's day?" inquired 
 Christine. " I thought all that came later." 
 
 "Most certainly they did, my dear," Uncle Tom replied. "John 
 Ouincy Adams was the earliest and stoutest champion of antislavery in the 
 American Congress. In fact, it was his burning words in l^ehalf of freedom, 
 and what was called 'the right of petition,' that gave him his popular title 
 of ' the Old Man Elocnient.' " 
 
IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS 27 
 
 "And was he so old? " Christine asked. 
 
 " At that time, yes," Uncle Tom answered. "John Quincy Adams, you 
 know, was elected to Congress long after he had served as President. His 
 was the only instance in our history of an ex-President of the republic 
 serving in Congress; and he gained a new and enduring reputation by his 
 courage and ability there. Don't you remember, when we were in Wash- 
 ington, that we saw the place in the 
 Capitol where John Quincy Adams was 
 stricken down with paralysis while in his 
 seat in the House of Representatives ? 
 He was then over eighty years old, 
 and, as you see, he literally 'died in 
 harness.'" 
 
 " I thought he died on the Fourth 
 of July," said Jack. 
 
 "That only shows how apt we are to 
 mix up this remarkable father and son," 
 Uncle Tom declared. " It was John 
 Adams — 'grandsire John,' as they called 
 him here in Quincy — who died on the 
 fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration 
 
 r 1 J 1 ^1 ^ • I , SILHOUETTE OF JOH.N Q. ADAMS. 
 
 ot Independence — that mio-hty paper, ,. . ^ ,„^. „ 
 
 I fe / 1 I ' Cut in the White House. 
 
 which he was so largely instrumental in 
 
 having adopted that men called him the ' Colossus of Independence.' And 
 on that same Fourth of July, 1826, died also Thomas Jefferson, his 
 political rival and successor in the Presidency, the real author of the 
 great Declaration." 
 
 "Well, do please set them straight for us. Uncle Tom," Marian re- 
 quested. " I know they were both Presidents, and that John Quincy 
 Adams was John Adams's son. But just what did they do ? " 
 
 "That should be easy to set right," Uncle Tom said. And as they 
 turned once more from the by-path that led from Penn's Hill into Franklin 
 street, Uncle Tom sketched the careers of the two Adamses while the 
 party walked leisurely back to the center of the town. 
 
 " John Adams," he said, "was born in that little gray hou.se to the left in 
 the year 1735. His son, John Quincy Adams was born in 1767, in the old 
 red house to the right. John Adams was elected President by the Feder- 
 alists in 1796. John Quincy Adams was made President in 1824 by the 
 ' coalition ' which, later, became first the Whigs, and then the Republicans. 
 John Adams died in the old mansion I shall soon show you at the other 
 
25 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOLS AMERICANS 
 
 end of town, on the Fourth of July, 1826; John Ouincy Adams died in 
 the Capitol at Washington, on the 23d of February, 1848. John Adams was 
 bold, outspoken, upright, and true. He always had what is called the cour- 
 age of his convictions ; but he was sometimes conceited, long-winded, and 
 brusque. He was a great reader, a vigorous writer, and always a patriot. 
 The acts of his life that most entitle him to fame were his defense of the 
 British soldiers, unwisely tried for murder, after the so-called 'Boston mas- 
 sacre ' of 1770; — " 
 
 "That's what that 'slate-pencil' monument on Boston Common is for, 
 you know," whispered Roger to Jack. 
 
 •• — the proposing of Washington as commander-in-chief of the Amer- 
 ican Army in 1775," went on Uncle Tom; "the speech on the first of July, 
 1776, which resulted in the adoption of the Declaration of Independence; 
 the recognition by Holland of the new nation of the United States of .Amer- 
 ica, and the Dutch loan, which ]jut money in the pocket of the young re- 
 
 THL; I'LBLIC L1BKAR\. v'-l^'-V. ' 1 \-> 
 
 public — both of these being secured by him in 17S2 ; the great treaty with 
 England, which he ' achieved ' in 1 783 ; his patriotic keeping the peace 
 with France, as President, in 1800, when every one was shouting for war; 
 and lastly, his struggle for religious liberty in Massachusetts in 1820. when 
 he was an old man of eighty-five. Few men, boys and girls, can show 
 a better credit side on the ledger of fame than this honest, stanch, stout, 
 fussy, hot-tempered, but always fine old patriot, John .\dams ot Ouincy, 
 second President of the United States." 
 
IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS 
 
 29 
 
 "That is a pretty good record, I tell you," commented Bert, enthusiasti- 
 cally, while Jack doffed his hat, in sight of the gilded dome, and exclaimed, 
 "Three cheers for the Father of the Fourth of July ! " 
 
 That gilded dome, which had so frequently attracted their notice in Quincy 
 town, topped the square, old-fashioned, and well-preserved " Stone Temple," 
 otherwise the First Congrega- 
 tional (Unitarian) Church of 
 Quincy, in which are the tombs 
 of the two Presidents, father 
 and son. 
 
 The tourists looked at the 
 space beneath the portico in 
 which rest the remains of these 
 two illustrious men ; they read 
 the commemorative tablets set 
 within the church to the right 
 and left of the pulpit, one 
 surmounted by a bust of John 
 Adams, by Greenough, the 
 other by a bust of John Quincy 
 Adams, by Powers. 
 
 It was both interesting and 
 impressive — "the Westmin- 
 ster Abbey of Quincy," Uncle 
 Tom called it, and the young people left the quaint old church with re- 
 newed respect for the memories of the two famous Americans who lie buried 
 there, within the church in which they worshiped, midway between the 
 homes of their infancy and their old age. Somehow, even though the 
 Adamses of Quincy were not soldiers, Christine said that she could not help 
 repeating the lines : 
 
 " How sleep the brave who sink to rest. 
 By all their country's wishes blessed ! " 
 
 Leaving the "temple," they walked up Hancock street, and just at the 
 turn of Adams street looked at the neat stone building surmounted by an 
 obelisk-like tower. This, Uncle Tom told them, was Adams Academy, founded 
 by President John Adams, built on the site of John Hancock's birthplace, 
 and presided over for many years by the son of Edward Everett. 
 
 " How 's that for a combination ? " asked Roger. 
 
 " I don't believe it makes lessons go any easier," declared Jack. 
 
 STATUARY HALL IN THE CAPITOL AT 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 The old House of Representatives, and the place where 
 
 John Quincy Adams died. 
 
30 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 "As for John Quincy Adams," said Uncle Tom, continuing the "setting- 
 right" process, which Marian had requested, "we can say quite as much 
 as for his father, although his career had not so historic a background. 
 As a boy he went to school in France and Holland, while his father 
 was abroad on foreign service for the new republic. l>ut he came back 
 
 THE HOUSK 1 
 The "Old Cha 
 
 \I)AMS DUiD. 
 
 here of his own accord to enter Harvard because he thought that, fur an 
 American career, an American education was best." 
 
 "Good for him!" exclaimed the boys. 
 
 " Oh, he was quite a remarkable boy, was John Quincy Adams," Uncle 
 Tom assured them. " When only seven years old he drilled with a musket 
 among the Continental soldiers, and I have told you how, from the top of 
 Penn's Hill yonder, he stood beside his mother and watched the battle- 
 smoke of Bunker Hill, the storming of Dorchester Heights, and the evacu- 
 ation of Boston. The good people of Quincy have just erected a cairn to 
 mark tlie spot — that memorial pile of stones which I showed you on top 
 of the hill, you know. At ten he .sailed with his father, the .American 'com- 
 missioner,' to France, and all through his boyhood John Quincy Adams 
 kept a diary that would be a surprise to some girls and bo\ s I know." 
 
IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS 
 
 31 
 
 CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 
 United States Minister to England during the Civil War. 
 
 " He was private secretary to the American minister to Russia at four- 
 teen," continued Uncle Tom. " He was minister to Holland at twenty-, 
 seven ; minister to Prussia at thirty ; United States senator at thirty-five ; 
 professor in Harvard at thirty-nine ; minister to Russia at torty-two ; min- 
 ister to England at forty-eight ; Secretary of State at fifty, and again at 
 fifty-four; President of the United States at fifty-seven; member of Con- 
 gress at sixty-four, confinuing as such until his death at eighty — the cham- 
 pion of liberty, and a valiant fighter for the rights of free speech, whom no 
 antagonist could daunt and no threats could down. A remarkable man, as 
 
32 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 well as a remarkable boy, was John Quincy Adams — and that 's where he 
 lived, in that long brown mansion across the bridge, where lived also his 
 famous old father and his illustrious son." 
 
 "Oh, what a lovely old place!" exclaimed Marian. "Is n't it quaint 
 and old-fashioned. Who lives there now?" 
 
 "No one, I believe," replied Uncle Tom. "The place seems to be 
 closed. But it has been the scene of many interesting happenings. Here 
 old ' Grandsire John,' the 'first Adams,' lived and died; here John Quincy 
 Adams made his home, and delighted to work on his farm in ' overalls ' and 
 a straw hat, like any other farmer, just as ready to receive a distinguished 
 visitor in his working clothes as if he were in the White House itself" 
 
 They crossed "the President's Bridge," which spans the railroad, and 
 entered the grounds now known as " the old Charles Francis Adams place " ; 
 they stood beneath the great trees, rested on the narrow piazza, visited the 
 modern stables and the long greenhouses, and walked about the wide fields 
 that stretched in the rear of the quaint gambrel -roofed house. 
 
 Then they slowly sauntered back to the center of the town, and as they 
 took the train for Boston, tired, but full of a new regard for these old 
 "fathers of the republic," Bert echoed Uncle Tom's sentiment and said: 
 
 " I guess you were right, Uncle Tom. Quincy granite may be endur- 
 ing, but these Quincy men will outlast it — both in name and fame." 
 
 .vD.V.MS ACADKMY, IJIlNiV 
 ndcd by John Adams, and built on the site of John Hancock's birthplace. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 IN THE OLD COLONY 
 
 J^roiu Plymouth to Dnxbnry — The Puritan Captain — The Webster Farrn 
 — Marshficld By the Sea — Daniel Webster s Story — The Home of 
 a Great American. 
 
 HEY had spent two delightful days hi historic Plymouth, and 
 Uncle Tom declared himself to be fairly "pumped dry" on 
 Colonial history. 
 
 " Dry ! " exclaimed Jack, in his enthusiastic way. " That 's 
 not possible, Uncle Tom. You 're like the fellow Mark Twain 
 tells about: you just 'leak facts.' Only think of all we 've seen and heard 
 about during these last two days ! " 
 
 " I should say so," said Bert. "We 've done Plymouth from Leyden street 
 to Billington Sea, and from the Rock and the Faith Monument to Lora Stan- 
 dish's sampler in Pilgrim 
 Hall. And for everything 
 we 've seen, Uncle Tom, 
 you had a story." 
 
 "Yes; only I told the 
 story about Lora Stan- 
 dish's sampler, did n't I, 
 Uncle Tom?" said Marian. 
 
 " You did, indeed, my 
 dear," replied Uncle Tom. 
 " Credit to whom credit is 
 due, Master Bert. I see 
 that you 've read your Mrs. 
 Austin to good effect, girls. Now, I suppose, you will go home and read 
 ■* Standish of Standish'' with a new interest. " 
 
 " That 's more than I can do for Mrs. Hemans," declared Jack. " ' Stern 
 
 PLYMOUTH ROCK AS rf LOOKS TO-DAY. 
 
34 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOl'S AMERICANS 
 
 ami rock-bound coast. ' ch ? Why. iIil' only rock they can show here is the 
 Rock — and that you say was a pilijrini from Labrador, I'ncle Tom. Fcopk" 
 ouijht to know what they write about." 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Hemans's intention was e.xcellent, even if her facts were at 
 fault," said Uncle Tom; "and 'the breaking waves 'will continue to ' dash 
 high ' so long as spirited and noble verse strikes deep into the hearts of 
 men. We 'vc about finished Plymouth. Now, I 'm going to lake you 
 back to Boston bv a new wav. 
 
 ri.VMOL m AM) ILVMOLTH HAKBOK IKOM laKIAL HILL 
 
 Uncle Tom alwaxs had a new way. 
 
 " He 's better than Columbus for discovering things," the boys and girls 
 declared, and they were not surprised, therefore when, leaving famous old 
 Plymouth behind, he said, " all out for Du.xbury ! " as the train slowed up at 
 a neat little station ten miles nearer Boston. 
 
 They found a barge awaiting them — not a boat, you understand, like 
 Cleopatra's famous float, but a long and roomy two-horse wagon, open at 
 the sides — just the thing for a jolly party of sight-seers. 
 
 They drove in sight of the sea, with the Gurnet light gleaming white in the 
 foreground, and the storied course of the Mayjiower lying before them, 
 sparkling in the sun. They looked with proper pride upon the old Standish 
 house, on the site of the one in which the valiant captain of Plymouth made 
 his home; then they panted their way up the steep slope to the crest of 
 
IN THE OLD COLONY 
 
 35 
 
 STANDLSH HOUSE, DUXBURY, MASS. 
 Built by the son of Miles Standish, 1666. 
 
 Captain's Hill, where rises the tall, gray column topped by a statue of the 
 doughty leader of the Pilgrims' little army. 
 
 They drank in that splendid view of sea and shore ; then, descending, 
 they boarded their barge again, and rode through Duxbury town, past the 
 home of John Alden and Priscilla — dear 
 U) all the boys and girls of America who 
 delight in a charming love-story, and 
 at last came to Marshfield and modern 
 history. For Marshfield, so Uncle Tom 
 told them, was the dearly loved home of 
 Daniel Webster, foremost of American 
 statesmen. 
 
 The places they had visited, and the 
 scenes amid which they had spent two 
 memorable days in that famous " Old 
 Colony" region, had made a lasting 
 impression on their young and recep- 
 tive minds. So, as their barge rolled along the new State Highway that, 
 in time, will stretch all the way from Boston to Plymouth, the young people 
 were still talking of the historic scenes they had left behind. 
 
 Jack and the girls, indeed, were holding an animated discussion as to 
 the place of the Pilgrim Fathers in American history, to which Uncle Tom 
 listened in amused silence. But when Jack, in his enthusiasm, placed gallant 
 Miles Standish, " the Puritan captain," alongside Grant and .Sherman in mili- 
 tary supremacy. Uncle Tom felt it time to put in a word. 
 
 " Easy, easy, old fellow," he said, with a pat of caution on the boy's 
 shoulder; "I 'm afraid your hero-worship of the moment is leading you 
 into a bit of exaggeration. Miles Standish was a picturesque figure in 
 
 early American 
 history ; but even 
 he, I think, would 
 smile in his quiet 
 fashion if he could 
 hear your estimate 
 of his military 
 ability." 
 
 " I don't see 
 why. Uncle Tom," persisted Jack. " You said yourself that it was fortunate 
 for America that one trained soldier came over in the Mayflower ; and 
 from what you told me of his story — " 
 
 SWORD OF MILES STANDISH. 
 Of ancient Persian manufacture. In Pilgriin Hall. 
 
36 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 "And what Longfellow says about him in the ' Courtship of Miles Stan- 
 dish," " put in Marian. 
 
 " Hut Uncle Tom says that is more poetry than fact, you know," re- 
 marked Bert. 
 
 " I thought we had left the Pilgrim days and folks behind us, and had 
 done with them for a while," said Uncle Tom, laughing. "The truth of the 
 matter is here: Miles Standish was a notable figure in what the world now 
 regards as a notable time. Hasty in temper, but never a coward — " 
 
 "Oh, I don't know about that. Uncle Tom," broke in Marian. "He 
 was afraid of Priscilla." 
 
 "Afraid!" cried Jack, disdainfully. 
 
 "But Priscilla was n't afraid of him," Marian declared. "Don't you 
 remember what she said about him ? 
 
 " He is a little chimney and heated hot in a moment." 
 
 "I call that mighty mean of Priscilla, too," Jack sjjluttered. "Just like 
 a <Mrl ! Lot she knew about a soldier ! " 
 
 " No ; she was right, was n't she, Uncle Tom ? " returned Marian. " No 
 girl likes to be treated as Miles Standish treated her. Lot he knew about 
 a woman, I say ! " 
 
 "See here, see here," protested Uncle Tom, laughing: "are we .settling 
 thi; facts of American history, or reopening the old Standish-Alden case? 
 
IN THE OLD COLONY 
 
 Kindly restrain your impetuous partizanship, and let me finish summing up 
 Miles Standish's character. Where was I ? " 
 
 " You said he was never a coward, you know," prompted Bert. 
 
 " Oh, yes. Hasty in temper, but never a coward," again began Uncle 
 Tom; "wise in counsel, but never foolhardy; trained to war, but never 
 seeking a quarrel, he was especially fitted to teach the struggling and dis- 
 pirited colonists of Plymouth 
 the prudence of courage, the 
 wisdom of discipline, and the 
 excellence of vigilance. Thesr, 
 you see, are all qualities neces- 
 sary in a military leader. They 
 are what made Grant and 
 Sherman successful generals. 
 In fact, it may be said that in 
 the single heroic person of 
 Miles Standish was to be found 
 the true soldierly idea — skilled 
 military force in loyal subordi- 
 nation to the civil authority . 
 Miles Standish never sought 
 to thrust himself forward ; but 
 when put in command by those 
 in control, he did his duty faith- 
 fully and well. He is indeed a 
 typical Colonial soldier. As 
 such, America should remem- 
 ber and honor him ; and it has been well for us to recall him, here, in the 
 neighborhood where he grew into history." 
 
 They turned from the macadamized highway and into a sandy road, the 
 note of the sea falling upon their ears in an unbroken monotone. They 
 rode past the old house in which once had lived two famous governors of 
 the Plymouth colony — Edward Winslow ("a greater than Standish," Uncle 
 . Tom declared) and Josiah, his son ; past the home of a once famous Ameri- 
 can songstress, rebuilt from the humble cottage of her poor farmer father, 
 and then entered the grounds known to all the world as Marshfield — the 
 two-thousand acre farm of America's statesman- and orator, Daniel Webster. 
 
 There was not very much to see that could recall that remarkable man. 
 The long avenue of trees that skirted the drive were of Webster's planting; 
 the great apple orchard was of his devising; the trout-pond was of his plan- 
 
 EDWARD WINSLOW. 
 .on of the Massachusetts Histoncal Society. 
 
From a daguerreotype made in Philadelphia about 1849. 
 
IN THE OLD COLONY ■ 39 
 
 ning; and here and there on the grounds — the farm, rather, for Webster 
 never called his place anything but a "farm" — were numerous localities 
 that were associated with the mighty man who delighted to be known as 
 "the farmer of Marshfiekl," and whose heart, even in the most engrossing 
 political moves and successes, ever turned toward his dearly loved seaside 
 farm, with its broad fields and sturdy trees, and the flocks and live stock in 
 which he specially delighted. 
 
 But the house which had been his home was not there. 
 
 The children were greatly disappointed when they learned this fact. 
 
 " Burned down, did yon say, Uncle Tom?" inquired Roger. 
 
 "Yes; burned utterly and swiftly on a February night in 1878," Uncle 
 Tom replied. " This building is a modern villa, built by the new owners 
 of Marshfield to replace the old mansion. And with the old house went 
 many memories that would be of interest and value to-day. That little 
 yellow building, just across the drive to the left, is the sole survivor of the 
 old 'Webster place,' as they call it about here. In it Webster kept his 
 fishing and hunting traps, and called it his 'office.' That little 'office' and 
 the old carriage you can see in the barn yonder are about the only memorials 
 of Daniel Webster now to be seen at Marshfield. But the place — the setting 
 that framed his chosen home — still remains untouched by time — here are 
 the same blue sky, the same strong, health-giving air, the same landscape of 
 field and forest, the same ceaseless note of the sea across the marshes. All 
 these Webster loved ; from these he drew vigor and inspiration, and toward 
 them he turned with an intense longing from crowded court-room and 
 senate chamber in which his fame was made." 
 
 Although scarcely the Marshfield of Webster's day, the children found 
 themselves impressed by the presence that once had filled this breezy 
 seaside farm. Seated upon the steps which, in the modern mansion, have 
 replaced the long, low vine-covered piazza of the rambling old homestead 
 destroyed by fire, the tourists fell to talking of the great man to whom 
 these broad acres had once belonged. In response to their inquiries Uncle 
 Tom briefly told his boys and girls the story of Daniel Webster's useful and 
 busy life. 
 
 He told them of the pale and puny baby born, on a January day in 1782, 
 into the home of a hard-working New Hampshire farmer; of the father, 
 W^ashington's trusted sentry at West Point in the dark days of Arnold's trea- 
 son ; of the boy's early struggles for an education, tempered by his resistless 
 love of fun ; of his insatiable thirst for knowledge ; of his school life at Exe- 
 ter Academy, where he was so shy that hefound it impossible to speak "pieces" 
 beforehis schoolmates ; of his wonderful eyes and yet more wonderful memory ; 
 
40 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 1 iii, w i,i;> 1 i,i< 111 II : 
 Burned in February, 1878, and i 
 
 \ 1 MARSHFIELD. 
 r replaced by a modem villa. 
 
 of his voice, so rich and full that the teamsters and farmers would stop the 
 bo)- in the road to liear him recite poetry or verses from the Biljle. He told 
 them how Webster's father sacrificed everything to send his i)oy to Dart- 
 mouth College, and was rewarded by seeing his son the "prize student"; how 
 his marvelous intellectual and oratorical powers gradually developed, until 
 the boy orator of sixteen grew into the man whose matchless reply to Hayne 
 has been called "the greatest speech since Demosthenes." He told them 
 of Webster's election to Congress in 1822, and how, for twenty-eight years, 
 he was Massachusetts's foremost representative in the councils of the nation, 
 broken only by two seasons of service as Secretary of State, under Harrison, 
 the fourteenth President, and Fillmore, the sixteenth. He told them of the 
 great statesman's services to the nation, of his unfaltering love of country, 
 of his absorbing belief in the greatness of the republic and its magnificent 
 possibilities, and how valiantly he fought in argument and State paper and 
 oration for the Union above everything else — for the integrity of the republic 
 and the permanence of American nationality. It was thi.s, even more than 
 personal ambition, that worked Webster's downfall, so Uncle Tom declared, 
 as he told his young auditors of the terrible shock with which Webster's fa- 
 mous speech of the ~th of March, 1850, supporting the wicked Fugitive 
 Slave Law, fell upon his steadfast supporters. It was " the I nion, now and 
 forever, one and inseparable," so Uncle Tom assured them, that lay beneath 
 even this unfortunate speech. But the statesman was misunderstood. That 
 speech lost Wel)ster the Presidency, which ht- so dearly desired : it turned 
 
IN THE OLD COLONY 
 
 41 
 
 against him the men of the North, to whom he looked for approval and sup- 
 port; it so affected him, because of the results, that, two years later, on 
 the 24th of October, 1852, the great statesman died here, in quiet Marsh- 
 field, the victim of his own mistaken judgment and the equally mistaken 
 judgment of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 
 The Poet of Freedom. 
 
 " But why do you call it mistaken, Uncle Tom?" asked Bert, who had 
 followed the narrative with close attention. " Do you call W'hittier's ' Icha- 
 bod ' poem mistaken — the one you told us about in Boston, you know ? " 
 
 " Let Whittier answer himself, Bert," replied Uncle Tom. " He wrote the 
 ' Ichabod ' poem in 1850, when the antislavery indignation at Webster's sup- 
 
42 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOIS AMERICANS 
 
 jjosed backsliding was at white heat. Beneath the regret and grief you can 
 
 read his hery denunciation. But. after twenty-five years had passed, with 
 
 all their marvelous changes, 
 and yet more marvelous ad- 
 vancement, Whittier, looking 
 back, could say that Web- 
 ster had died too soon, and 
 that, had he lived, he would 
 liave been the boldest de- 
 fentler of the liberty he had 
 mistakenly imperiled. Let 
 me sec if I can remember 
 W'hittier's lines. They make 
 a grand poem on Webster 
 — 'The Lost Occasion ' was 
 what the poet called it"; and 
 Uncle Tom, leaning his head 
 
 against the piazza post, closed his eyes and recited the noble lines by 
 
 Whittier to which he referred : 
 
 EVENING ON THE MARSHES. 
 
 ' Thou, foiled in aim and ho])e, bereaved 
 Of old friends, by the new deceived. 
 Too soon for us, too soon for thee, 
 Beside thy lonely Northern sea. 
 Where long and low the marsh-lands spread, 
 Laid wearily down thy august head. 
 
 Thou shouldst have lived to feel below 
 
 Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow, — 
 
 The late-sprung mine that underlaid 
 
 Thy sad concessions, vainly made. 
 
 Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's wall 
 
 The star-flag of the Union fall, 
 
 And armed rebellion pressing on 
 
 The broken lines of Washington ! 
 
 No stronger voice than thine had then 
 
 Called out the utmost might of men, 
 
 To make the Union's charter free 
 
 And strengthen law by liberty. 
 
 How had that stern arbitrament 
 To thy gray age youth's vigor lent. 
 Shaming ambition's paltry prize 
 Before thy disillusioned eyes ; 
 
IN THE OLD COLONY 43 
 
 Breaking the spell about thee wound 
 Like the green withes that Samson bound ; 
 Redeeming in one effort grand, 
 Thyself and thy imperiled land. 
 
 Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee, 
 O sleeper by the Northern sea, 
 The gates of opportunity ! 
 God fills the gaps of human need. 
 Each crisis brings its word and deed. 
 Wise men and strong we did not lack, 
 But still, with memory turning back. 
 In the dark hours we thought of thee, 
 And thy lone grave beside the sea." 
 
 Uncle Tom rose to his feet. 
 
 "Come, let us go and see that 'lone grave'," he said. 
 
 He led the way past the great barn, with its double line of just such 
 noble stock as Webster loved, and on, across the farm, to where, half a mile 
 away, upon the crest of Burial Hill, stood the old Colonial burying-ground. 
 There were buried the Winslows of Colonial days ; there was the grave of 
 Peregrine White, first child of the May/lozuer pilgrims ; and there, within 
 
 THE GRAVE OF WEBSTER. 
 " Just •Daniel IVcbiter'— that 's all." 
 
 the Webster plot, the children looked upon the modest marble slab which 
 marks the statesman's grave. 
 
 ".Simple enough, is n't it?" said Roger. "Just 'Daniel Webster' — 
 that 's all." 
 
44 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 ox THK ROAIJ TO MAKSHl IliLI i 
 olJcsl mccling-liousc in New England (Hinghani, M.u, 
 
 " Seems to me so great a man as Webster ought to have more of a 
 monument," was Jack's critical comment. 
 
 " I don't know," mused Hert. " Somehow you get nearer to a man just 
 as he was by such a simple thing as that; don't you think so, Uncle Tom? 
 That name tells it all. Vou know who Daniel Webster was. What more 
 do you need ? Really, don't )ou know, to me it seems grander than all 
 those long-winded inscriptions on the Adams tablets at Uuincx." 
 
 Jack was still unconvinced. 
 
 " It you 're big enough to be rememljered, \ou 're worth sa\ ing something 
 about," he insisted. 
 
 And I'ncle Tom said : " I like to have )ou see and studv these me- 
 morials of departed greatness, boys and girls. I think 1 'm nn Bert's side 
 ot the argun'.cnt, however. For, after all, a man's life-work is his best 
 monument. What he tloes for the worUl and his fellow-men will last longer 
 than granite or bronze. Some of the biggest monuments have been built 
 above the smallest memories. To my thinking, Daniel Webster, as Hert 
 say,s, needs no other memorial than this modest stone. He has built him- 
 
IN THE OLD COLONY 
 
 45 
 
 self into the hearts and life of the people. How niany of you know his 
 famous reply to Hayne ? " 
 
 At once every boy and girl of the five began that famous peroration : 
 "When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in 
 heaven — ' " 
 
 " That 's it," said Uncle Tom, cutting them short. " Do you suppose you 
 can ever forget who spoke those electric words ? As Bert says, we all know 
 who Daniel Webster was. His country has honored him. His statue, in mar- 
 ble or in bronze, stands in our greatest cities ; his name is inwrought with 
 the daily life of our land — counties, townships, institutions, parks, streets, 
 lakes, mountains, and men alike bear his honored name ; but more than this, 
 the eloquent words he spoke for liberty and union, for American nationality 
 and American supremacy, will live as long as the English language exists and 
 school-boys live to speak it. There was nothing sectional, nothing small in 
 his patriotism ; above all else, Daniel Webster was an American." 
 
 " Did n't he say so in one of his speeches ? " asked Christine. 
 
 " ' I was born an American; I live an American ; I shall die an American,'" 
 quoted Roger. 
 
 "That was in a speech soon after the famous 7th of March oration that 
 so clouded his fame," explained Uncle Tom, " and it explains much in his 
 career. For that was his creed, and 
 to advance the interests of America 
 was his chief desire. Indeed, he was 
 in his way a type of American great- 
 ness. He was great himself, physi- 
 cally and intellectually. He loved 
 great things: this view, over marsh 
 and sea, and farm and forest, especi- 
 ally appealed to him — " 
 
 " It is great," exclaimed Jack, ap- 
 preciatively. 
 
 " He loved bigness in every- 
 thing — big farms, big trees, big 
 cattle, mountains, Niagara, the ocean; 
 and for that reason, as I have said, 
 he could stand nothing small or sec- 
 
 tional or local in American life. He ^^bsters chair and walking-stick. 
 loved the Union as a whole; he be- Now at Marshfidd. 
 
 lieved in and labored for its immense possibility; and in trying to preserve 
 it unbroken, he made what at the time appeared to be the great mistake 
 
46 
 
 TIIK CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 of his life. But the lapse of years creates a new standpoint, you know, and 
 as we look back on Webster's life and Webster's work, we can see that all, 
 even what men counted as his error, worked to a <rood end." 
 
 
 -3,'«S3*^. 
 
 DANn:i. WEBSTER'S BIRTHPLACE IN SALISBURY (NOW FRANKLIN), N. H. 
 He was bom in the extension, or ell, on the eighteenth of J;muary, 1782. 
 
 "There 's your Pope again. Uncle Tom," said Bert — 
 " From seeming evil still educing good." 
 
 " Right you are, Bert," returned Uncle Tom; " only, as I told you once be- 
 fore, ni)- Pope Avas Thomson." 
 
 "That 's \vhat you call a word in season, eh. Uncle Tom?" said Jack, 
 
 But Uncle Tom caught him by the arm. " It you will make puns, old 
 fellow, make correct ones," he replied. " I should call it a word out of season 
 — for it happens to be not from Thomson's 'Seasons,' but from one of his 
 hymns." Whereat the others, who were a bit puzzled by this literary spar- 
 ring, saw the fun at last, and declared that the joke was on Master Jack. 
 
 As they walked back to the house and to their waiting barge, Bert, always 
 alert for estimates and judgments, asked I'ncle Tom what he considered 
 Webster's greatest triumphs. To which Uncle Tom replied that, in the es- 
 timation of historians, the treaty with England in 1842, when Webster was 
 Secretary of State, and the reply to Hayne, in 1830. were Webster's strong- 
 est claims to remembrance and immortality. The first was a triumph of di- 
 plomacy, the second a triumph of oratory. 
 
IN THE OLD COLONY 
 
 47 
 
 " Because of the treaty," declared Uncle Tom, " England never again at- 
 tempted the right of search, which had twice imperiled the republic ; because 
 of the speech, came the new United States — the real Union of to-day. I do 
 not think it too much to say," he added, "that because Webster's ' Liberty 
 and Union' oration became the favorite declamation of American school-boys 
 in the fifties, it inspired a devoted and passionate love for the Union, which, 
 when the hour of danger came to the republic, emphasized the sentiment of 
 nationality, and nerved the arm, as it sustained the courage, of the united 
 North. In that, as Senator 
 Lodge says, lies the debt which 
 the American people owe to 
 Daniel Webster, and in that is 
 Webster's meaning and im- 
 portance to us of to-day. 
 
 " And it may interest and 
 please }ou to know, boys and 
 girls," he continued, as once 
 again they stood near the site 
 of Webster's jNIarshfield home, 
 "that from the window of th< 
 house which formerly stood 
 upon this spot, Webster, when 
 he lay a-dying, looked out each 
 morning to catch the flutter of 
 the stars and stripes which he 
 so dearly loved, and which, ac- 
 cording to his orders, were kept 
 floating from the flagstaff until 
 his last breath passed. Does 
 that recall anything to you 
 in the way of a coincidence?" 
 
 They hesitated a moment ; 
 dramatic things, cried : 
 
 "Oh, yes. Uncle Tom; don't you know — " and then, before Webster's 
 home, on the very spot where so many of the happy moments of his life were 
 passed, close beside the place where, with eyes wet with tears, the great 
 orator penned his splendid eulogy on Adams and Jefterson in the still hours 
 of a summer morning. Jack recited, as Jack knew so well how to recite, the 
 words that will live as long as the name and fame of their author shall 
 
 JOHN HOWARD PAYNE. 
 
 One of Webster's foreign appointments when he was Secretary of State. 
 Consul at Tunis in 1841. Author of - Home, Sweet Home." 
 
 then lack, quick to see and appreciate such 
 
48 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 " When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see 
 him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dis- 
 severed, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fra- 
 ternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the 
 republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and 
 trojjhies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased nor polluted, not a single star ob- 
 scured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as ' What is all this worth ? ' — nor 
 those other words of delusion and folly, ' Liberty first and Union afterwards ! ' ; but everywhere, 
 spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the 
 sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment dear to 
 every American heart : ' Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable 1 ' " 
 
 "And it happened just as he wished, did n't it?" said Christine, 
 stirred by the ma^jnificent words and the associations of the place where she 
 stood. 
 
 "It happened just as he wished," replied Uncle Tom. " He saw the flatj 
 floatiny^ undimmed to the last. And on yonder lawn, before his house, be- 
 neath the great silver poplar which he loved, now standing no longer, thou- 
 sands came on a beautiful October day in 1852, to look their last upon the 
 face of the great statesman whom Theodore Parker described as the grandest 
 figure in Christendom since Charlemagne. He lay there, banked in flowers, 
 dead, beneath the autumn sky. But, from that sad hour to these happier 
 days of the republic's real liberty and real union, the fame of Daniel Webster 
 has .steadily increased until the world looks upon him not only as a great 
 man, but as in the best sense an American, a real son of the republic, a cit- 
 izen of the United States, in the most complete and most enduring meaning 
 of that noble word. Forget his faults, remember his virtues, boys and girls, 
 and be, as long as life shall last, as true an American and as loyal a child 
 of the republic as was Daniel Webster, to whose great heart, mighty brain, 
 and magnetic voice you young Americans of this day owe so much." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN THE NATION'S FIRST CAPITAL 
 
 JVeic }'ork's Greatest Matt — A Tour of the Old Toivit — Faittotis Men 
 atid Historic Poitits — - The Story of Alexatider Hatiiiltoti — A Rettiark- 
 able Character. 
 
 \\\\ YORK'S greatest man?" said Uncle Tom, reflectivel\-, in 
 answer to a question from Roger. "Why, I should say, with- 
 out hesitation, Alexander Hamilton — even if we count 
 General Grant." 
 
 " General Grant ! " cried the Boston boy. " Why, how do 
 \(ir, uiakr that out, Uncle Tom? Grant was an Illinois man, I thought." 
 
 "Primarily, yes," Uncle Tom replied; "though he was Ohio-born, you 
 know. But we are regarding America's famous men after they had become, 
 as we might say, the property of the nation. Grant was practically a cipher 
 until developed into greatness by the inspiration of war. After the war and 
 the Presidency, New York was his chosen home ; so, for our purpose, 
 we can, I think, claim him as a New York man. At any rate, I prefer so to 
 consider him at this stage of the inquiry ; for, e.xcept for Grant and Hamil- 
 ton, another adopted citizen, New York can lay claim to few really historic 
 characters, and to still less really great ones. Men drift here from one 
 reason or another, and thus become identified with the metropolis ; but the 
 native has never been exceptional for greatness." 
 
 They were in New York. Roger had come on for a visit, and Uncle 
 Tom. finding his tourists all together and eager for investigation, had pro- 
 posed a continuation of their study of famous Americans, suggesting a trip 
 to Philadelphia after they had paid their respects to New York. 
 
 From this had sprung Roger's query and Uncle Tom's reply. Jack, 
 however, objected with true Knickerbocker loyalt)-. 
 
 "Oh, see here. Uncle Tom," he cried, "you must be wrong. I '11 bet I 
 can name a dozen ereat men who were New Yorkers." 
 
50 
 
 TMK CENTURY HOOK OF FAMOUS AMFIRICAXS 
 
 |Oll\ JAV, 
 
 is great Americans 
 people's stamp of 
 count all the really 
 ten lingers. There art 
 
 " Here, here. UncU 
 "\ou are dropping into 
 to take you in haml. 
 
 "Why, what did 1 
 innocently. "It 's all 
 communications corrupt 
 Among historic Amcri- 
 claim many : John Jay. 
 United States, a patriot 
 Clinton.s, George and 
 governors ; the two Liv- 
 
 " Name them, Jack, and 1 '11 forgive the bet," 
 n turned Uncle Tom. " I 'm listening with avidity." 
 Jack hesitated. "Well," he said .slowly, "if I 
 were as well posted as you are, I could do so. 
 I know 1 could; but you know, I'ncle Tom, I 've 
 got an awfully good forgettery." 
 
 The other boys were inclined to charge Jack 
 with something technically known in boy language 
 as a "crawl," and L'ncle Tom laughed heartily. 
 
 "Well, let me help you, Jack," he said. 
 
 " Recollect that our particular line of research 
 
 and by greatness I mean popular adoption — the 
 
 reatness. \\ hen you attempt that test you can 
 
 great Americans on your 
 
 others " 
 
 Tom," laughed Jack, 
 
 GOV. GEOKGE CLINTO.N. 
 
 .slang, too. We '11 have 
 sir." 
 
 N,i\ ?" asked Uncle Tom, 
 \ our fault. Jack. ' Evil 
 L;ood manners,' you know, 
 cans, New York city can 
 first Chief Justice of the 
 and a statesman ; the two 
 DcWitt, kinsmen and 
 intrstons, Robert and YA- 
 
 ward, brothers, jurists and statesmen. These are names high on New York's 
 roll of fame, but I fear they must all yield precedence in greatness to the 
 two historic names I have given \ou as heading 
 the list — Hamilton and Grant. An)how, \\(\ '11 
 go out and investigate." 
 
 They did so, ne.xt day. Wise Uncle Tom se- 
 lected a Sunday morning before church time, and 
 after a particularly early breakfast, for his first 
 walk. Then he knew lower Broadway would 
 virtually l)e deserted, and they could wander 
 through the old streets at their will without being 
 pushed or Jostled bv the hurrying and unhistoric 
 crowds of a busy week day. " ''^"'^'^'i" ""■ l'vi.ngston. 
 
 So, with Uncle Tom as guide, the five investigators walked the ancient 
 section of the old town which Dutch traders had founded, and Eneli-sh 
 
IN THE NATIONS FIRST CAPITAL 
 
 51 
 
 ■HERE PETER STUYVESANT PLAYED THE DESPOT. 
 
 traders had developed, and American traders had made great. Up and down 
 those very streets, years and years before, men whose names are familiar, or 
 whose lives are notable, had walked and talked and labored. Here Wouter 
 Van Twiller had played the fool, and Peter Stuyvesant the despot ; here 
 Kidd the pirate had lived like a gentleman, and Andros the dragoon had 
 ruled as governor ; here Jacob Leisler, earliest of American patriots, had died 
 for popular liberty, and Zenger, New York's first " newspaper man," had 
 fought for the right of free speech, and obtained it. 
 
 They threaded the crooked streets of the old town, and tried to imagine 
 what it looked like in the days of beginnings when Wall street was really 
 " the street along the wall," and Pearl street was " the Strand," or river beach. 
 In fancy, they pulled down the towering modern building at 39 Broadway, 
 and put in its place the two little huts built by Block's shipwrecked sailors 
 — first homes of the white man in New York. They stood on the breezy 
 Battery, reminder of the vigorous Leisler, who gave it its name; thej- located 
 the circle of the ancient fort which had witnessed so many momentous 
 scenes, but none more notable than the bold adoption ot the colonists' 
 "charter of liberties" in 1683. 
 
 Here, at the corner of Pearl and Whitehall streets, they located the 
 house in which had lived Leisler, the people's governor, and recalled his 
 
THE CENTLRV HOOK OF lAMOl'S AMKRICAXS 
 
 VIEW OF FEDERAL HALL, 1797. 
 Where Washington was inaugurated. 
 
 dramatic storj-; there, near at hand, had stood the queer old " Stadt Huys,"or 
 Cit\ Hall, where aristocracy and democracy had waged their earliest battles. 
 
 It was all very interesting, because, as Christine said, it was making 
 over the past, and if you could only unthink, as she expressed it, all the 
 real brick and granite and iron, you could imagine the quaint old houses 
 and odd surroundings of the place as they looked in Washington's day. 
 
 Uncle Tom helped them to " untliink " the modern dress. 
 
 " Call it Washington's da\', ' he said. " Xew York is the capital of the 
 new republic, and many of the great ones of that storied time live here- 
 abouts. Yonder, on Pearl street, near Wall, are the hou.ses of Living- 
 ston and Clinton; not far away Chief-Justice Jay keeps open house; on 
 Maiden Lane lives Jefferson, while Hamilton, his great rival, is on Wall 
 street; and here, in front of No. i Broadway, which is President Washing- 
 ton's residence, you ma\ perhaps catch a glimpse of these two great states- 
 men walking up and down for a full half hour, talking earnestly together 
 as, between themselves, they arrange for the selection of the site of the new 
 capital of the United States — the city of Washington that is to be." 
 
 " I declare. Uncle Tom, I can almost see them now, " Marian announced. 
 
 Then, by a wide loop in their walk, I ncle Tom showed his young peo- 
 ])le the spot where, at the close of the Revolution, plucky Jack \'an Ar.sdale, 
 the sailor boy, climbed the greased pole on the battery and flung out the 
 stars and stripes in the face of the departing British. He paused with them 
 
IN THE NATION S FIRST CAPITAL 
 
 53 
 
 before Ward's splendid statue of Washington on the sub -Treasury steps — 
 
 the very spot' on which he took the oath of office as President ; he showed 
 
 them the region of " Golden 
 
 Hill" on John street, near Cliff, 
 
 where the first blood of the 
 
 Revolution was spilled, while 
 
 not far away, in the sparkling 
 
 harbor, he pointed out the place 
 
 where New York's "tea party" 
 
 had been held ; he took them to 
 
 City Hall Park, and pointed out 
 
 where Jacob Leisler had been 
 
 martyred for independence and 
 
 Nathan Hale for liberty ; he 
 
 crossed the street and pointed 
 
 out the tomb of Montgomery, the hero of Quebec, set in the brown front 
 
 of St. Paul's, and let them stand for an instant within the old church, 
 
 in the very pew which had been Washington's. Then, passing down 
 
 the street, they came to Trinity churchyard. There, with minds now 
 
 OLD CITY HALL. WALL STREET, 1776. 
 
 ■■A PROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE CITY HALL IN NEW YORK, 
 
 TAKEN FROM WALL STREET." 
 
 From a pnnt in possession of tlie New York Historical Society. 
 
 thoroughly in what Uncle Tom called "an historic mood," they surveyed 
 the brown sarcophagus that shrines the remains of " Don't-give-up-the- 
 ship " Lawrence, as Jack designated him ; they found the sunken slab 
 
54 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF lAMOLS AMERICANS 
 
 that covers the grave of poor Charlotte Temple ; they stood before the 
 towerhijf obelisk that stands as a memorial "to those great and good men 
 who died while imprisoned in this city for their devotion to the cause of 
 American Iiidependc-nce " : and so came at last to the modest gray monu- 
 ment on the south side 
 of Trinit)' churchyard be- 
 neath which rest the bones 
 of one of the greatest of 
 historic Americans and of 
 famous men — Alexander 
 Hamilton. 
 
 Hert read the inscription 
 on the base: "'To the 
 memory of Alexander 
 Hamilton, the corporation 
 of Trinity Church has 
 erected this monument in 
 testimony of their respect 
 for the Patriot of incom- 
 parable integrity, the Sol- 
 dier of approved valour, 
 the Statesman of consum- 
 mate wisdom, whose tal- 
 ents and virtues will be 
 admitted by grateful pos- 
 terity, long after this mar- 
 ble shall have mouldered 
 into dust. He died July 
 12, 1804, aged 47.' " 
 The boys and girls regarded the inscription with interest. It seemed a 
 fitting culmination to all they had seen that morning. 
 
 "Only forty-seven!" was Christine's comment. "He was n't so very 
 old, was he ? And he did so much." 
 
 " Somehow I always think of those Revolutionary fellows as old men," 
 said Jack. " Don't you know liow the song goes: 
 
 " In their ragged regimentals 
 
 Stood the old Continentals 
 
 Yielding not. 
 
 WARDS SIATUE 01-" WASHINGTON. 
 On ihc steps of the sub- Treasury. Wall street. Trinity church in the distance. 
 
 But this does n't seem so, 
 was n't he. Uncle Tom ?" 
 
 does it? llamillon was an 'old Continental,' 
 
IN THE NATIONS FIRST CAPITAL 
 
 55 
 
 "One of the earliest and youngest," replied Uncle Tom. "But then 
 you must remember, Jack, that it is the young men who make history, and — 
 govern yourself accordingly ! Why, the average age of the fifty-six signers 
 of the Declaration of Independence was only forty-four ; twenty of them 
 were under forty, and one was but twenty-four. Twenty of the signers of 
 the Constitution were under forty — Madison and Hamilton, its authors and 
 'fathers,' were but thirty-six and thirty respectively. Age, you see, is not 
 a requirement to statesmanship, and the remarkable story of Alexander 
 Hamilton, before whose early grave we are standing, is proof of this." 
 
 " Did n't we hear something about him in Washington ? " inquired Marian. 
 
 "To be sure we did — in the State Department, was n't it? "rejoined 
 Christine. 
 
 "Why, yes," said Roger; "don't you remember when the custodian in 
 the library showed us the real simon-pure original Constitution of the 
 United States he told us 
 about Hamilton and said that 
 his story was one to make 
 young men proud of their 
 youth ? " 
 
 " What do you recollect 
 of his story, boys ? " asked 
 Uncle Tom. 
 
 " Let 's see," hesitated 
 Bert, " the man in the State 
 Department told us that 
 Hamilton was an orator and 
 patriot at seventeen, a hero 
 at twenty, a statesman at 
 twenty-three." 
 
 "Sort of 'historic boy,' 
 eh. Uncle Tom ? " suggested 
 Jack. 
 
 " But was he all that so 
 young?" Marian demanded. 
 
 "All that and more," 
 Uncle Tom replied. "Alex- 
 ander Hamilton was really, the tomb of Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 Jack, one of the world's his- in Trinity churchyard. 
 
 toric — one of its remarkable boys. Let me see if I can recall his record : 
 At twelve, a confidential clerk in a mercantile house ; at thirteen, man- 
 
"^!r~''""""^<'*'«""«^ 
 
 "^ tMtHAhi hale: 
 
 ■^ : 
 
 THE STATUE OF NATHAN HALE. 
 By Frederick McMonnics, recently creeled in City Hall Park, New York. 
 
IN THE NATIONS FIRST CAPITAL 57 
 
 ager ; at fourteen, a descriptive writer ; at sixteen, a regular student in 
 college and at the same time taking a medical course ; at seventeen, a 
 popular orator; at nineteen, a captain of artiller)- in the Continental army; 
 at twenty, a lieutenant-colonel and Washington's aide-de-camp ; at twenty- 
 three, a battalion commander ; at twenty-four, a member of Congress ; 
 at thirty, framer and signer of the Constitution of the United States ; at 
 thirty-two, the first Secretary of the Treasury ; at thirty-five, a great lawyer ; 
 at forty, a major-general ; at forty-two, commander-in-chief of the armies 
 of the United States; at forty-five, America's leading statesman; and at 
 forty-seven — here, murdered by his relentless rival, Aaron Burr." 
 
 " Really murdered, Uncle Tom ? How dreadful ! " exclaimed Christine. 
 
 " I thought he was killed in a duel," said Jack. " Duelling was n't called 
 murder then." 
 
 " He must have been murdered," said Roger, solemnly. " I know a 
 verse my grandmother used to tell me. She got it from her father, she said. 
 How did it go ? — something like this : 
 
 " O Aaron Burr, what have you done ? 
 You 've shot poor General Hamilton. 
 You got behind a bunch of thistles 
 And shot him dead with two horse-pistols." 
 
 " Oh, see here, that is n't history, is it ? " exclaimed Bert. 
 
 Uncle Tom laughed. 
 
 "Current tradition done into doggerel," he said. " It was n't just like 
 that, Roger, although, as I said, duelling is murder, and in this instance it 
 was deliberate murder, even without the thistles and horse-pistols of your 
 great-grandfather's rhyme. Burr was determined to kill Hamilton, while 
 Hamilton fired his pistol in the air, simply wanting to follow out the form of 
 a duel without its tragic ending. But if it killed Hamilton, physically, it 
 killed Burr, morally and politically, for it proved to be the greatest mistake 
 of his mistaken and wrongly balanced life. It rounded out Hamilton's 
 fame, and drove Burr into treason and ignominy." 
 
 As they turned from the grave of one of America's most brilliant states- 
 men, and took the cable car up Broadway for home. Uncle Tom rehearsed 
 briefly Hamilton's remarkable story: 
 
 "Hamilton was born in 1757 on the island of Nevis, one of — who 
 knows where Nevis is ? " he asked. 
 
 They were good geography scholars and not to be caught napping. 
 
 "One'of the Leeward Islands, down Venezuela way," said Bert. 
 
 "Yes, and an English possession," added Uncle Tom. "Well, there 
 
58 
 
 THE CENTIRY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 wirr*^ 1 ^ i>i IM 
 
 WAi-lllNGTONS PEW IN ST. PAULS CHLKCH AS IT IS TO-UAY. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton was born in 1757, and Ijeiore he was ten years old 
 had to look ont for himself. He was a remarkably bright boy even then ; 
 he had ambitions and aspirations, and told his boy friends he meant to be 
 somebod)' in the world when he grew up. Before he was in his teens he 
 became the confidential clerk of his employer, a merchant in the distant 
 island of Santa Cruz ; there, too, he wrote and read a great deal and showed 
 so much talent that friends sent him to the northern colonies for an educa- 
 tion. He went to school in New Jersey and then to King's College (now 
 Columbia). In 1774 he made a visit to Boston, and heard so much talk 
 about liberty that he came back to New York a full-fledged patriot — " 
 
 " Boston air," asserted Roger in an aside to Jack ; " that 's the effect it has 
 on New Yorkers." 
 
 "Is that so?" drawled Jack. " \\'h\-, my son, Golden Hill came two 
 months before the Boston massacre; Uncle Tom said so." 
 
 But Uncle Tom had not caught this side sparring and was going on 
 with his story. 
 
IN THE NATION S FIRST CAPITAL 59 
 
 " Soon after his return, in an open-air mass meeting where he thought the 
 speakers were not convincing enough, Hamilton, then a boy of seventeen, 
 sprang to his feet and made a ' spur-of-the-moment ' speech that set all his 
 hearers on fire and brought him at once into favor as a popular orator. 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 From the p:iinting by Trumbull, 1792 ; now owned by the New York Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 When war really came, Hamilton enlisted at once. He led an artillery com- 
 pany at the battle of Long Island, and .soon attracted the attention of Wash- 
 ington, who added him to his staff as an aide-de-camp. He fought through 
 the Revolution, led the last charge at Yorktown, where Cornwallis surren- 
 dered, and came out of it all as Colonel Hamilton, aged twenty-five." 
 
 " My, though ! he was a smart one, was n't he?" said Marian. 
 
 " Yes ; he might have been a great soldier and a famous one," said Uncle 
 
OO 
 
 TIIK CLNTLUV BOOK OK FAMOUS AMKKICANS 
 
 Tom, •if he liad not made a 
 still liiLfhcr record as a states- 
 man. I le liad a remarkal)le 
 mind, you understand, and saw, 
 even before older and more ex- 
 perienced men recoj^Miized it, 
 the need of something^ reliable 
 and bindinj^ if the Colonies 
 were to be a real nation. When 
 he was twenty-four, in a letter 
 to a friend, he outlined many 
 oi the provisions that, seven 
 years later, found place in the 
 Constitution." 
 
 " I remember the man in the 
 State Department told us that," 
 said Bert. "Great, was n't 
 it?" 
 
 " I tell )ou, Alexander was 
 quite a boy," Jack declared 
 impressivelj'. 
 
 UNli KESLLT OK HAMII.TO.VS IMPROMPTU SPEECH 
 Tcnrin); down the King's arms. 
 
IN THE .nation's FIRST CAPITAL 6l 
 
 " After the Revolution, " continued Uncle Tom, " Hamilton began busi- 
 ness as a lawyer here in New York, but gave up his practice to go to 
 Congress, and, later, to become a member of the convention that drafted and 
 adopted the new Constitution of the United States, of which, as I have said, 
 he was largely the father and framer. When the new nation was fairly on 
 its feet, President Washington made Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury, 
 and it was this wonderful financier of thirty-two who saved the young repub- 
 lic from bankruptcy and failure. Did any of you ever hear what Daniel 
 \\'ebster said of Hamilton and his services to the republic as Secretary of 
 the Treasury ? " 
 
 No one seemed to remember, and Uncle Tom quoted \\'ebster's famous 
 words, from his eulogy on Hamilton in 1831 : 
 
 '• He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed 
 forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet." 
 
 "That 's fine, is n't it ! " exclaimed Jack. " Say, boys, D. W. knew how 
 to put things, did n't he ? " 
 
 "A great man always makes strong enemies, just as he creates faithful 
 followers," continued Uncle Tom. " Hamilton was the object alike of the 
 deepest admiration and the most bitter hatred. Chief among his enemies 
 was Aaron Burr, a bold, shrewd, vindictive, and unscrupulous political 
 'boss' of that time. He knew that Hamilton saw through his schemes, 
 fathomed his ambitions, and intended to thwart his designs. He set delib- 
 erately to work to fasten a quarrel upon Hamilton and kill him. He suc- 
 ceeded, and the famous and tragic duel across the river yonder, on the 
 Weehawken shore, ended the earthly career of Hamilton, but raised him, 
 as I have told you, to a pinnacle ot fame which stands out all the bolder 
 and more gloriously as the )ears go b)-. The man who thought out the 
 Constitution of the United States, and the way in which the new nation 
 should be firmly established and successfully 'run,' is not likely to fade 
 from the grateful memories of the citizens of the great republic he prophe- 
 sied and prepared for. That ends my lecture, boys and girls. Here 's our 
 corner. Now for home and morning church." 
 
 A day or two after this journey in patriotic paths. Uncle Tom took his 
 young people far up-town on the w^est side of Manhattan Island. He 
 pointed out to them the crest of the hill where was fought the battle of 
 Harlem Heights, in which the young artillery captain Hamilton first at- 
 tracted the attention of Washington, and where now rise the walls of the 
 magnificent successor to that young patriot's modest college — then King's, 
 now the new Columbia. 
 
62 
 
 rilK CENTURY HOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 Soon they crested another hill, and stood at last amid the continually 
 rising city mansions of this sightly part of upper New York — Convent 
 Avenue between I42d and 143d streets. 
 
 Midway in this block, on the western side of Convent Avenue, L'ncle 
 Tom came to a standstill, and pointing to a clump of rather scraggy and 
 slanting trees closely bunched together, said : 
 " Count them ! " 
 
 "Thirteen," announced Roger. "What are they?" 
 "These thirteen trees," said Uncle Tom, impressively, "were planted 
 by Alexander Hamilton to commemorate the union of the thirteen Amer- 
 ican colonies into a nation, after the 
 adoption of the Constitution, in 
 which he had so important a share. 
 They have lasted thus long. They 
 are now the property of the cit)-. 
 Let us hope the advance of popula- 
 tion will not smother or overthrow 
 these last memorials of the home 
 of Alexander Hamilton." 
 
 "Why, was this his home?" in- 
 quired Marian. 
 
 "The Grange, Hamilton's country 
 house, stood just to the left of that 
 clump of trees," said Uncle Tom. 
 " Now it has been removed. There 
 it stands across the way, ne.xt to 
 that Episcopal church." 
 
 With much interest the boys and 
 girls looked across the avenue where, 
 on the eastern side, stood the re- 
 moved and renovated homestead of Hamilton, which he so dearly loved, 
 and from which he had gone direct to his death that fatal 1 ithof July, 1804. 
 Jack shook his head meditativeU-, as if he too were recalling Hamilton's 
 tragic story. 
 
 "It was a great shame," he said enii)haticalh-. "What a pity! I 
 suppose there always are two sides to a story, and there may have been 
 lots of outs about Hamilton — but I don't care; lie was a great man, and I 
 say three cheers for him. " 
 
 "We are none of us perfect, jack," said Uncle 1 om ; "but 1 am trying 
 to show vou vountr folks, in our <rreat Americans, the thiuirs to remember. 
 
 TREES I'l.AMEL) BY HAMILTON. 
 Convent .^vcnuc, New York. 
 
IN THE NATION S FIRST CAPITAL 
 
 63 
 
 not the things to forget. Alexander Hamilton was born to be great. 
 Marshall, our foremost Chief Justice, ranked him next to Washington. No 
 man has made a deeper mark on American history, or is entitled to a more 
 exalted station in the remembrance of the republic. He was a great orator, 
 
 On Convent Avenue, New York 
 
 a great lawyer, the ablest politician and statesman of his day, a fine soldier, 
 an organizer without a rival. Whatever he touched he mastered, and if 
 ever he made a mistake he was not afraid to say so. But though some- 
 times mistaken, he never failed. Hamilton's name stands for success, and 
 his story should be an inspiration to the boys and girls of America, for it 
 shows them that worthy ambition rightly pursued brings to men merited 
 success and enduring fame." 
 
 "Albert, my son," said Jack, patting his cousin on the head, "be a 
 Hamilton." 
 
 THE DUEL. 
 
JOHN NiXON KI.ADING THE DECLAR.-\TION OF INDKl'ENm.Ni 11 IN 
 THE STATE HOUSE YARD, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 8, 1776. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL 
 
 Where Frajiklin lived — An Extraordinary JMaji — The Story of a Help- 
 ful Life — Landmarks and Relies — Independence LLall and the Liberty 
 'Bell ' 
 
 NCLE Tom stopped short and glanced about him. 
 
 " It must have been somewhere near this very spot," he 
 said, " that a certain runaway Boston boy once did that dif- 
 ficult act, referred to in Boston, by my friend Jack, of walk- 
 ing along with a roll under each arm, eating a third, and at 
 the same time ' casting sheep's eyes ' at a girl on the front stoop." 
 
 At once Jack thrust, first, a guide-book, and then a newspaper under 
 Roger's arms, and forced a banana into his hand. 
 
 ''Try it on, Roger," he said. "You '11 answer for the runaway Boston 
 bo}'. Christine, you go stand in that doorway. We '11 make the whole 
 P'ranklin story realistic." 
 
 But neither Roger nor Christine appeared to enter heartily into the 
 spirit of what Jack styled his "realistic reproduction of an historic event," 
 and Uncle Tom hurried the laughing group up Market street ; for they 
 were abroad, investigating old-time Philadelphia. 
 
 Suddenly he stopped again. Midway in the block between Third and 
 F"ourth streets, on the southern side of Market, he spied a queer, arched 
 passage, and at once dived into it, followed by his wondering companions. 
 
 The alleyway widened as they advanced. Half way toward Chestnut 
 street Uncle Tom stopped a third time. 
 
 " Here, boys and girls," he said, "once stood the house of the most ex- 
 traordinary of Americans — Benjamin Franklin." 
 
 " Most e.xtraordinary place to have a house," declared Bert. 
 
 " Here, in the middle of this block of the back doors of buildings, 
 Uncle Tom?" cried Marian. "How funny!" 
 
 5 65 
 
6b 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF KAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 IHE GIKL AT WHOM HE CAST SHEEFS EVES." 
 
 " As if they were here then, goosey ! " exclaimed Jack. 
 
 Warehouses and blank walls hedged in the narrow court. It was nei- 
 ther attractive nor suggestive; but in Uncle Tom's eyes it was a shrine 
 before which all patriotic Americans could stand with feelings of reverence. 
 
 The queer, narrow cut ran through the block from Market to Chestnut 
 streets, and midway, so Uncle Tom assured them, had stood the house 
 where Franklin lived with his dearly loved wife Deborah. 
 
 " The girl at whom he cast sheep's eyes while doing the three-loaves act, 
 was n't she?" inquired Jack. 
 
 " The same," said Uncle Tom — " Miss 1 )(l)orah Read. Nothing remains 
 of that hou.se now. But from here went out truths that instructed the 
 world; from here went the philosopher with his kite and his son into the 
 fields beyond the town to experiment with the lightning — tlie pioneer of 
 electrical science." 
 
 "That makes me think of that statui: of him in front of the Electricity 
 Building at the World's Fair," said Marian, " with his kite antl all, \ou know." 
 
STATUE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 
 
 Made for the Electricity Building, World's Fair Grounds, Chicago, 1893, and 
 
 now on the grounds of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 
68 
 
 THE CENTURV BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 "He was a pioneer in man)- other things too, was he not?" inquired 
 Bert. 
 
 "Indeed he was," Uncle Tom rephed. "I know of no case in history 
 of a man with equal genius for 'starting things.' Let me see if I can give 
 you a list of the things which Benjamin Franklin set afloat." 
 
 Uncle Tom stood in the shade of a warehouse doorway, and ran o\er 
 the list: 
 
 " lie improved the printing-press, and introduced stereotyping and mani- 
 fold letter-writers ; he cured chimneys of smoking ; bettered the .shape and 
 rig of ships; showed sailors the practical use of the Gulf Stream, and told 
 them how to keep provisions fresh at .sea. He improved sou|)-plates for 
 men and water-troughs for beasts ; he drained .sw-amp-lands, and made 
 them fertile and fruitful ; he improved fireplaces, and invented stoves ; he 
 showed how to heat public buildings, and invented automatic fans to cool 
 hot rooms and to keep off flies ; he made double .spectacles for far- and near- 
 sighted folks ; he invented a musical instrument, and improved an electrical 
 machine; he taught men that lightning was electricity, relieved it of its ter- 
 rors, and harnessed it to do the will of man ; he invented lightning-rods. 
 
 and was the first advocate of electrocu- 
 tion tor killing animals instantlv and 
 without pain ; he thought out phonog- 
 raphy and shorthand ; improved car- 
 riage wheels, wind-mills, and water- 
 wheels ; he revolutionized the covering 
 of roofs ; he invented sidewalks and 
 crossing-stones, — at least for Philadel- 
 phia, — and showed that streets could be 
 swept and kept clean. He founded the 
 first philosophical society in America, 
 the first improvement club, the first free 
 schools outside of New England, the 
 first public library, the first fire com- 
 pany, and the first periodical magazine. 
 He started the Philadelphia police force 
 and the first volunteer militia. He in- 
 troduced the idea of humanity in war ; 
 protected the Indians; founded the first 
 anti-slavery .society ; and introduced into America, from Kurope, seeds, vines, 
 and vegetables new to the W^estern world. That 's a pretty good record of first 
 things, is n't it ? I don't believe you can match it in the history of the world." 
 
 .1- 
 
 FROM A FRENCH MEMORIAL TO FRANKLIN 
 
 " He snatched the thunderbolt from heaven and the 
 !»ceptcr from tyrants." 
 
THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL 
 
 69 
 
 " Whew ! what a head he must have had ! " said Jack. " Did he ever eat 
 and sleep ? " 
 
 "Well, I guess ! " exclaimed Bert. " He 's the fellow you 've had to go 
 to bed by, many a time. Don't 
 you know that Franklin was the 
 man who said : 
 
 '• Early tb bed and early to rise 
 J\Iakes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. 
 
 Is n't that so, Uncle Tom ? " 
 
 " Certainly it is," his uncle 
 replied. " Benjamin Franklin 
 was the author and maker of 
 ' Poor Richard's .-Xlmanack," 
 from which that rhyme comes, 
 and which did more to influence 
 public opinion in America than 
 all the speeches of all the ora- 
 tors. It was full of just such 
 thrifty maxims and wise coun- 
 sels as Bert has just quoted — 
 simple verses telling a great 
 truth that parents would repeat 
 and children would always re- 
 member. Franklin published 
 his almanac annually for twent\- 
 five years, and one student of 
 history has declared that the 
 battles of the American Revolu- 
 tion could not have been fought 
 between i 775 and i 783 if ' Poor 
 Richard's Almanack' had not 
 been published from 1732 to 
 1758. There were hundreds and 
 hundreds of homes in the Amer- 
 ican colonies in which thefam- 
 
 Poor Richard, 1755. 
 
 ^ - AN 
 
 Almanack 
 
 FortheYear of Chrift 
 
 I 7 3 h 
 
 Being the Firft after LEAP YEAR: 
 
 Jnd trutkts fixrr the Creaiicm YejrS 
 
 ScBythe Account of the E.ftrrn i^rei^s 7241 
 
 ' Bjr the Latin Church, whtii O ent. y 69^2 
 
 I By the Con. putarion qf /^"^^ j-^f 
 
 • 8y the Rfm.'ti Chronology jKS? 
 
 ii By the" yew//5 Rabbles j^p^ 
 
 I Wherein is contaiiied 
 
 ^fThe. Lunations, Eciipfcs. judgment. of 
 
 j the Weather, Spring Tido'!, Planij'.s Motion- & 
 triutuai AfpeSs, Sun and Nfoon's Riltnff';ind 'Si- 
 ting, Length of Days, Time of Hi;.[h Water, 
 Fairs, Courts, and obfcrvab!'- D.I).'! 
 
 ; Fitted tothe Larirude ol For.rv Degrees, 
 9nd a Meridian of Five Hour.', Weft <^xov(^ I mdm, 
 J but may without fenfible Enor, fcrveali the -d- 
 jacent Places, even from NcwfountllanfCio Southyx 
 Carolh jg. , ' 
 
 j 5y UlCH JtiP SJUNDE RXPhilom} 
 
 .. PHILADRLPHIA: "^ 
 
 Kmted and fold by B. FRJNKL/W, at the New 
 Printing Office near the Marker. 
 
 Tbe Third Iropjcfiioa. 
 
 "POOR RICH.-\RDS ALMANACK.' 
 Title-page of the only existing copy of the fii^t number, now in 
 possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia 
 
 ilies knew and possessed only two books — the Bible for .Sunday reading, 
 and ' Poor Richard's Almanack ' for the other six days of the week. As 
 you can see from Master Bert here, people are quoting from it yet, though 
 it stopped publication almost a hundred and fifty years ago." 
 
^ 
 
 Tx^^z./i-^^i^^i.^ 
 
THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL "Jl 
 
 Interested, thus, in the remarkable man who for many years was so 
 closely identified with American history and the progress of the world, the 
 man who, as his French admirers affirmed, "snatched the thunderbolt from 
 heaven and the scepter from tyrants," the young people followed Uncle 
 Tom from the narrow confines of P>anklin alley along what Jack afterward 
 referred to as "the trail of B. F"ranklin." 
 
 They found signs of it in many quarters. They saw the great and 
 beneficent Pennsylvania Hospital founded by him. Tucked away behind mo- 
 dern and obtrusive buildings they found, on Fourth street, between Market 
 and Arch, the first school building of the University of Pennsylvania, started 
 by Franklin in 1751. They visited the Philadelphia Library, organized by 
 him in i 731 ; they saw the place where he helped Jefferson draft the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, the place where he argued lor it, the table on which 
 he signed it, and the room in which he advocated and signed the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. In the rooms of the American Philosophical 
 Association, a scientific society founded by him, they were privileged to see 
 certain cherished memorials of this great man — twenty or more volumes of 
 his autograph letters, personal, public, political, and private ; and the girls, 
 with a touch of sentiment mingled with awe, hung over a priceless volume of 
 Franklin's European letters to his wife in America. They were creased and 
 time-stained, but the handwriting was strong and clear, and every letter be- 
 gan " My dear child." 
 
 From that hour, as Marian declared, she "just loved Franklin." 
 
 There, too, they saw the chair in which Franklin presided at the meet- 
 ings of his beloved Philosophical Association, when, during his last days, it 
 assembled in his sick-room. Especially did this interest the boys, because of 
 the ingenuity of the wise old man. For the seat of the great chair was re- 
 versible : the upper side was a cushioned seat ; the under side, w-hen tipped 
 up, was a ladder by which the sick and aged Franklin could climb into his 
 high four-post bed when the philosophical sessions were over. Uncle Tom 
 declared that this ingenious contrivance impressed the boys mightily, even 
 more than lightning-rods and wise sayings and sidewalks. 
 
 At last they sought the final resting-place of this wonderful American, 
 who from a Boston street ballad-seller rose to be the best-known man of his 
 day in the two hemispheres. 
 
 Where the high brick fence enclosing the old Christ Church burying- 
 ground has been torn away, at the corner of Arch and Fifth streets, so that 
 all who pass may see the spot from the street, they gathered before the iron 
 railing that separated them from the grave of Franklin. 
 
 It was a flat slab lying at their feet, and the girls, still under the influ- 
 ence of the dear home letters they had seen, found a special significance 
 
THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 J^,^'^ .-^v 'v 4i^!^^^::^^^:v?i? 
 
 and a peculiar beauty in the simple but joint memorial, inscribed only with 
 the names of Benjamin Franklin and Deborah, his wife. 
 
 " His life was just as simple as that slab," said Uncle Tom, as, resting from 
 their wandtriiii^rs, they sat together beneath the beautiful trees of Indepen- 
 dence Square, " and just as elocjuent 
 by its very simplicity. And what a life 
 it was! I know of none into which 
 \\ as crowded more of good to the na- 
 tion and the world, with less of per- 
 sonal ambition or the vanity of glory." 
 "Tell us his story, Uncle Tom," 
 Christine requested. " I sort of 
 know it, but I don't really." 
 
 "Briefly, it is this,"said Uncle Tom : 
 "A rather harum-scarum boy in the 
 streets of old Boston, he began work- 
 ing on his own hook when tweKe 
 \ i-ars old, selling his own songs through 
 the town, because he did not take kindly 
 111 his father's business of candle-mak- 
 ing. Then he became a printer, ran 
 away from home to escape the tyrann\ 
 of a brother, turned up on a Sunday morning here in Philadelphia, and found 
 employment in a printing-office ; and here, at twenty years of age, he was pa- 
 tronized by a governor, who sent him to England on false promises. Having 
 a trade, however, he did not starve when failure met him. He returned, 
 after two years in London, to Philadelphia, and set up a printing-office of 
 his own on Market street; he started a newspaper; he became a bookseller, 
 and next an almanac publisher ; then he was made clerk of the assemljly, 
 postmaster of Philadelphia, and finally postmaster general of the American 
 colonies. A pretty good rise for the candle-maker's son, was it not? " 
 
 " I should saj- it was," said Bert. How old was he when he w^as made 
 postmaster-general. Uncle Tom?" 
 
 " About forty-six," his uncle replied. " Hut hv had accomplished much 
 else. The poor Boston bo\-. who had scarcely a \ear's schooling, was now 
 master of six languages. He had tamed the lightning, had made his name 
 known in Europe, received degrees, medals, and diplomas from the leading 
 colleges in Pairope and America, and had become, for all tinn-. 'Doctor' 
 Pranklin, philosopher and scientist." 
 
 "When did he fly the kite that brought him all tliat fame. Uncle Tom?" 
 asked Marian. 
 
 IKANKLINS GRAVE. 
 Fiftli and Arch streets, Philadelphia 
 
THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL 
 
 73 
 
 
 
 
 MEMORIALS OF FRANKLIN. 
 
 " On a June day in 1752," Uncle Tom replied, "out here in the fields 
 just beyond the town. Now, of course, that little hill is all built over. I 
 wish I could locate it for you, for it is one of America's historic spots. 
 Well, in 1757 he was sent to England as agent for Pennsylvania, and soon 
 after was made agent, or representative, in England for all the colonies. He 
 stayed there eighteen years, returning in time to be sent to Congress and 
 sign the Declaration of Independence." 
 
 "That 's the time he made the funny answer to Hancock, was n't it?" 
 said Roeer. 
 
THE CENTL'KY BOOK OF KAMOl'S AMERICANS 
 
 " I don't know ; what was tliat, Roger?" Uncle Tom inquired. 
 "Why, don't you remember? Hancock said, 'We must all be unanimous 
 now ; there must be no pulling apart ; we must all hang together.' And 
 
 ^ 
 
 .\ MElilING OF AN OLD-TI.ME SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY. 
 
 I'ranklin replied, 'That 's true, John; for if we don't, we shall all hang 
 separately.' " 
 
 " Cheerful old fellow, was n't he?" said Jack. " I do like a man who 
 can make a joke just when you don't e.xpect it." 
 
 "Franklin was always bubbling over with fun," Uncle Tom declared. 
 "The man who was quick to see the deep and serious side of life could also 
 see its sunny and humorous side. That is what helped make him .so well 
 rounded. That same year he was sent as minister to the Court of France, 
 and secured the help of that nation for the struggling colonies. He lived 
 there ten years. Then he came home, was made president — that is, governor 
 — of Pennsylvania ; went to Congress, and worked for and signed the new 
 Constitution of the United States, when he was eighty-one years old, and, 
 as you know, the oldest signer of that great document. Three years later, 
 on the 17th of April, 1790, he died, aged eighty-four, and now lies buried 
 beside his beloved Deborah, ' his wife,' beneath that simple slab in Christ 
 Church bur\in<r-u-r()und." 
 
THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL 
 
 75 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 Where Franklin and Washington went to church. 
 
 " What a busy life ! " exclaimed Christine. " And think of the things 
 he did that you could n't get into the story, Uncle Tom ! I think he must 
 have been a delightful old man." 
 
 "He was indeed, Christine," llncle Tom replied, "and as remarkable 
 as he was charming. Self-taught, .self- reared, self-made, the candle -maker's 
 boy gave light to all the world ; the street ballad-seller set all men to sing- 
 ing of liberty ; the runaway printer brought the nations to praise and honor 
 
76 
 
 Tin: CENTL'RV BOOK OK FA.MOLS AMERICANS 
 
 him. And he was so well balanced ! Witty, but never malicious ; inflexible, 
 but never obstinate ; stronjjj-willed, but never tyrannical ; the wisest of men, 
 but never conceitetl ; a statesman, but never a politician ; an ofifice-holder. but 
 never an office-seeker : he had all the attributes and none of the vices of 
 greatness ; all the simplicity and none of the sordidness of success. With 
 great understanding, he had still greater common sense, and, while asking 
 few favors for himself, no man in the world ever set on foot so many good 
 works of practical benevolence. Yes, yes ; he was a great man, my friends ; 
 America's most remarkable production, I contend. Come, let 's go into 
 Independence Hall, and have a look at the Liberty Hell." 
 
 
 WHERE ER.\NK1.IN LIVED IN FRANCE. 
 Chateau de Chauni.>nt. 
 
 In the center ot the very room in which was presented, adopted, and 
 signed the immortal Declaration of Independence, within its protecting case 
 of oak and glass, hung the historic bell which rang out in announcement of 
 the great act of July 4, 1776. The children gathered about it with feelings 
 of the deepest reverence. There, in the side, they saw the crack that burst 
 in it as it tolled for the death of the great Chief- Justice Marshall. About 
 the rim they could read its prophetic inscription : " Proclaim liberty through- 
 out the land unto all the inhabitants thereof" ; and Uncle Tom told them 
 that it had been mute and tongueless ever since the one hundred and thir- 
 teenth birthday of Washington, when it had struck its last note. But he 
 assuretl them that, by its silent presence in that memorial hall, and by its 
 carefully guarded journeys north and south to expositions and national jubi- 
 
THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL 
 
 n 
 
 
 THE LIBERTY BELL ON A SOUTHERN TRIP. 
 
 *' Eloquent for loyalty, liberty's most efficient orator." 
 
 lees, it had become eloquent for loyalty, liberty's most efficient orator. 
 Even more than the table on which the Declaration had been signed and 
 the chairs in which had sat the members of the Congress, did this voiceless 
 old bell hold and fascinate the boys and girls. 
 
 Uncle Tom shared their interest. 
 
 " It certainly is one of the most impressive relics in the world, " he de- 
 clar,ed, as they passed from the Congress room to the National Museum 
 across the hall. " I always feel as though I were looking on a real par- 
 ticipator in the historic event which it proclaimed so vigorously a hundred 
 years or more ago." 
 
 "As you are," Bert declared; while Christine, looking at the winding 
 hall stair, exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh, was it up those stairs that the boy ran to tell his grandfather to 
 ring? " 
 
 " You remember the old stor)-, do you ? " laughed Uncle Tom. " Those 
 should be the stairs, if thej^ have not been renewed or rebuilt. As to the 
 truth of that story, I am not prepared to decide." 
 
 " It 's good enough to be true, anyhow," said Roger. 
 
 " It "s all just like the poem," said Christine. " Let 's see, how did it 
 go?" and she repeated the opening verse of the bell-ringer story as she 
 had spoken it in school : 
 
JS 
 
 THE tENTURV BOOK OK KAMOUS AMKklCANS 
 
 " Squarely jjrim and stoutly built, 
 Free from glitter and from gilt, 
 Plain, from lintel up to roof-tree and to belfry 
 bare and brown, 
 Stands the Hall that hot July, 
 While the folk throng anxious by. 
 Where the Continental Congress meets within 
 the Quaker town. 
 
 ■• Hark ! a stir, a sudden shout, 
 And a boy comes springing out, 
 Signalling to where his grandsire in the 
 belfry waiting stands : 
 ' Ring ! ' he cries ; ' the deed is done ! 
 Ring ! they 've signed, and freedom 's 
 won ! ' 
 And the ringer gras])s the bell-rope with his 
 strong and sturdy hands ; 
 
 While the I'.ell, with joyous note. 
 Clanging from its brazen throat, 
 Rings the tidings, all-exultant — peals the 
 news from shore to sea : 
 ' Man is iiuin — a slave no longer. 
 Truth aiul Right than Might are stronger. 
 Praise to God .' we 're free ; we 're free .' ' " 
 
THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL 
 
 79 
 
 They lingered long over the extensive collection of revolutionary relics 
 in the museum room ; they visited the Congress Hall, where Washington 
 and Adams had both been inaugurated ; they hunted up the Supreme Court 
 room in which had presided John Jay and Oliver Ellsworth, earliest of chief- 
 justices. They studied or recalled all the associations that make Independ- 
 ence Hall so notable an object lesson in American history, and Marian 
 stood before the ancient fireplace in the Philosophical rooms on the exact 
 spot where Washington posed for the celebrated Gilbert Stuart portrait. 
 
 "Gilbert Stuart!" said Bert, " O, don't you remember? we found his 
 grave in Boston." 
 
 " Yes, in the old burying ground, inside of Boston Common," replied 
 
 Roeer. 
 
 I I ii I I I 
 
 TABLE AND CHAIRS USED AT THE SIGNIN'G OF 
 THE DECLAR.^TION. 
 
 They visited Carpenters' Hall, farther down Chestnut street — a quaint 
 reminder of colonial times, hedged about by great modern buildings, but with 
 tin)' courtyard and grass-plots. They read the inscription above the doors 
 of the audience room: "Within these walls, Henry, Hancock, and Adams 
 inspired the delegates of the colonies with nerve and sinew for the toils of 
 war," and then were quite ready to hunt up that historic corner of Seventh 
 and Market streets where, so the tablet in the new bank building announced 
 to them, had stood the house in which Jefferson wrote the Declaration. 
 
8o 
 
 TIIK CKNTLRV BOOK OF FAMOIS AMF.RICANS 
 
 They dipped still deeper into the past, and hunted up the site of the old 
 houses which William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, had built for him- 
 self and his daui^diter on Letitia street, and so, at last, worked round again to 
 dinner and the contemplation of Franklin — Philadelphia's most notable 
 figure, as Uncle Tom declared. 
 
 •• I told you in Boston," he remarked, as the hungry tourists paused awhile 
 between the roast and the dessert, " that, looking upon the spot where 
 Franklin was born, I was inclined to put him down as the first real Ameri- 
 can. The study of his life here in this city, for which he did so much, onl\- 
 strengthens me in that opinion. Benjamin iM-anklin was tlie product ot his 
 own age and the child of his own country." 
 
 " How could he have been anything else," remarked practical Jack. 
 
 " It does sound a bit like a self-evident truth. Jack, 1 admit," laughed 
 Uncle Tom. " But I hope you know what I mean. He was preeminently 
 what is called the ' child of his age ' because he did more than anv other 
 
THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL 
 
 American to glorify his age and shape the destinies of his country. The 
 ballad-peddler of Boston, the runaway printer's apprentice, made his name 
 famous in two continents, and, for his native land, joined liberty and law to 
 progress and common sense. Here, in this fine old city, he organized educa- 
 tion, benevolence, and industry ; here he conquered the lightning, estab- 
 lished independence, and cemented union. With Franklin as a model, our 
 boys can aspire to anything and accomplish much. With his life as a guide 
 and his integrity as a text, the American of to-day can shape himself into 
 a better patriot, a broader-minded American, a more devoted citizen of 
 the republic. Now for Fairmount Park and the charming Wissahickon ! " 
 
 BIRD'.S-EVE VIEW OF PHILADELPHI.A FROM C.^MDLN, N. J. 
 Delaware River in foreground. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST 
 
 Philadelphia s Place in History — A iVeiu Plan of Pilgrimage — In the 
 Month of the Chesapeake — The Old Dominion — Richmond and Pat- 
 rick Henry. 
 
 EN I. Vidi, Vici ! "exclaimed Bert, as, their three days' stay 
 in Philadelphia over, the boys and girls were on their way 
 back to New York. 
 
 " Modest, even for a classical crank ! " retorted Jack. 
 "How have you conquered, Mr. Julius Caesar Albert 
 Upham?" 
 
 " Why, I mean we 've seen about everything there is to see in our line 
 in Philadelphia," exclaimed Bert. " Is n't that so? " 
 
 "Right you are," replied Jack, "and I m bound to confess, Roger my 
 boy," he added, turning to his Boston friend, "that, historically at least, the 
 Quaker City pu.shes the Hub pretty close. I had n't any idea. Uncle Tom, 
 that Philadelphia was such a treasure chest of relics." 
 
 " Live and learn. Jack," said Uncle Tom. " The fact is, scarcely any city 
 in the United States possesses so many historic buildings and sites as Phila- 
 delphia. It is one of the oldest municipalities, and has kept steadil)- ad- 
 vancing since Penn's day. For years it was the national capital, and it has 
 been its good fortune to have carefully and watchfully preserved many of 
 the buildings that have a place in American history." 
 
 They had scoured the old city thoroughly, from Penn's landing-place and 
 Franklin's "cake walk," as Jack insisted on calling lower Market street, to 
 the new City Hall and Grant's "headquarters " cottage in Fairmount Park. 
 They saw a game of ball at Girard College ; went through the splendid 
 new bourse, — the "home of the money-changers," Uncle Tom called it; 
 visited the Zoo and the Memorial Art Building, reminders of the nation's 
 one hundredth birthday ; saw Decatur's grave in the old burying-ground 
 
84 THE CKNTIUY BOOK Ol" KAMOl'S AMERICANS 
 
 Till-: INVF.SriGATORS SOUTHWARD BOUND. 
 
 on Third street ; and even extended their investigations to Germantown 
 and X'alley Forge. 
 
 Now they were homeward bound ; Ijut Uncle Tom had not yet reached 
 the end. He had a new plan to propose; and when, after a few days at 
 home, he brought it to the attention of what Marian called his " pilgrim 
 band," it was, naturally, greeted with shouts of approval. 
 
 This new plan was nothing more than a trip by water to Fort Monroe, 
 and then, striking inland, a spring excursion to the homes of certain great 
 and famous Americans. 
 
 Uncle Tom's plan was warml)- assented to by Mr. Dunlap, the father of 
 Jack and Marian. For, as you may remember, when he first sent them to 
 Washington to study the Government under Uncle Tom's direction, Mr. 
 Dunlap had insisted that young Americans should see and know their own 
 land first before attempting Europe. 
 
 It so happened that the homes of the great men " slated " by Uncle Tom 
 all lay on or near a direct route to the West. It did not "happen," how- 
 ever. Uncle Tom assured them. "Nothing happens," he said. "There is a 
 reason for all things." And it was with reason, he declared, that nearly all 
 America's famous ones were "border" men, and, hence, that western lay 
 their line of travel. Once decided upon, the energetic " personal conductor" 
 soon had the trip planned, the excursion tickets procured, all minor details 
 arranged, and within four days after decision the five tourists and their men- 
 tor were at sea, southward bound. 
 
 It was early in the morning when the steamer passed the lonely light- 
 .ship off Cape Charles and entered Chesapeake Bay. Even there the broad 
 gateway to the West looked like the open sea ; but Uncle Tom reminded the 
 boys and girls of the historic events that wide waterway had witnessed since 
 first Spaniard and Frenchman tacked cautiously in, .searching for the "West- 
 ern Passage" to Cathay in the early days of American discovery. 
 
 " Here, sailing into fame," said Uncle Tom, sweeping with his compre- 
 
AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST 
 
 85 
 
 hensive gesture the water-line that stretched from cape to cape, "came Cap- 
 tain John Smith, most adventurous of EngHshmen ; over this course came 
 the early Virginia colonists, and, later, Lord Delaware and the founder of 
 Maryland. Out from here, bound for their English home, sailed Pocahontas 
 and John Rolfe ; and in between these sandy shores came the famous Dutch 
 ship with its cargo of negro slaves and the seeds of future discord. Pioneers 
 and pirates, traders and travelers. Roundheads and Cavaliers, supply ships 
 and prison ships, troop ships and tobacco ships, royal governors, arrogant 
 and assuming, royal governors, disgusted or disgraced — all these, in the 
 early days, sailed in or out through this broad water-gate, to the help or the 
 
 hindrance of the Old Dominion and 
 the future republic." 
 " Why was it called the Old Do- 
 minion, Uncle Tom?" Bert in- 
 quired. 
 
 ' Virginia so styled herself be- 
 cause of her steadfast loyalty 
 to the good-for-nothing Stu- 
 arts all through the days of 
 the English Commonwealth 
 and the mighty Cromwell," 
 Uncle Tom replied, with 
 the emphasis to be 
 e.xpected of so 
 sturdy an ad- 
 
 HERE THEY SAILED INTO FAME.' 
 
86 THE CENTURY BOOK OK 1-AMOLS AMERICANS 
 
 miner of Cromwell, so firm a hater of the Stuarts. Indeed, Uncle Tom im- 
 pressed it upon his tourists that America would never sufficiently honor 
 herself until in the capital of the republic should rise a statue of the man 
 to whom America owes so much — Oliver Cromwell, (rreatest of Kns,dishmen. 
 "The Stuarts have their trade-marks all about this rctjion," L'nclc Tom 
 declared. " These two capes between which we are passint^ were nameil 
 for the two Stuart boys — Henry and Charles, sons of that crowned block- 
 head of a lames who so scandalously put to death the father of Virginia 
 and one of the beginners of .American history and progress, Sir ^^'all^■r 
 Raleigh, soldier and statesman." 
 
 "Oh, he was the cloak-man, was n't he?" cried Marian. "I mean 
 the young courtier who spread his velvet mantle in the mud for Queen 
 Elizabeth to walk over." 
 
 " That was Raleigh," a.ssented l'nclc Tom ; " and though 
 he never sailed these waters himself, he sent expeditions 
 here, and did much toward the establishment of \'irginia 
 and the development of .America. A noble historic figure 
 is Raleigh, boys and girls. You should know his story, 
 both for its dramatic outlines and for the bearing it has 
 on American history." 
 W ^ M''<^ ^^^ steamer plowed its stead\- course through this gleam- 
 
 iN. JL^: J^^Sab iiig water-gate to the West, while L'ncle Tom, still intent on 
 giving a real atmosphere to facts, continued his catalogue 
 of happenings that had made their surroundings historic. 
 " Over these shining waters and past these low-lying 
 shores," he said, "sped the messenger bearing to the 
 worthless Charles Stuart, known as Charles the Second, 
 and then a fugitive in Flanders, the colony's invitation to 
 come to the Old Dominion and be crowned King of \'irginia. Here sailed 
 the Virginia vessels that were a part of that ill-fated expedition against 
 Carthagena in South America, led by the English admiral \'ernon, who 
 gave his name to the dearly loved Potomac home of Washington — Mount 
 \'ernon. Here sailed George Washington himself on the only foreign 'tour' 
 he ever attempted, when, as a boy of eighteen, he accompanied his sick 
 brother Lawrence to Barbadoes. Here, years after, came the ships of the 
 Frenchman De Grasse, sailing to the final victory of the Revolution at 
 Yorktown — that way, to the north; and here, eighty years later. Northern 
 and Southern seamen met in fight on that momentous March day in 1862, 
 when a certain little 'cheese-box on a raft" — the plucky Monitor — came 
 steamin^T along right where we are now, and, just in the nick of time, put an 
 
88 
 
 THE CEXTLKV BOOK OK I-AMOLS AMERICANS 
 
 end to destruction, and revolutionized the naval war- 
 fare of the world. Sec, before us lies Hampton 
 Roads ! " 
 
 TIk; i^rreat sheet of water stretched on before them, 
 sliiniiv^ in the bright spring sun. To the right rose 
 the green sloping battlements of Fort Monroe, backed 
 i)\ the great hotels of Old Point Comfort; to the left 
 lay the wooded Virginia shores ; far ahead, the broad 
 channel showed the way to Norfolk city, broken only 
 b)- the odd little island of the Rip Raps, with its dis- 
 mantled fort, between which and the yellow beach of 
 Old Point Comfort they saw swinging at anchor the 
 great white water-birds of the new American navy. 
 
 " The heirs, executors, and assigns of the little 
 Monitor, eh, Uncle Tom ? " said Bert. 
 
 " And right here was where the fight came off, 
 was it ? " cried Jack, while the girls capped his query 
 with the verdict, " How interesting!" 
 
 "Yes; there, before us, lies the scene of that now 
 famous encounter," Uncle Tom replied — "the only 
 incident of the Civil War, by the way," he continued, 
 "that Congress allows a place on the walls of the 
 Capitol. There you saw, when you were in Wash- 
 ington, you remember, the picture of the fight be- 
 tween the Mcrrimac and the Monitor ; not because 
 it was a Northern victory, — for, indeed, it was really 
 but a drawn battle, — but because that memorable 
 sea-fight marked a new era in naval history, and 
 made a new starting-point for the navies of the 
 world. Just now, gentlemen and ladies, you are 
 sailing over an historic point. For here was the 
 beginning of the formidable modern navy, in which 
 yonder great White Scjuadron has so i)rominent a 
 place." 
 
 " Might\- interesting piece of water this, is n't it?" 
 said Jack, voicing the general opinion of the " crowd." 
 
 But Roger, with thoughts of Plymouth Rock and 
 Fort Warren in mind, was inclined to enter a quali- 
 fication. 
 
 ■'That's only because I'ncle Tom makes it so," 
 
AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST 
 
 MAP OF HAMPTON' ROADS 
 Showing the battleground of the " 
 
 he declared. "Is it any more his- 
 toric than any other big harbor, 
 
 Uncle Tom ? " 
 
 " Not any more so, but fully as historic, Roger," Uncle Tom replied. 
 "In fact, the great bays on our Atlantic coast-line have all been, since discov- 
 ery, gateways to the West, and through their open portals have ceaselessly 
 come the makers of America — peculiar people all. Into Massachusetts 
 Bay sailed Pilgrim and Puritan ; into New York Bay, Dutchman and Wal- 
 loon ; into Delaware Bay, Swede and Quaker ; into Chesapeake Bay, Cava- 
 lier, Churchman, and Catholic ; and into the Carolina sounds, Scotchman and 
 German. All of these, in their way, made each great water-gate historic, as 
 through privation and pluck they became colonists, Englishmen, Americans. 
 But at first the elements were all singularly diverse. We need to remem- 
 ber, when we grumble about foreign immigration, that we were all foreign- 
 ers once; that the red Indian is the only native American, and that we at- 
 tained our birthright gradually and by slow development." 
 
90 THI-; CENTLRV BOOK OF FAMOL'S AMERICANS 
 
 " But surely, Uncle Tom," exclaimed dainty Marian, "you would n't put 
 our ancestors alongside the riffraff that comes in the steerage to-day, would 
 
 you ? " 
 
 l)ut for answer Uncle Tom, too wise to l)e led into argument, merely 
 turned to his niece with a smile, and dropped into poetry. 
 
 '■ 'T is distance lends enchantment to the view, 
 And robes the mountain in its azure hue," 
 
 he said. "Come! all off for Old Point I 'i'o-da\ wc are the immigrants." 
 
 A delightful day was spent on that sandy spot where, of old, the storm- 
 tossed V'irginia colonists first found relief and solid ground, and gratefully 
 called the land Point Comfort. 
 
 The yoimg people critically e.xamined the two great hotels, they visited 
 the White Scjuadron, they roamed about the green embrasured fortress that 
 fronts the sea and gives a martial air to the little town that has grown up 
 about it. The boys studied the preparations for mounting the cjueer new 
 "disappearing gun." the girls walked the whole circuit of the wide, water- 
 filled moat, and felt almost like medieval maidens in some moated castle of 
 the days of Ivanhoe or Ouentin Durward, while all the young people gazed 
 with equal interest upon the room that had been Jefferson Davis's prison, 
 

 THE NATIVE AND THE IMMIGRANT. 
 A struggle for possession in the early days o! America. 
 
9^ 
 
 Tin: LEXTLRV BOOK OK FAMOIS AMERICANS 
 
 and the grove of live oaks on the ijreat parade- 
 ijround, beneath which the boys and girls who have 
 the delightful experience of living inside a fortress 
 were bicycling or playing ball. 
 
 After a most interesting trolley-trip to 1 lampton 
 and its famous school, — fit monument to the vigor, 
 patience, and self-sacrifice of that true American, 
 General Armstrong, — the whole party boarded the 
 
 •THK GREEN EMBRASURED 
 FORTRESS THAT FRONTS THE SEA.' 
 
 train, backed all the way down 
 u) Newport New-s, and then 
 -^teamed " on to Richmond." 
 righty miles away. The road 
 >iy through a region rich in 
 the associations of two stirring 
 epochs in American history — 
 the Revolution and the Civil 
 War. 
 
 •• Over that way, a few miles to the east," Uncle Tom said, "lies York- 
 town, where the Revolution came to an end. while here to the right, at our 
 very next stopping-place, was sounded one of the first bugle-blasts of the 
 Revolution." 
 
 " What place is that ? " queried Marian. 
 But Bert was already studying his time-table. 
 
 "Williamsburg,' he announced. "Let "s see: is n"t there an old, old 
 college there ? " 
 
 "Yes," Uncle Tom replied; "William and Mary College, the oldest 
 college in the United States, excepting Harvard. Washington was its chan- 
 cellor : Presidents Jefferson, Monroe, and Tyler, Chief-Justice Marshall, and 
 General Win field Scott were once students there. In that old town were 
 the headquarters of Nathaniel Bacon, earliest o{ .\merican rebels against 
 
AT THli GATEWAY OF THE WEST 
 
 93 
 
 kingly authority. There stood the old Capitol building in which Washing- 
 ton sat as a burgess, and in which young Thomas Jefferson heard Patrick 
 Henry's first famous and fiery speech against the crown." 
 
 " That was n't the ' liberty-or-death' speech, was it, Uncle Tom ? " asked 
 Roger. 
 
 " No; it was earlier than that," Uncle Tom replied. " It was the speech 
 he made in connection with his resolutions against the Stamp Act, and in it 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL STREET OF YORKTOWX. 
 
 he thundered out: ' Ceesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, 
 and George the Third — ' ' Treason, treason ! ' came the cry from the 
 scandalized loyalists, — ' may profit l^y their example,' said Henry; and then 
 added, ' If this be treason, make the most of it ! ' " 
 
 " That was great ! " cried Jack. " I tell you, he had sand, had n't he ! " 
 " How that must have rattled those old Tories ! " said Roeer. 
 
94 
 
 THE CEXTl'RV BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 NAlllANlLL liAi„UN. 
 "Earliest of American rebels a^nst kingly aulltority." 
 
 "It did n't rattle Mr. P. Heiir)-, thouoh, did it?" saitl lack. "A great 
 orator, was n't he, I'ncle Tom?" 
 
 " Did he ever do anything more than that speech and the ' Hberty-or- 
 death ' one ? " inquired Marian. 
 
AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST 
 
 95 
 
 "Who? Henry? Why," said Uncle Tom, "he was for years one of the 
 foremost figures in Virginia history. We remember him to-day only for 
 those two famous speeches, but he filled many offices, declined many, and 
 just escaped election as Vice-President." 
 
 "Then he must have had a story, the same as the other men you have 
 told us about," said Christine. " Did n't he. Uncle Tom ? " 
 
 "Yes, my dear; he had a story," Uncle Tom replied. "He began 
 with the same unpromising youth so many great men have shown. He 
 was a careless country boy, loving hunting and fishing more than study, 
 loafing more than books — " 
 
 "Who doesn't?" said Jack, sotlo voce. But Uncle Tom heard him. 
 
 " Not you, Jack, I 'm sure," he said. 
 
 " What ! think I had n't rather go fishing than peg away at problems 
 in geometry ? " cried Jack. " Well, I guess ! " 
 
 " Now, Jack, I 'm not going to think 
 as poorly of you as that," protested 
 Uncle Tom. " Of course I '11 admit 
 that a shady bank, a hook and line, and 
 plenty of bites are more interesting than 
 a proposition in Euclid ; but as between 
 the two for a real mind developer and 
 intellectual spur, I don't think so prac- 
 tical and wide-awake a fellow as you 
 would hesitate in choice. Greatness 
 comes because of persistence quite as 
 much as because of genius, and it was 
 persistence even more than genius that 
 made our dozen or more famous Ameri- 
 cans great and immortal." 
 
 " But about Patrick Henry," prompted Bert, who always liked to stick 
 to the subject. 
 
 " Did n't he have genius? " asked Jack. 
 
 " I should not call it genius," said Uncle Tom. " With him it was more 
 the inspiration of the moment or the spur of necessity that turned his tongue 
 to fire. He was what we might call an instigator to liberty, as was Otis in 
 Boston, and the boy Hamilton in Xew York." 
 
 " How soon was it before he became an orator? " Marian inquired. 
 
 " Not until he was twenty-seven years old," was Uncle Tom's reply. 
 " His youth, as I have told you, was a careless, happy-go-lucky existence; 
 he never succeeded at anything and stuck to nothing long. But when at 
 
 PATRICK HENRY. 
 
96 THE Lli.NTUKV Ii(JOK OK 1-AMOL S AMERICANS 
 
 last he blundered into eloquence, under a terrible pressure, — in what is 
 known in history as ' the Parsons' cause,' a matter of church taxes which 
 the people resisted, — he spranj^ at once into popularity as ' the people's 
 champion.' " 
 
 " That, I suppose, set him up in business," suggested Jack. 
 
 "It certainly did," .said L'ncle Tom. " I'Vom that clay he became a 
 prttminent figure in Virginia history. It l)rought him practice as a lawyer, 
 advancement as a public man, power as a politician. He became a member 
 of the House of Burgesses, — what we call the legislature, you know, — a 
 political leader in X'irginia, a delegate to the first and second Continental 
 Congresses, first commander of Virginia's Revolutionary army, first governor 
 of the State of \^irginia, being twice reelected. After that, he declined to 
 serve as member of the Constitutional Convention, as United States senator, 
 as secretary of State, as governor of V^irginia for the fourth time, as Chief- 
 Justice of the United States, as ambassador to France, and as Vice-President 
 of the United States. One or all of these high honors might have been 
 Patrick Henry's had he but said yes." 
 
 " Well, I don't see but he had a fine record as a decliner," said Roger. 
 
 " Must have gone into a decline early," suggested Jack the incorrigible. 
 
 " Many a true word is spoken in jest, boy Jack," Uncle Tom said with a 
 smile. "That really was a leading reason for those continued refusals to 
 hold office. For the last twenty-five years of his life Henry was a confirmed 
 invalid, and, as you grow older, boys and girls, you will learn that ill health 
 dulls the edge of energy." 
 
 " I suppose it does take the starch out of a fellow," said Jack. " Hut 
 seems to me our ' liberty-or-death ' friend might have braced up and stuck 
 to things." 
 
 " Well, 1 suppose he would have done so had he been better satisfied 
 with the way things were going," Uncle Tom replied. "But, you see, there 
 was a lot of criticism afloat in those early days of the republic, and that was 
 one thing that Parick Henry could not stand. He hated to have his mo- 
 tives que.stioned, anil he chafed under restraint. That, in fact, was one cause 
 of his eloquence. .\s an orator he had remarkable powers; but as a leader- 
 he was uncertain and a bit headstrong, so that he often found his boat in 
 troubled waters." 
 
 " But Washington trusted him," assertetl Bert. 
 
 "Yes; Washington saw his good points and appreciated his sincer- 
 ity, devotion, and loyalty," Uncle Tom replied. "Washington could handle 
 him, and it is certainly to the credit of Patrick Henry that two such wise 
 and well-balanced men as Washington and .Atlams stood his friends and 
 defenders." 
 
AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST 
 
 97 
 
 WASHINGTON, PATRICK HENRY, AND EDMUND PENDLETON. 
 
 On their way to Philadelphia as delegates to the First Continental Congress. 
 
 Their study of Patrick Henry's character was resumed when, rtext day. 
 they, as Jack expressed it, "crossed his tracks again" in Richmond. 
 
 It was in the old church of St. John, a plain but picturesque old bit of 
 pre-Revolutionary architecture, standing on Church Hill, on the corner of 
 Broadway and Twenty-fourth streets. A trolley car left them at the gate. 
 Christine declared she never could get used to the strange mixture of the old 
 and the new — " trolley cars and Patrick Henry ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 The sexton came from his little office building and unlocked the side 
 door of the old church, which, he explained, had been considerably enlarged 
 since Revolutionary days. 
 
 " It must have been a bandbox then," was Marian's comment, " for it is n't 
 very big now." 
 
 But large or small, it was big with interest for them all. Por when the 
 sexton, pointing to the third pew in the little block of seats on the right of 
 
98 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK UF l-'AMOLS AMERICANS 
 
 -if.-. 
 
 the entrance, informed them that " in that pew Patrick Henry made his 
 <:^reat speech that every boy and ((irl of you knows by heart, I reckon," 
 there was an immediate scramble !)y the five to stand on the identical spot 
 
 where the famihar words wen- 
 uttered. 
 
 Jack, indeed, with his irrepress- 
 ible spirits, faced the chancel 
 where the chairman of the con- 
 vention sat on that memorable 
 March day in 1775, and would 
 at once have branched out into 
 ihe famous speech. 
 
 But when he had gone as far 
 as " Mr. Presitlent, it is natural to 
 nan to indulge in tin- illusions 
 ■ >r hoi)e," Uncle Tom interfered, 
 and reminded him that oratory 
 was not included in the permis- 
 sion to enter. 
 
 The pleas of the other boys 
 cUkI girls, how^ever, who always 
 liked to hear Jack "orate," and 
 the good nature of the interested 
 sexton, led Uncle Tom to compromise on the closing paragraph of the 
 oration, which Jack rendered with appreciation and effect, standing in the 
 precise s|)ot from which those wonderful words were uttered by Patrick 
 Henry a hundred and twenty years and more ago : 
 
 Tt is in vain, sir, to e.xtenuate the matter. Gendemen may cry peace, peace, 
 l)ut there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The ne.xt gale that 
 sw^eeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. 
 Our brethren are alreadj- in the field. Why stand we here idle ? What 
 is it that gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? Is life so dear or peace 
 so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it. 
 Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, 
 give me libert)', or give me death ! " 
 
 " That was a great speech, was n't it, though ! " Roger remarked, as, 
 leaving the church, they stood in the shade of one of the spreading trees, 
 trying to decipher the inscription on an ancient stone. " I don't wonder it 
 has never been forgotten. " 
 
 " It was never forgotten bv those who heard it, friend or foe," Uncle 
 
L ore. 
 
THE CENTtRV ROOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 roiii declared. " No report 
 was made of it at the time, 
 Ijiit, until old age, men who 
 had listened to it in breatli- 
 less excitement could recall 
 its burning sentences ami 
 the method of delivery. 
 Jack gave the close very 
 well. I have heard boys in 
 I hool tear it into tatters 
 when they came to the ' lib- 
 erty or death.' But that 
 was not Patrick Henry's 
 style of oratory. There is 
 to-day in the library of Cor- 
 nell University a manu- 
 script account of the speech, 
 written by one who heard 
 and never forgot it. This 
 is the way, according to the 
 writer, that Patrick Henry 
 gave the closing sentence: 
 ' Is life so dear or peace so 
 sweet as to be purchased at 
 the price of chains and slav- 
 ery ? ' he uttered in the atti- 
 tude of one condemned to 
 slavery, bowed under the 
 weight of fetters. With that he paused, and raising hand and eyes 
 to heaven, prayed, 'Forbid it. Almighty Ciod ! ' Dropping his hand, he 
 turned toward the Tories and Loyalists, who sat spell-bound and terrified 
 at his audacious speech, and with form bent low he said hopelessly, ' I know 
 not what course others may take,' and then, straightening himself as if strain- 
 ing against his fetters, he hissed through clenched teeth, ' but as for me,' 
 changing into the triumphant trumpet call, ' give me liberty ; ' thus he stood. 
 as the manuscript says, 'a magnificent incarnation of Freedom,' until, finalh. 
 after an impressive pause, his left hand dropped to his side powerless; his 
 right hand was clenched, as if holding a dagger to his breast; then it struck 
 the imaginary weapon into his heart as the closing words came out, fear- 
 lesslv, victoriouslv. like a heroic dirge — 'or give me death!' There you 
 
 •I HAVE HEARD BOYS I.N SCHOOL 
 TEAR IT INTO TATTF.RS .• 
 
AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST lOI 
 
 have the methods of a born orator, boys and girls. I 'm afraid if you tried 
 it that way, however, you might overdo the thing ; for it is but a step, you 
 know, from the subHme to the ridiculous. But Patrick Henry was an orator 
 above everything else ; and it is as the orator of resistance, of liberty, of 
 patriotism that America will remember him forever and ever." 
 
 "Where did he live. Uncle Tom? Here in Richmond?" Christine in- 
 quired, still interested in the search for " local color." 
 
 " No, not in Richmond," Uncle Tom replied. " Henry lived quite a way 
 to the southwest of Richmond, in what is now Charlotte County, just a few 
 miles south of historic Appomattox. His fine plantation was called Red 
 Hill, and to-day it is the country residence of the great orator's descen- 
 dants, to one of whom I hope to introduce you all to-day." 
 
 This was interesting, and, in fact, Uncle Tom did keep his promise. 
 For, later in the day, each one of the five was presented to a courteous and 
 delightful " gentleman of the old school " whom they afterward referred to 
 as " the real grandson of the real Patrick Henry." 
 
 The incident impressed them strongly, for they felt as if, somehow, they 
 had been brought by that introduction into direct contact with that great 
 and glorious past which had proclaimed liberty to the nations and given a 
 new and splendid republic to the world. 
 
A 1 AMOLS KRUMONL) MAN. 
 John Mareh.'Ul, Chicr Justice of ihc United Sla 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL 
 
 Richmond on the James — A City Set on a Hill — Relics and Reminders — 
 A Jeffersonian Atmosphere — No Sectionalism in Heroism. 
 
 HE young people were delighted with Richmond. As, early 
 in the morning, the best time to see any place to advan- 
 tage, they rode about the famous old capital from one his- 
 toric point to another, they were quite ready to echo Daniel 
 Webster's verdict, "Truly, the city hath a pleasant seat." 
 "Daniel Webster ?" exclaimed Bert. "Why, I thought that was Shak- 
 spere — in 'Macbeth.'" ' 
 
 " Quite right, Mr. Scholar," replied Uncle Tom, who had made the quo- 
 tation ; " only Shakspere says ' castle,' you know, and Daniel Webster had a 
 way of making pat applications of familiar quotations. And it applied here, 
 don't you think ? " 
 
 " I should say it did," returned Bert, who seemed specially impressed with 
 the commanding position of the city. "Why," he continued, "I had no 
 idea Richmond was so high up. No wonder it took our soldiers four years 
 to get it. I '11 bet if the South had been as well fixed as we were in men 
 and supplies it would have taken us four times four years to get in here." 
 Jack was inclined to dissent Irom this opinion. 
 
 " Not with Grant to lead," he exclaimed. " He 'd have hammered it 
 down in no time, no matter how many forts it had ; would n't he, Uncle 
 Tom? " 
 
 But Uncle Tom was not to be drawn into any such argument. 
 "Well, you see it was n't a question of ' if boys," he replied. " It was 
 a hard enough job to take Richmond just as it was. And — the war 's over ! 
 But, as Bert says, the position of the city makes Richmond, when well pro- 
 tected, almost impregnable. Its situation is certainly a commanding one. 
 
I04 
 
 nil-; (.KMLRV ItOUK i)K FAMDLS AM t RKANS 
 
 Set on these hills like a coronet, it looks abroad over the land and, indeed, 
 like the city in the Bible, 'cannot be hid."' 
 
 "And just see the James winding down there among the woods and 
 fields ! " cried Marian. " Is n't it perfectly charming? Was n't it near here 
 somewhere. Uncle Tom, that Pocahontas lived?" 
 
 "Yes; ten or twelve miles down the river," her uncle replied, "in the 
 great loop of lowland about which the river winds, and which has the queer 
 name of Dutch Gap. Look down there, girls, and romance to your hearts' 
 content; for in that valley of the James our most famous love-story came 
 true." 
 
 Christine, looking down toward the home of Pocahontas, recalled 
 
 her Thackeray, and said half 
 aloud : 
 
 " Who will shield the fearless heart ? 
 
 Who avert the murd'rous blade ? 
 
 From the throng, with sudden start, 
 
 See! there springs an Indian maid. 
 
 Quick she stands before the knight, 
 
 ' Loose the chain, unbind the ring; 
 
 I am daughter of the king 
 
 .\nd I claim the Indian right ! ' 
 
 '• Dauntlessly aside she flings 
 Lifted ax and thirsty knife; 
 
 Fondly to his heart she clings. 
 And her bosom guards his life ! 
 
 In the woods of Powhattan, 
 Still 'tis told by Indian fires 
 How a daughter of their sires 
 
 Saved the captive Englishman." 
 
 ■• Pocahontas did save 
 Smith, did n't she, Uncle 
 iom ? I just won't believe 
 what the books say now, " 
 Marian declared. 
 
 " Why was n't it Rolfe she 
 saved ? " queried Christine. 
 "Then the romance would 
 have been completed." 
 rather than the romance of a 
 at their feet. 
 Libby Hill, at the eastern end 
 
 '!J'tiu£iran £irifrerour cfjttraiiou,fUiomouJ.iS vi/yuu-l 
 
 mTiotlani K*tui 
 
 rSipj^rd^ '' ^ (y'^'^i^d^^. 
 
 From the engraving i 
 
 POCAHONTAS, 
 t the first edition of John Smith's General History. 
 
 But the boys, alive to the life of to-day 
 
 misty past, were looking down upon the city 
 
 The carriages had halted on the crest of 
 
A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL 
 
 105 
 
 of the town, and, close beside the tall shaft of the soldiers' monument, the 
 sight-seers were "drinking in the view." 
 
 " It 's a much bigger and busier place than I expected to see," Roger 
 declared. 
 
 " It is New Richmond you 're looking at, Roger," Uncle Tom replied. 
 " Many things, you see, have happened since Daniel Webster's Shaksperian 
 verdict. Richmond has made great strides even 
 since I saw it last. Broad streets, fine resi- 
 dences, electric lights, trolley cars, that splendid 
 new hotel, big business blocks — all these indi- 
 cate a prosperity in which every American will 
 rejoice. For, you see, Richmond is one of our 
 show towns, with a past that is historic." 
 
 " Let 's hunt it down, then. Uncle Tom," said 
 Jack. " Drive on, please. I want to see Holly- 
 wood." 
 
 They saw Hollywood — that beautiful cit)- 
 of the dead, with its ruined portal masked in 
 living green. They stood beside the scarcely 
 picturesque " iron summer-house sort of can- 
 opy," as Roger styled it, that marks the rest- 
 ing-place of President Monroe ; they stood 
 above the unmarked grave of President Tyler ; they saw the ivy-covered 
 pyramid of stone that rises as a memorial to thousands of Confederate 
 dead ; they saw the graves of Pickett, Hill, and Stuart, famous rebel fighters 
 in the stirring days of '61 ; they heard the story of other notable names, 
 and then they rode back to town and the things of to-day. 
 
 But in Richmond the things of to-day touch elbows with the things of 
 yesterday — and the day before. 
 
 " Richmond is the Boston of the South for historic associations," Uncle 
 Tom declared, searching for a comparison that his young people would 
 appreciate. "Its story reaches back to 1609 and John Smith. It knew 
 Pocahontas and Powhatan. Here gallant Nat Bacon flung out his standard 
 of rebellion against the king's governor ; from here went the first shipments 
 of tobacco and the first sentiments of revolution. Here Patrick Henry 
 spoke for liberty, and Arnold, the traitor, brought fire and sword ; here the 
 rebellious South set up its banner and established its capital, and here was 
 the central stage on which ' the Lost Cause ' played its brief but bloody 
 part. A city of relics and reminders is this, with a story stretching from Na- 
 thaniel Bacon to Jefferson Davis, and from Thomas Jefferson to " 
 
 JOHN SMITH, 
 ngraving on Smith's Map of Virgir 
 
io6 
 
 llIK CK.NILKV 1!()()K nl- lAMOlS A.MliKICANS 
 
 " The hotel ! " put in Bert. Whew ! There 's democratic simphcity for 
 you, eh, Uncle Tom? What do you suppose Jefferson would say, if his 
 statue should come to life in those gort^eous surroundint^s ? " 
 
 "That 's so; what would he? He was the man who tied his horse to the 
 fence rail and just went in to he inauj^urated, was n't he?" said Jack. 
 " Seems to me, Uncle Tom, we run u|) against the leather of the Declara- 
 tion wherever we go." 
 
 "That 's natural. Jack," said I'ncle Tom. "Jefferson is in the air here." 
 
 " Is that so? Smells to me like tobacco," said Jack, with a critical sniff. 
 
 They all laughed, and Uncle Tom accepted Jack's amendment. " So 
 far as tangible smells are concerned, you are right," he said. " That build- 
 
 ^■t."^ ,.fsl 
 
 
 
 
 •WHAT NEWS? WHAT NEWS? ' 
 In "gallant Nat Bacon's" day. 
 
 ing to the left is one of the largest tobacco factories in the world, and the 
 fragrant weed " 
 
 "P'ragrant? Oh, I'ncle Tom!" cried Marian. 
 
 " I speak in a general sense, my dear," said her uncle, "and as a preva- 
 lent, unconfined perfume, I must say it is — well — a bit fragrant. And here 
 in Richmond it is a chief staple, for it gives steady employment to thousands 
 of workers, and does a yearly business of millions of dollars." 
 
 " And all to go up in smoke," persisted Marian, who, you see, had her 
 opinions. "What a waste!" 
 
 " Nothing is a Avaste that is protluctive, my dear," said Uncle Tom. 
 "And really, you know, tobacco has played an important part in the history 
 of this country." 
 
 "To be sure," said Bert. " It gave Washington his fortune, so that he 
 w^ould n't take a cent for what he did in the Revolution." 
 
A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL 
 
 107 
 
 AN IMTuklANT PERSONAGE OF COLONIAL DA\ .■^. 
 The captain of a train-band. 
 
 " And Grant won his victories on it," said Jack. 
 
 But still Marian was not convinced, and the talk might have drifted into 
 a discussion of the tobacco habit if Uncle Tom had not drawn it back to 
 the original topic. 
 
 "The personal atmosphere," he declared, "is Jefferson. He, as I said, 
 is in the air. You feel his presence growing upon you gradually all the 
 wa)- up from Williamsburg. There he went to college ; there he made his 
 first entry into public life ; here he won position and fame. The fine old 
 Capitol yonder was designed by him ; here he served three terms as gov- 
 ernor of his State in a rough and stormy time, and, all about, you find traqes 
 or reminders of this remarkable man. For fifty years Thomas Jefferson was 
 V'irginia's representative man." 
 
 "Jefferson!" exclaimed Roger. "What 's the matter with Washing- 
 ton ? " 
 
 " He 's — all — right! " Jack vociferated, and Uncle Tom added: 
 
 "Washington, Roger, was America's representative man." 
 
 " Well, that 's so, of course," Roger admitted. " But was n't Jefferson, 
 too ? " 
 
 "Assuredly, to a certain extent," Uncle Tom replied. " But this section 
 of the Old Dominion was especially his. Washington was never here very 
 much. We do not 'cross his tracks,' as Jack puts it, so often here as we 
 
io8 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 shall in the Potomac rc_^ion, where he lived as boy and man. But Jefterson 
 was three times (governor of \'irjrinia ; he framed \'irginia's constitution, and 
 built himself into the State in many ways. No wonder, then, that he and 
 Patrick Henry stand on the base of that splendid Washington monument 
 
 yonder in Capitol Park, and that his heroic 
 figure graces the grand new hotel that 
 has been honored with his name. So, 
 you see, in this .section Jefferson is the 
 man for us to study rather than Wash- 
 ington, who will claim our attention later 
 in our tour." 
 
 They dismissed their carriage at the 
 hotel, and spent the rest of that day and a 
 good part of the next, in cars or on foot, 
 \ isiting the points of interest to which 
 they wished to devote time for careful in- 
 spection. 
 
 The list of such places was a long- 
 one. 
 
 They visited the notable monuments in 
 the city, from Crawford's Washington in 
 Capitol Park to Lee on horseback at the 
 farther end of PVanklin Street. They saw 
 the famous Washington, by Houdon. the 
 I'renchman — esteemed the best of all 
 statues of Washington, because modeled 
 from life; they viewed the Stonewall Jack- 
 son monument, near the governor's house; 
 they inspected the old Capitol, designed 
 by Jefferson, and in which the Confederate congress held its sessions during 
 that stirring time of war, from 1861 to 1865. 
 
 This old capitol building was especially productive of explanation ami 
 di-scussion ; but the things in it by which the boys and girls were most im- 
 pressed were the rusty old picture depicting the storming a redoubt at York- 
 town — "Perhaps the very charge," suggested Roger, "in which Alexander 
 Hamilton ended the Revolution," — and those two Colonial antiques, the 
 Speaker's chair of the old House of Burgesses, and the funny three-storied 
 stove in the Rotunda Gallery. 
 
 In that very chair, Christine, who, the boys declared. " never weakened 
 on Washington," was positive, the Speaker must have sat when he said to 
 
 HOUDONS STAlLli OK WASHINGION. 
 In the Slate Capitol, Richmond. 
 
A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL 
 
 109 
 
 Washington, who had " stage fright " when he tried to reply to the Colony's 
 vote of thanks for driving the French out of Fort Duquesne : "Sit down, 
 Mr. Washington. Your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the 
 power of any language I possess." 
 
 "Oh, what a pretty compliment!" cried Marian. "Who said it, Chris- 
 tine ? " 
 
 " The Speaker of the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg," replied 
 Christine. " I don't know his name; do you. Uncle Tom?" 
 
 "He was Mr. Robinson," Uncle Tom answered; "and, as Christine 
 says, it is very probable that he was sitting in this very chair when he made 
 Washington blush." 
 
 "Well, I think this old stove is simply cute," Marian declared. "I 
 can just imagine Jefferson warming his hands before it." 
 
 " Or Patrick Henry turning from it to .say, 'We must fight,' and so warm- 
 ing up the whole country to action," declared Bert. 
 
 "Very neatly put, Bert," Uncle Tom declared, with a nod of approval, 
 " even if it is a question whether those hardy Virginia farmers would have a 
 fire going in this elegant affair in the spring. 
 Come, let us go across to the State Library and 
 see the portraits." 
 
 They spent an hour in that treasure-house 
 of Colonial, Revolutionary and Civil War times, 
 the State Library ; then, passing around Capitol 
 Square, they located the various State offices of 
 the defunct Confederacy, had a look at the gov- 
 ernor's mansion in the park, and visited the 
 " White House of the Confederacy " — the house 
 in which Jefferson Davis had lived during the 
 war. They saw the house of Chief-Justice Mar- 
 shall, now old and time-worn. They saw on 
 Main street the roomy old Allan mansion, in 
 which Edgar Allan Poe lived as a boy. They 
 stood, as you already know, in the very pew in 
 old St. John's Church from which Patrick Henry 
 declared for liberty or death ; they saw that later church, with the needle- 
 like spire, where Davis received word from Lee that the cause was lost and 
 Richmond must be evacuated; they visited the " Monumental Church," 
 erected on the site of the dreadful Richmond theater fire of 181 1 ; they 
 admired Richmond College standing in its attractive grounds near to the 
 Lee monument ; they located, as far as possible, the notable battle spots 
 
 OLD .STOVE LN' STATE CAPITOL. 
 
TIIL CEMLKV liOOK OF KAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 RICHMOND IN 1861. 
 
 within range of Richmond, the site of Libby Prison, the old Slave Market, 
 Belle Isle, the prison home of so many valiant "boys in blue" during the 
 Civil War, the very spot in the lower town where President Lincoln landed 
 on his memorable visit to captured Richmond, when, with loud cries, the 
 race he had enfranchised hailed him as a deliverer ; they saw the quaint old 
 Bell House, from which in Colony da)'s had rung the call to debate or to 
 arms; the jail where Aaron Burr was imprisoned for treason — "And served 
 him right," interrupted Jack, who did not admire the brilliant New Yorker 
 since he had heard Hamilton's story — all these they saw, and so many other 
 historic, notable, or modern landmarks that, when all was over, Marian dc' 
 clared her eyes "just ached, seeing things," and Christine dropped into a 
 chair with a sigh of tired content. 
 
 But at last, refreshed and rested, they sat after dinner beneath the palms 
 in the Pompeian court of their hotel, and, beside Valentine's marble statue 
 of Jefferson, they listened to the strains of the band-concert in the gallery 
 beyond the great interior court. There they fell to talking over the day's 
 sights and impressions as was their wont ; and Roger said : 
 
 " It seems strange, does n't it, to see so many monuments to rebels? " 
 
 "It should never seem strange, my boy," I'ncle Tom replied, "to see 
 monuments to brave and honest men. We are not here as Northerners, but 
 as Americans, and with us it should be as it was with the old Roman who 
 said — what did he say, Bert? Homo sum — you know the rest." 
 
 And Bert, w'ho, they all declared, welcomed a chance to air his Latin, 
 gave the quotation: " Hojno sutn ; humani nihil a mc a/icnnm pnto." 
 
 "Which being translated, my beloved hearers," said Jack, " meancth, 
 ' I 'm with you through thick and through thin.' " 
 
 "Oh, Jack! Isn't he just dreadful!" cried Marian. "What does it 
 mean, Bert?" 
 
I a: 
 » o 
 
THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 ^•;ilJ^';s^*^¥^r 4W 
 
 RICHMOND AT THE CLOSIi OF THE CIVIL WAR. 
 
 " ' I am a man. I think nothing human aHen to me,'" translated Bert. 
 
 " ]\Iy, my ! hear the boy." cried Jack ; " does n't he roll that out finely, 
 though ? ' I am a man.' Well, you will be some day, my son." 
 
 " Let us hope that you will too, Master Jack," said Uncle Tom. " Now, 
 I would like you all to localize that declaration by Terence, so that it 
 may read: 'I am an American, and to nothing American can I be indif- 
 ferent.' " 
 
 ■' Well, how does that differ from my free translation ?" Jack demanded. 
 " 1 luul the same idea." 
 
 "Whatever concerns America should interest us," went on Uncle Tom. 
 "The time has passed for sectionalism. We can all have our opinions as 
 to the right or justice of the Civil War. It simply had to come. It was 
 fought and decided, and all living Americans are now glad of it and rejoice 
 in its conclusions, as they accept its decisions. What was your Decoration 
 Day piece, jack? You know how it ends — give us the last stanza." 
 
 
 '^■-h^ 
 
 VIEW OF JAMES RIVER FROM 
 LIBBV HILL. 
 
A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL 
 
 113 
 
 To which Jack, nothing loath, responded ip moderated tones, so as ngt 
 to disturb those who were Hstenino- to the concert : 
 
 " For the wreck and the wrong of it, boys and girls, 
 For the terror and loss, as well, 
 Our hearts must hold 
 A regret untold 
 As we think of those who fell. 
 But their blood, on whichever side they fought, 
 Re-made the Nation, and Progress brought. 
 We forget the woe ; 
 For 7cie live, and know 
 That the fighting and sighing, 
 The falling and dying, 
 Were but steps toward the Future — the Martyr's 
 
 Way! 
 Adown which the sons of the Blue and the Gray 
 Look, with love and with pride, Decoration Day." 
 
 'fiMiiv*!»^' 
 
 UNION CAVALRYMEN SALUTING THE 
 MONUMENT OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 In Capitol Park. 
 
 "That 's about my idea of it," Un- 
 cle Tom declared. "So it seems to 
 me, in that spirit Americans should look 
 with interest and appreciation on the 
 memorials of our brave Americans. History hangs by slender threads. 
 Had it not been for Franklin's way of making friends, and thus securing the 
 aid of France in the Revolution, Adams and Henry would have been 'trait- 
 ors ' instead of Arnold, Washington would have been a 'wicked rebel,' and the 
 American Revolution would have been but an insurrection. Americans would 
 have been rearing statues to-day to the De Lanceys and Olivers, whom we 
 now detest as 'tories,' instead of to Prescott and Putnam and Hale and Jef- 
 ferson — whereas, every one of these was an American, and of certain value 
 to his country — rebel and tory alike. So, too, I can see in the splen- 
 did Lee on horseback, on Lee Circle, here in Richmond, the qualities that 
 make for courage, manliness, gallantry, and devotion, quite as much as in the 
 equally striking Grant on horseback in Grant Square in Brooklyn, or the 
 mighty monument that, overtopping all others in the world, in the city that 
 bears his name, testifies to the nation's love and pride in the name and fame 
 of Washington." 
 
 The young people were not altogether willing to accept Uncle Tom's 
 theories. Somehow, it seemed to them that to admit virtues in one side 
 took away from the other. But Uncle Tom assured them that such a stand 
 was local, narrow, un-American. 
 
 " Be liberal, be broad-minded, boys and girls," he said. " Remember that 
 
114 
 
 THK CENTLRV BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 ()\ak\ is as much brotherly love as 
 it is hoisting the flag, and that pa- 
 triotism is as all-embracing as it is 
 assertive. Never tolerate treason ; 
 but never forget to forgive. Re- 
 member the words of Lincoln, most 
 American of Americans : "We are 
 not enemies, but friends. We must 
 not be enemies. Though passion 
 may have strained, it must not 
 break our bonds of affection. The 
 mystic chords of memory, stretch- 
 ing from every battle-field and pa- 
 triot grave to every living heart 
 and hearthstone all over this broad 
 land, will yet swell the chorus of 
 the Union, when again touched, as 
 surely the\ will be, by the better 
 angels of our nature!" 
 
 •Aiul yet Lincoln gave the 
 1 lail Columbia," declared 
 Jack, reflectively. 
 
 " Of course he did," replied Uncle 
 Tom. "It was his duty to preserve 
 the Union, even through blood and tears, and he never faltered. But he 
 never wavered in his great-hearted affection for all Americans, either. 'With 
 malice towartl none, with rharit\- for all' — that was his plea, even in the 
 
 BLOOUV KL'N. RICHMOND, VA. 
 Scene of .-in Indian battle in old Colony days. 
 
A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL I15 
 
 hour of victory. Thank God ! that ' better nature ' which he sought to 
 awaken is now common to all his countrymen, and no true American heart 
 harbors a trace of sectionalism, or limits its love of country to any narrower 
 boundary than that of lake to gulf and ocean to ocean." 
 
 Uncle Tom saw that his words had made an impression upon his boys 
 and girls, and he sought by just a final word to broaden and deepen that im- 
 pression in the way he specially desired. 
 
 " So we come back, you see, to where we started," he said. "All men 
 who have shed lustre or brought credit to the American name, or who by 
 gallant deeds, by worthy lives, or by earnest efforts, have helped to make 
 America famous, are famous Americans, whatever their time, their section^ or 
 their occupation. Here, in Richmond, while we honor Marshall, the great 
 Chief Justice, and Jefferson, the statesman, we can also honor Lee, the general, 
 or Jackson, the ' Stonewall ' hero, or Poe, the poet, who played here as a 
 boy. For all of these men were famous Americans, as well as famous Vir- 
 ginians, and all, in time, will find their rightful places in the righteous ver- 
 dict of unbiased history." 
 
 wi "preSLTve, protect aoj ikfu 
 
 0-*^ ^ ^^ jWuurw t,^r^^£^ s-^jt.^^ T^T^-^^-fC^. ^ X.c^ /?^ i^.^U£> 
 
 CLOSING PARAGRAPH OF LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 From original from which the address was delivered. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 Third President of ihc United Stales, and author of the Decl.ir:.i:.... . r In.l, „ri.,l,- 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELI.O 
 
 At Charlottesville — Up the Little Mountain — The House 7i'ith Two 
 Fronts — The Grave on the Mountain — The Story of a Statesman. 
 
 ACK stood at the foot of the staircase of the little inn at 
 Charlottesville, and called impatiently up the stairs. 
 
 "Come, come, girls! Stop prinking!" he cried. "We 're 
 bound for a mountain-top, not for the university." 
 
 The next moment the door above swung open and the 
 girls came down the stairs, while Marian, in her most digni- 
 fied manner, said to her brother : 
 
 "Jack Dunlap, we scorn your insinuations. We dress just as much to 
 honor dead statesmen as live collegians ; so there ! " 
 
 Roger, ever gallant, sought to rise to the opportunity, and try his luck 
 
 with a quotation. 
 
 "If eyes were made for seeing, 
 Then beauty is its own excuse for being," 
 
 he remarked, whereupon Jack sank limply into the nearest chair, the girls 
 courtesied profoundly, and Uncle Tom clapped Roger on the back with a 
 laughing "Bravo, Roger! Mrginia courtesy must be in the air, and 
 catching." 
 
 A ride of four hours the day before had brought the party to picturesque 
 Charlottesville. A restful night in that quiet towm had refreshed them 
 greatly, and put them in prime condition to see and enjoy the home of 
 Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 The wagonette was at the door, and soon they were speeding out of 
 Charlottesville and along pleasant countr)- roads to the mansion on the 
 mountain-top. 
 
 The road wound up the steep hillside, a good three miles from town, 
 though even there the same spirit of progress that they had noted at 
 
ii8 
 
 THE CENTl'RY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 Richmond secmetl to be in evidence, 
 lor the town waspushinirambitiously 
 out into what were formerly farms 
 and old estates. 
 
 The hill-slopes were tjreen and 
 inviting, the valley was dotted with 
 farms, the little stream across 
 which Thomas Jefferson, as a boy, 
 had often swum his horse, wound 
 throuijh the plain, the woods were 
 brilliant with the contrastintj white 
 and red blossoms of the dogwood 
 and the redbud, and everywhere 
 were the delight and beauty of a 
 spring morning in X'irginia. 
 
 The young folks enjoyed the 
 ride greatl)' ; but Bert said, as the 
 horses breasted the climb, " ' Little 
 mountain ' ! That 's what IVIonii- 
 cello means, is it ? Seems to me 
 it 's quite a respectable one. W'h) , 
 it s almost as steep as a road in the 
 Catskiils. I should think Tarle- 
 ton's troopers must have been pretty well winded if they galloped all the 
 way up this hill just to loot Jefferson's home." 
 
 " Oh, did they do that? The mean things! " cried Marian. 
 " Bert is just a trifle too realistic," said Uncle Tom. " Tarleton and his 
 troopers came tearing up here to capture that pestilent rebel, Jefferson, who 
 was then governor of Virginia. But the governor just managed to give 
 tiiein the slip, and the British colonel kept his hands off the fine old place — 
 it was not so very old then, however, — and did not do much damage." 
 
 Jack seemed just a bit dissatisfied. The idea that the British in the Rev- 
 olution could stay their hands whenever there was a chance to pillage or 
 destroy did not accord with his idea of history. 
 
 •' I thought that was just the sort of picnic that chump of a Tarleton 
 liked," he said severely. 
 
 " Even the worst of us are not so black as we are painted," I'ncle Tom 
 declared. " Tarleton has enough sins to his account without adding the loot- 
 ing of Monticello. He held off his hands here, even when Arnold had 
 burned Richmond and Cornwallis had laid waste Jefferson's lowland estate 
 of Edgehill, two or three miles away." 
 
 •JACK STOOD AT THE FOOT OF THE 
 STAIRCASE." 
 
WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO 
 
 119 
 
 , " What were the Americans doing all this time ? " asked Jack. " Where 
 were our soldiers ? " 
 
 "With Washington," Uncle Tom replied. "Virginia was stripped of 
 fighting men at the time of Cornwallis's raid. She was almost bare of re- 
 sources, too, so lavishly had she contributed to the support of the American 
 army. When the State was invaded by the British, — first by Arnold the 
 traitor and next by Cornwallis and Tarleton, — Jefferson, who was then gov- 
 ernor, would not call on Congress or the army for aid, lest Washington's 
 
 BACK FROM THE RAID. 
 
 ' The governor just managed to give them the slip." 
 
 forces should be weakened. He himself was no soldier ; the militia he 
 summoned were worse than useless ; the legislature fled from Richmond 
 to this town of Charlottesville ; and along came Cornwallis and Tarleton 
 to bag the whole ' rebel brood.' The militia made themselves scarce ; the 
 fugitive legislature followed suit; and Jefferson, making for shelter here 
 at Monticello, had just five minutes' warning, brought by a sort of Vir- 
 ginia Paul Revere, who came tearing up this road to give the alarm. He 
 was Just in time, for, as Jefferson galloped down the mountain on one side, 
 he saw the redcoats climbing up the other. He got off, you see, just in the 
 nick of time." 
 
THE CENTURY BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 I should say so ! " exclaimed Roger. 
 
 How frightened they must 
 
 "Were his family here?" asked Christine, 
 have been ! " 
 
 " They had already hidden their valuables and had been hurried to a 
 safe place," Uncle Tom explained. " Jefferson had then six adopted chil- 
 dren in his family — nephews and nieces — and three little motherless girls 
 of his own." 
 
 "Well, he did have his hands full," said Jack. 
 
 " But he took good care of them and got them all to safe places, while 
 Cornwallis was burning and pillaging his estate of Edgehill," Uncle Tom 
 continued. "After the invasion Jefferson was taken to task for what was 
 claimed to be an indifference to Virginia's security, and even to-day some 
 historians refer contemptuously to his conduct during the British invasion. 
 The truth is, however, that what appeared indifference, and was even called 
 cowardice, was indeed heroism ; for Thomas Jefferson knew better than his 
 critics the condition of affairs. It was a case of the few suffering for the 
 many. He felt it to be better even that X'irginia should be 
 overrun and laid waste than that the success of the cause 
 for which America was fighting should 
 be jeopardized by a call for help. So 
 he did the best he could with 
 what he had at hand, and his 
 own State came in time 
 to appreciate and ac- 
 knowledge his wis- 
 dom. There are "; 
 phases of patriotism, 
 boys and girls," 
 Uncle Tom contin- 
 ued, "that are quite 
 different from those 
 with which we are 
 familiar in history. "^ 
 To suffer that good 
 may come, even 
 when that suffering 
 seems needless, or in 
 vited, even, may some 
 times be, instead, a ' ^ _--'-- 
 
 . . , - r-=r-__ Uli BRITISH AM COMIN'l' 
 
 high order of patriotism. ^-- Hidmg the valuables 
 
WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO 
 
 A DISTANT VIEW OF MONTICELLO. 
 
 By this time they had reached the crest of the hih, a spur of Carter 
 Mountain, upon which, perched six hundred feet above the plain, stood the 
 dome-topped mansion of Monticello, the much-loved home of Thomas Jef- 
 ferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 The wagonette drew up before the " quarters," and the old negro who 
 has shown the historic house to a generation of visitors met them with 
 garrulous greeting. 
 
 " Is this the front?" Marian inquired, going up the broad steps of the 
 western portico. "Oh, is n't it just lovely! Where 's the door?" 
 
 " No, missey," the old negro replied ; " the entrance is cl'ar round on de 
 east front." 
 
 " Why, is there another ? " asked Marian. " This looks like the front." 
 
 "Well — yes — missey," said the polite old chap, " dis yere 's de r'ar 
 front. De ra'al front is on de furder side." 
 
 They left the "rear front" and walked around to the main entrance of 
 the mansion, the beautiful east front, in which are set the historic clock and 
 weather dial, and which opens into the great hall, once the center of the 
 
THE (.EMLUY BOOK UK FAMOIS AMERICANS 
 
 
 rii 
 
 y -jj/ -ft. 
 
 ^i^^"'' 
 
 THE EAST PORTICO OF MONTICELLO. 
 *' Dc ra'al front" 
 
 master's overflowinor hospitality, when Monticello was the Mecca of strangers, 
 admirers, and friends. 
 
 The young people, by favor of the present owner, spent a delightful hour 
 in and about the old place examining, inspecting, exclaiming. 
 
 They saw the octagonal drawing-roorh, the great dining-hall, the tea 
 room, and the library ; they saw the room occupied by Lafayette, the doublc- 
 alcoved bed-chamber near to the conservatory, and the room in which Jef- 
 ferson died. The old negro told them how the house was built, wing by 
 wing, of bricks made on the place, and of timber felled and hewn on the 
 estate. He told them that the plan of the house and the grounds was Jef- 
 ferson's own, and that even the furniture was designed by him, and much of 
 it made on the place. 
 
 " Well, he could do a little of everything, could n't he?" said Roger. 
 
 '• Indeed he could," Uncle Tom replied. " In head and hand and heart, 
 Thomas Jefferson was a marvel. " And then he told the girls what a charm- 
 ing grandfather was the great Democrat. He liked nothing better than a 
 lively romp with his boys and girls, and he was always devising and making 
 all manner of toys and contrivances for them — cupboards and closets, and 
 
WITH THE SAGE OF MOXTICELLO 1 23 
 
 dishes, and doll-houses, until the little Jeffersons and Randolphs naturally 
 came to the conclusion that "grandpapa" could do about everything. 
 " I don't blame them," said Christine. " It looks as if he could." 
 " Of course not many real relics of Jefferson are to be seen about the 
 place to-day," Uncle Tom told them. " Change of owners and the fortunes 
 of war have sadly depleted its belongings and marred its beauty. But it 
 seems to be the desire of the present owner to make the restored mansion as 
 nearly Jefifersonian as possible, and the furnishings of the house are, as you 
 see, on the colonial plan. But, after all, it is the environment that interests. 
 As Monticello is to-day, in situation, outline, atmosphere, and outlook, — in 
 
 THE WEST PORTICO O; 
 
 the real breath of the place, — so it was in the days of its famous master, plus 
 the life of a great baronial estate ; for that it was in its palmy days, when 
 all the world knew it as the home of the Sage of Monticello." 
 
 After they had inspected the house and rambled about the beautiful 
 grounds, Uncle Tom brought them all together at last in the spacious out- 
 look, a stone's throw from the house. 
 
124 
 
 Tin: rrNTiKY nnoK np famol's amkkicans 
 
 1 HE HALL AT MONTICKLLO. 
 
 '■ ]\Iy ! what a view ! " cried Marian. 
 
 " Your uncle Thomas had an eye for scenery, had n't he ? " said Jack. 
 
 " He was a great lover of natural scenery," Uncle Tom replied. " Even 
 in France, where he did and saw so much, he was always pining for what 
 he called his Virginia wilderness on the mountain-top." 
 
 They sat silent for a while enjoying the scene. Hillside and valley, as 
 the boys and girls looked out upon them, were green with all the verdant 
 Ijcauty of a Virginia spring. Great trees rose above them on the far-spread- 
 ing lawns. Redbud and lilacs, dogwood and golden willow, gave color and 
 fragrance, while redbreasts hopped about on the grass or swung and whistled 
 on the branches above them. 
 
 Below them stretched the valley, where to the right Uncle Tom located 
 for them Shadwell, the birthplace of Jefferson, Edgehill, his other estate, and, 
 farther off, IMontpellier, the home of yet another President of the United 
 States — his successor, James Madison. To the west, the long spur of the 
 Blue Ridge rose from the basin-like valley, while above this ridge could be 
 traced the faint, far-distant line of the Alleghanies. Almost at their feet 
 lay Charlottesville, and, just be\ond the town, they could see, peeping from 
 
WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO 
 
 125 
 
 its screen of trees, the clustered buildings of the University of Virginia, 
 founded by Jefferson in his later days, and almost as dear to his heart as 
 the Declaration of Independence itself 
 
 " What a lovely, lovely spot ! " said Christine, upon whom the place and 
 its associations made a deep impression. " I 'd rather live here than at the 
 White House." 
 
 "Jefferson was much of your opinion, my dear," Uncle Tom declared. 
 " The White House of his day was little 
 more than a great, draughty, white barn ; 
 and, yet, it was the White House rather 
 than this charming Monticello that 
 linked Jefferson's name to fame." 
 
 " Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling-hng ! " 
 cried Jack, swinging an imaginary bell. 
 " AH aboard for a biography cruise ! 
 Heave ahead, Uncle Tom ! Here 's just 
 the spot to give us Jefferson's story." 
 
 "It must be condensed into brief 
 space, then," said Uncle Tom ; " for we 
 shall need to start on our return ride 
 speedily." 
 
 So Uncle Tom sketched rapidly for 
 them the outline of Thomas Jefferson's 
 career. He told them of the young 
 Virginian's boyhood and youth, into 
 which, though earnest and painstak- 
 ing, the boy managed to get a good 
 deal of fun and out-of-door life, and 
 learned to love the woods, the fields, 
 and the farm; he told them how Jeffer- 
 son gained success as a young lawyer, 
 and at last ventured into public life ; 
 how, at twenty -si.x, he became a mem- 
 ber of the Virginia House of Burgesses ; 
 and how, when he went into politics, he 
 was both prudent and honest, and made 
 a vow never to be drawn into speculation the main stairway at monticello. 
 or "jobs," or be anything but just "a farmer"; and, through fifty years of 
 public life, Uncle Tom assured them, Jefferson kept his vow. 
 
 " Then, politicians did speculate and make money out of their opportuni- 
 
126 
 
 THE CKNTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 ties in Jefferson's time, eh?" queried Jack. "Why, I thought these were 
 the degenerate days, and that every one was angelic in the good old times." 
 " My dear Jack," said Uncle Tom, " there is not a phase of public dishon- 
 esty or political intrigue to-day but had its parallel in what are wrongly 
 called the good old days. Vou know my theory ; we are an improvement 
 on our ancestors in every way — morally, physicalh', and intellectually." 
 " Hear, hear, hear ! " cried Jack. 
 
 "Oh, Uncle Tom!" exclaimed Christine. "Is that so? Better than 
 Washington ? " 
 
 "Don't liokl nic to intlividual cases, my dear," said Uncle Tom. "I 
 speak collective!) . The world progresses in everything that works for good. 
 In spite of all the unpleasantnesses we daily see, in spite of all the hard 
 things we hear, we are better than the folks of those so-called ' good old 
 days.' In the story of the past it is the good only that survives. We do 
 not see or else we do not heed the evil. Distance always lends enchantment 
 alike to past and future — the was and the is-to-be. But here ! let me get on 
 with Jefferson. He was not very well oft" as a young man, but in 1772 he 
 married a rich wife, and his two thousand acres increased to forty thousand. 
 Then it was that he built Monticello, turned his ' litde mountain ' into a park, 
 and became a landed proprietor." 
 
 " I thought he was called the Great Democrat," said Bert. 
 
 "He was," replied Uncle Tom; " l)ut more from the principles he laid 
 
 down antl the measures for which he worked than from any simplicity in 
 
 living or surroundings. His love of personal liberty grew 
 
 with tile years. He heard Patrick Henry give his great 
 
 Richmond speech, and be- 
 came a fiery patriot. When 
 Washington was made com- 
 mander-in-chief Jefferson was 
 sent to Congress in his place, 
 and there prepared and pre- 
 scntrd the famous document 
 with which his 
 nanu- is chiefly 
 connected — the 
 Declaration of In- 
 dependence." 
 
 " I have seen 
 
 the desk on which 
 
 jKKKERsoNs CHAiK AND w kniNci-TAULE. he wrotc tile 1 )e- 
 
WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO 
 
 127 
 
 claration of Independence," Roger announced with due impressiveness. " It 
 belongs to one of his descendants in Boston." 
 
 "And when we were in Philadelphia, Roger," declared Jack, solemnly, 
 " I saw as many as four million descend- 
 ants of the fellows who put the Declara- 
 tion through Congress." 
 
 "What do you mean, Jack?" said 
 Roger. " Philadelphia people ? Where 
 did you get four million ? " 
 
 "No; Philadelphia flies, my son," 
 was Jack's reply. 
 
 " Oh, Jack Dunlap ! " exclaimed 
 Marian. " Don't be ridiculous." 
 
 "No; honor bright, it 's so," Jack 
 asserted. " A man there told me that 
 this very Thomas Jefferson declared that 
 the final vote on the Declaration of In- 
 dependence was hastened by the flies 
 that came in swarms from a near-by 
 stable and nearly pestered the lives of 
 the Congressmen those hot July days. 
 So the delegates just hurried things, to 
 get out of the way of the flies." 
 
 " Is that really so. Uncle Tom ? " asked Marian, a bit doubtfully. 
 
 "Well, Jack tells it, and Jack is an investigator, you know," Uncle Tom 
 replied diplomatically. 
 
 "Then, I should think,"said Bert, "that, instead of theeagle, theflyshouldbe 
 
 the national 'bird'of America. He made 
 us free, if he put the Declaration through." 
 "What an absurd lot of boys you 
 are ! " said Marian. " Do drop fairy tales 
 and let Uncle Tom go on with facts." 
 
 "Well, I like that!" said Jack. "I 
 tell you my fly story was fact, Marian 
 Dunlap. We get it straight from the Sage of Monticello himself" 
 
 "The Sage of Monticello!" cried Marian scornfully. "As if Jefferson 
 would say such a ridiculous thing as that." 
 
 "That's the trouble with girls," remarked Jack. "They always will 
 doubt the truth of history." 
 
 "But that fly story is n't history, is it. Uncle Tom?" said Marian. 
 
 JEFll'.K 
 
 )VE BEDROOM. 
 
 DESK ON WHICH THE DECLARATION 
 
 OF INDEPENDENCE WAS WRITTEN. 
 
 From a drawing by Thomas Jefferson. 
 
WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO I29 
 
 "Well — Jefferson, like Franklin, had an excellent sense of humor," 
 said Uncle Tom. "So it may be that he is responsible for Jack's fly story, 
 just as he is responsible for lifting out of a Latin comic poem our splendid 
 national motto of if Pltiribiis U)imn." 
 
 "Oh, yes ; I remember how we came across that story in Washington," 
 said Christine. 
 
 " For further particulars inquire of Mr. Albertus Uphamus, our lexicon 
 fiend," said Jack. " Push ahead with grandpapa Jefferson, Uncle Tom." 
 
 "Well," said his uncle, again picking up his biographical thread, "Jef- 
 ferson declined a reelection to Congress, believing he could best serve the 
 cause by keeping his .State progressing toward liberty and self-government. 
 So he went into the Virginia legislature, and for nearly two years worked 
 away on a constitution for the new State. He was always proud of this 
 work, especially of the clause that established religious freedom in Vir- 
 ginia. That may seem to you, now, a simple affair, not even open to ar- 
 gument ; but it took a long, hard fight to get it through. Things were dif- 
 ferent in Jefferson's day. Bigotr)- and sectarianism have almost died out in 
 our hundred and twenty years of freedom. Another sign of progress, you 
 see, boys and girls. America has no place in this enlightened day for the bias 
 of bigotry or the enigma of exclusion. It was these that Jefferson ever 
 fought against, and against them all real Americans should earnestly pro- 
 test, as we stand at the dawn of a new and yet more glorious century of 
 power and progress." 
 
 Uncle Tom spoke earnestly, and the young people, though they did not 
 catch his full meaning, applauded his sentiment and honored him with an 
 emphatic " That 's so ! " 
 
 "In 1779," said Uncle Tom, "Jefferson was elected governor, and soon 
 after had to stand the strain of British invasion of which I told you, which so 
 nearly culminated in his capture. After his term closed he refused reelection, 
 thinking that a soldier was a better head for the .State just then. His wife 
 died, and he came here to Monticello sad and heartbroken ; but he was not 
 permitted to remain here long. His country demanded his services. He 
 was sent to Congress, where he invented the dollars and dimes of our na- 
 tional currency, which, before, had been pounds, shillings, and pence." 
 
 " Good for him ! " cried Jack, " He was right up-to-date and American, 
 was n't he ? " 
 
 " None more so in his day," Uncle Tom replied. " In 1784 he was sent 
 as American Minister to France and returned in 1789 to go ifito President 
 Washington's cabinet as Secretary of State. He resigned in 1794, because 
 he and Hamilton could not agree, and thus helped to invent politics in Amer- 
 
THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOLS AMKRICANS 
 
 ica, for out of this disa<jreement came the two poHtical parties of his day. 
 In 1796 he was elected Vice-President,> and in 1800 he was elected Presi- 
 dent of the United States." 
 
 " Well, he kept g^oing right up, did n't he?" said Roger. 
 " That 's the time he rode horseback to the capitol, hitched his horse to 
 the picket fence, and just went in to be inaugurated, is n't it?" queried Jack. 
 
 " All of which reads very nicely, but 
 I m afraid it is n't altogether fact," said 
 I ncle Tom. "He meant to ride to his 
 inauguration in his own fine coach and 
 four, but his turnout did not get to 
 Washington from Monticello in time. 
 -So he went — some say on horseback, 
 others say, in a hired coach just like any 
 other President, and was inaugurated 
 with just as much display and noise and 
 jubilee." 
 
 " Well, how did that horseback story 
 get into history then ? " inquired Jack. 
 " From a later occurrence, I imagine," 
 Uncle Tom replied. "When Madison, 
 Ills successor, was inaugurated, Jeffer- 
 son and his si.\teen-year old grandson 
 lode on horseback to the capitol, 
 hitched their horses to the palings, and 
 w ent in to see the show. The two occa- 
 sions have simply got mi.xed, you .see." 
 "That 's so. Now, what were the 
 biggest things he did as President ? " 
 asked Roger. 
 
 "The biggest things, as you would 
 call them," said Uncle Tom, " were, I 
 suppose, when he sent Decatur and 
 his sailors to say to the Dey of Algiers, 'No, sir! we won't pay tribute': 
 the purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then rising 
 to great power in France; and the embargo of 1807, which Jefferson always 
 held, if strictly kept, would have prevented the war of 181 2." 
 " Would it?" asked Bert. 
 
 "That 's an open question," Uncle Tom replied. " If all men had been 
 Jeffersons it might have served his ])urposcs ; but men are not alike, and de- 
 
 LAFAYETTE. 
 The sutuc by Bartholdi in Union Square, New York. 
 
WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO 
 
 131 
 
 MONTICELLO HOSPITALITY. 
 
 signs frequently go wrong — as in this case. After his two terms as Presi- 
 dent, Jefferson came home here to Monticello — but not to be left alone. He 
 was kept busy being hospitable, and it well nigh ruined him. His affairs 
 became so involved that, in his last years, he was in desperate straits for 
 money ; he nearly lost Monticello, and had to sell his 
 great library to supply his needs. He died on the 
 Fourth of July, 1826 — the fiftieth anniversary of the 
 Declaration of Independence, which owed its form 
 and language to him." 
 
 " That was odd, was n't it ? " said Roger. 
 
 " It was certainly a coincidence," replied Uncle 
 Tom ; " but it was emphasized still more by the fact 
 that on the same day his fellow-worker, old-time 
 friend, political rival, and brother-patriot, John 
 Adams, died in his Massachusetts home — his last 
 words a thought of Jefferson." 
 
 " Give us Daniel Webster, Jack," said Bert, as 
 they all rose from their seats in the outlook. So, 
 and as they walked down the road to the monu- 
 ment. Jack, obligingly, as ever, recited for them 
 there, under the Virginia sky, upon that forest- 
 clothed hill-slope of Monticello, the great orator's 
 tribute to these two "fathers of the republic": 
 
 III-; HAI.L-Ri i( >} 
 MONTICELLO. 
 
Tin: rENTLRV hook of famous AMERICANS 
 
 " Their lame is safe. Tliat is now treasured up beyond the reach of ac- 
 cident. .Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor 
 engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as 
 lasting as the land they honored. Marble columns may indeed moulder into 
 dust, time may erase all impress from the crumbling stone, but their fame 
 remains; for with .\merican liberty it rose, and with American liberty only 
 can it perish.' " 
 
 .\nd Uncle Tom responded with a solemn " .\men ! 
 
 They halted before the iron-fenced enclosure by the roadway down the 
 mountain and looked upon the simple ten-foot obelisk that rises above the 
 dust of the third President of the United States. 
 
 "Not much of a marble column about this," was Jack's comment. 
 
 Bert read aloud the inscription on the pedestal : 
 
 " ' Here lies Iniried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Amer- 
 ican Independence, of the 
 
 .1^ 
 
 irryf 
 
 Statutes of Virginia for 
 Religious Freedom, and 
 l-'ather of the University 
 of \'irginia.' " 
 
 " Is n't that splendid ! " 
 said Christine, impressed 
 alike by the simplicity and 
 meaning of the inscription. 
 
 "Those three things, I 
 suppose, " Marian re- 
 marked, "are what folks 
 consider the greatest 
 thintrs he did." 
 
 THE GRAVK OK THOMAS JEFFF.RSON. 
 
 " So considered by himself," Uncle Tom e.xplained. " In fact, that in- 
 scription was composed l)y Jefferson himself and found among his papers 
 after his death." 
 
 .As the wagonette took them up. and they drove down this historic hill- 
 side toward Charlottesville, I'ncle Tom, in a few words, summed up the 
 famous man whose home they had seen : "A great leader, a great American, 
 a great man," he .said. "With an unwavering faith in the will of the people 
 as the sole law of the land, he became, for our republic, the typical democrat, 
 — a believer in the theory of government by the people. Politically a 
 mighty factor in American history, he was personally a delightful man, 
 benevolent and intelligent, cheery of manner and placid in disposition ; he 
 was never angrv, fretful, or discontented; he was happiest when helping others, 
 
WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO 
 
 133 
 
 IN CH\RI 01 11 ~-\ II 1 1 
 
 and one of his chu f rules of con 
 duct was nt\(i to ttoul:)le another 
 for what he could do himself " 
 
 At this Marian bent forward 
 and nudged, significantly, her bro- 
 ther. 
 
 " \'ery good advice, my clear," 
 said Jack, the incorrigible. "Please 
 see that you follow it." 
 
 That afternoon, they took the 
 trolley quite to the other end of 
 this picturesque old town of Char- 
 lottesville, to visit the delightfully 
 situated University of Virginia — 
 the child of Jefferson's later years, 
 founded by him, endowed by his 
 exertions, and ever loyal to his 
 memory. 
 
 Uncle Tom and his "pilgrims" 
 wandered about the beautiful 
 grounds, unrivalled in situation and 
 unsurpassed in view. They walked 
 the cool and shady colonnades before the students' low-roofed dormitories ; 
 they studied the curious curved brick walls enclosing certain sections of the 
 
 
 ^^} 
 
 ^ j 
 
'34 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 
 
 •^m^' 
 ■■-n 
 
 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY GROUNDS. 
 
 These walls are one brick thick, the winding form 
 is taken for supposed economy of material. 
 
 *•?' 
 
 ^r- 
 
 grounds — a Jeffer- 
 sonian contrivance to 
 economize bricks, and 
 yet have strength 
 and durability ; they 
 visited the museum 
 and saw the rem- 
 nants of the library 
 and the marble statue 
 of the founder, saved 
 by the students from 
 the fire that destroyed 
 ^£)«/'-' the famous Rotunda, designed by Jefferson. The Rotunda 
 and annex still lay in ruins, but a nobler structure they were 
 1 told was soon to rise thereon, and other buildings of modern de- 
 
 sign and finish. They "did their manners" for a while in the cool drawing- 
 room of one of the courteous Professors ; they strolled about East Lawn 
 and West Lawn — the double "Campus" of the college, as Bert called it; 
 they visited the gymnasium and the athletic field, in which the boys were 
 especially interested. Indeed, when he had talked with some of "the 
 fellows," and compared notes of records and achievements, Jack declared 
 that he did n't wonder that, in the e.xcitement of the fire, twelve of those 
 " plucky chaps " had in a few minutes taken down and carried out, without a 
 break, the heavy marble statue of Jefferson, which it had taken the contrac- 
 tors many hours and much ingenuity to erect. 
 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA AT CHARLOTTESVILLE. 
 The central rotunda, designed by Jefferson, was destroyed by fire in 1895. 
 
WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO 
 
 135 
 
 " I tell you," he said, " excitement does a good deal, but sand does more, 
 and these university fellows have a lot of it. They 're just A i ball players, 
 and I don't wonder. Look at what they 've got here in grounds and 
 scenery. I tell you they can build men down here in Virginia. Three cheers 
 for the mother of Presidents ! Run up the flag for Thomas Jefferson ! " 
 
 ^Bt ■ 
 
 IN THE COLONNADE OF THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
(A 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 , 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY 
 
 Over tJic Hills into Kentucky — The Three Giants — The Champion of a 
 Mistake — Calhoiins Story — The '' Millboy of the Slashes" — Blue- 
 grass Landscapes — Ashland, the Home of He it ry Clay. 
 
 HE boys and girls long remembered their westward way from 
 Charlottesville. 
 
 Up hill and down dale, climbing heavy grades, piercing 
 mountain passes, while the afternoon grew into sunset and 
 the sunset into glorious moonlight, the train sped on, now 
 giving broad vistas of the Piedmont lowlands, stretched like a panorama 
 beneath them, now showing peak after peak of the forest-clad Blue Ridge, 
 piled far above them, until they crossed the wide Shenandoah Valley, 
 and climbed the farther slopes of the Alleghanies. A constant succession 
 of " Oh ! " and " Ah ! " of " Look ! " and " See ! " kept eye and tongue busy, 
 as picturesque views of mountain and valley, farm land, village, and hillside 
 clearing followed fast upon each other ; and when at last the dark settled 
 down, and in the highlands, where peak seemed crowded against peak, the 
 mountain-tops were ringed with fire, the children accepted this disastrous 
 illumination as a spectacle specially prepared for their benefit, and thanked 
 Uncle Tom for so dramatic a finale. 
 
 As for Uncle Tom, he was watchful for whatever, on this delightful car 
 ride, might interest his young charges. He pointed out to them as they 
 drew away from Charlottesville the last glimpse of Monticello perched on 
 its distant hill-top ; he showed them in what direction, miles to the south, lay 
 Appomattox, and, farther still, Red Hill, the pleasant plantation home of 
 Patrick Henry, champion of Independence. As they crossed the valley of 
 the Shenandoah each one of the five wished to break out with " Sheridan's 
 Ride," but could not for the views that claimed their attention ; and as they 
 drew up at .Staunton Station, Uncle Tom told them that fortv miles to the 
 
138 
 
 THE CENTl'RV BOOK OF FAMOIS AMERICANS 
 
 VIRGINIA BY-WAY. 
 In the Virginia lowUnds. 
 
 south rose that surprising rock freak, the " Natural Bridi^e,' up which young 
 George Washington once climbed to cut his name, high above that of all 
 other visitors. 
 
 So they journeyed on into the health-giving regions of the Virginia 
 springs ; and as they sat at supper in the comfortable dining-car, Uncle Tom 
 fell to talking of the new region they were to enter during the night, while 
 they, as Jack expressed it, " lay sleeping at the rate of forty miles an hour," 
 as, after crossing the Alleghanics, they would descend into the fertile region 
 of Kentucky, the heroic land of American history. 
 
 " The dark and bloody ground, — was n't it called that ? " asked Roger. 
 
 "The home of Daniel Boone," cried Jack. 
 
 "And of Henry Clay," said Bert. 
 
 " Henry Clay?" queried Christine; " is n't he the man who said, ' I had 
 rather be right than President ? ' " 
 
 " Tell us about him, Uncle Tom," said Marian. " Can we see where 
 he lived? " 
 
 "That 's the ne.xt thing on the docket," Uncle Tom replied. " I hope 
 to show you Ashland to-morrow." 
 
 " But see here," he said, as, a few minutes later, they sat in the unoccu- 
 pied saloon compartment of their car, which they now and then, as Bert 
 explained, "preempted for a conference," "what can you boys and girls 
 tell me about Henry Clay? Who was he?" 
 
 They really could n't tell so very much when thus brought to book. 
 Bert .said that Clay was called the great Kentuckian, though just why, he 
 
HENRY CLAY AT THE AGE OF FORTY-THREE. 
 When he was Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
 
140 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 f-tl^ 
 
 
 NEAR CALHOL'NS IIOMK 
 
 did lit know, unless he was Kentucky's ^^rcatest man. Roger thought he 
 was Webster's rival in the Senate, though precisely over what Roger 
 could n't tell unless it was in the desire to be President. Jack said he was 
 called the " mill-boy of the Slashes," though just what that meant Jack really 
 could n't say. 
 
 As lor the girls, Marian was positive that Cla\ had something to do with 
 the Missouri Compromi.se, which kept the nation from fighting over slavery, 
 and Christine knew he was Secretary of State and two or three times was 
 defeated for the Presidency, although he was the most popular man in the 
 country, which, so Christine declared, seemed to her very odd indeed. 
 
 Uncle Tom smiled approval at these attempts to locate Henry Clay, as 
 he called them, although he felt forced to confess that the information was 
 a trifle vague as to foundations and reason.s. 
 
 " But, then," he added, "your misty conception of one of the most popu- 
 lar leaders in American politics is but a reflection of the cloudiness that veils 
 all the men of what might be termed the middle ages of American histor)-. 
 The fathers of the republic still stand out clear and strong; but the giants 
 of the "forties" — Clay, Webster, Calhoun — are little more than a memor\-, 
 scarce more, indeed, than names to the mass of Americans to-day. Hut. 
 you see, failure begets forgetfulness, and these three men, because the\- 
 failed of their chief ambition, — the Presidency, — fail of due recognition. 
 It does not seem right, but perhaps it is just. I doubt now if you can tell 
 me as much about Calhoun as you did of Cla\'. Can \ou ? " 
 
 There was silence a moment. Then Bert saitl : 
 
 "Was n't he called 'the great Nullifier'? Hid n't he believe so thor- 
 oughly in State Sovereignty and State Rights that he came very near break- 
 ing up the Ihiion ? " 
 
 Uncle Tom nodded. . 
 
 "Was n't he \'ice- President ? " asked Christine. 
 
IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY 
 
 141 
 
 "Yes; for two terms," Uncle Tom replied. * 
 
 " And a Southerner with a great head of hair? " asked Marian. 
 
 " Right," was the answer; "at least, his best-known pictures pile up the 
 hair, though the best-known, you remember, are not always the best in fact." 
 
 "Well, I guess that's all we know of the gentleman," said Jack. " Bert 
 can go up head." 
 
 "It is n't very much to know, though; do you think so?" was Uncle 
 Tom's comment. "And yet, in his day," he added, "John C. Calhoun was 
 
 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 
 as great a force in American history as Daniel Webster, as notable a person- 
 ality as Henry Clay. Honored, almost idolized by his State, followed by a 
 host of supporters, his career was, nevertheless, a great mistake, and pos- 
 terity, as I have assured you, never perpetuates mistakes. It is only suc- 
 cess that succeeds." 
 
 "Now, Uncle Tom," cried Christine, " vou know you don't believe that. 
 
142 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 CALHOUNS OFFICE AND HOME AT FORT HILL. SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 Now on the grounds of Clemson Agricultural College. 
 
 How many times have you repeated for us that poem of Story's — " lo 
 Victis,' is n't it? " 
 
 "Oh, yes; a hne thin^^r!" exclaimed Jack. "I know it, too: 
 
 ' I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the battle of life — ' " 
 
 " All right, Jack," said Uncle Tom, restraining his nephew's oratory ; " I 
 don't know, however, that that exactly fits Calhoun's case. You see, he suc- 
 ceeded to a certain extent, and out of his apparent success came America's 
 greatest stress and bloodiest struggle for existence. And yet, Calhoun's 
 life story is that of an earnest and honest endeavor toward what he deemed 
 just, right, and patriotic ends. Action depends largely upon the point of 
 view, and to his standpoint the world has given the verdict of ' a mistake.' 
 But John C. Calhoun was a famous American ; he is South Carolina's most 
 eminent son, and is well worth our study and remembrance." 
 
 " He was a disunion man, was n't he? " objected Bert. 
 
 " He was an earnest and outspoken States' Rights man." Uncle Tom re- 
 plied. " He held that each State was an independent power, and had the 
 right, under the Constitution, to act for itself even to act contrary to — or 
 what is called ' nullify ' — a law of the nation." 
 
 • 1-rom 7ic nlliis, not any," interpolated the philological Bert. "That 
 means, not amounting to anything, useless, not binding." 
 
IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY 
 
 143 
 
 "In other words, N. G.," said Jack; "make it brief, professor." 
 
 " To us Calhoun's doctrine sounds revolutionary," Uncle Tom continued. 
 " It was ; but all such beliefs, as we look back upon them, were really neces- 
 sary to the proper development of the real strength of the republic. Obsta- 
 cles help us to remove obstacles, you know, and the path of abiding union 
 lay through attempted disunion." 
 
 "That sounds odd," said Roger. 
 
 " It would if it were n't Uncle Tom who says it," Christine declared. 
 "He always sees a good side to everything." 
 
 "We must, my dear," said Uncle Tom, smiling. "Why else should 
 things occur ? I remember somewhere having seen a verse that fits here : 
 
 " To that clearer sight 
 The rim of shadow 
 Is the line of light. 
 
 Do you know what that means ? Well, you will, later. And let me say 
 for Calhoun and his followers that they acted from what they deemed right 
 motives. Even though he was the chief and most eloquent advocate of 
 slavery, he was so from principle, and while abhorring his conclusions, we 
 should honor his integrity. No man ever questioned Calhoun's sincerity, 
 and he certainly had what is called the courage of his convictions." 
 
 CALHOUNS OFFICE ON HIS FORT HILL ESTATE. 
 
144 
 
 TUK CKNTIRY BOOK OF FAMOl'S AMERICANS 
 
 •• Hut that is what \vc wish to for^^ct him for," saiii Marian. '• Is n't there 
 somethiiii^ wc can remember him lor?" 
 
 'Certainly.' rephed Uncle Tom. "Calhoun first proposed the annexa- 
 tion of lexas, ami he kept the nation from a third war with England, in 
 
 1S4S, over the vexed question of the 
 Oregon boundar\-. These are both 
 what the boys would call ' feathers in 
 his cap,' and are well worth remember- 
 ing." 
 
 •'Where did he live?" Christine 
 iiuiiiired. 
 
 • In the very uppermost corner of 
 South Carolina, just where the State 
 lies like a wedge between North Caro- 
 lina and Georgia. Calhoun, you know, 
 was South Carolina born and bred, 
 lie was Secretary of War under Pres- 
 ident Monroe, and Secretary of State 
 under Tyler. He was \'ice- President 
 for two terms, with John Ouincy 
 Adams and Andrew Jackson. W hile 
 he was Secretary ofW'ar he removed to 
 this estate in the wedge of South Caro- 
 lina. It was called Fort Hill, and was 
 a quaint old Southern mansion, very 
 much like Mount X'ernon. 
 • The estate now belongs to an agricultural college and the old mansion 
 is, 1 believe, used as the college museum and post office. Not far from the 
 house still stands the little office or library in which the great Nulliher did 
 his thinking, reading, and working." 
 
 " The same as on the Webster place," Christine reminded them. 
 " There were numerous things that were almost coincidences in the ca- 
 reers of those three great Senators, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun," Uncle Tom 
 replied. "Each was a leader, each aspired to the highest place in the na- 
 tion, each failed of success. They were all born at the same period — 
 about 1780; all three died at the same period — about 1850. A com- 
 parative studv of their lives is ol great interest, for their influence upon their 
 times was great." 
 
 "Tell us about Henry Clay, Uncle Tom." said Bert. "You began to, 
 vou know, and then switched oft" on Calhoun." 
 
 A HERO OK THE FORTIES. 
 General Samuel Houston, first President of T« 
 
IV THE BIXE-GRASS COUNTRY 
 
 145 
 
 " You 're a great fellow to stick to the main subject, Bert," said Uncle 
 Tom, with a laugh. " That 's all right ; I like to see it in you. It means a 
 clear mind and persistence — two qualities to keep a man active and bring 
 him to success." 
 
 " Oh, that 's Bert, every time, Uncle Tom," cried Jack. " He 's a master 
 mind. He '11 be President yet. Don't go back on your friends, will you, 
 old fellow?" 
 
 " Xor on your convictions, either, Bert," said Uncle Tom. " That is what 
 has wrecked too many reputations and brought too many public men to 
 
 ^'^*rj^j^r>¥^;!^, 
 
 grief Now as to Henry Clay. 'His story is one of popularity and progress, 
 tinctured with failure. He was a poor boy, born in the \'irginia lowlands, 
 at a place called the Slashes, in Hanover county, a short distance north of 
 Richmond. He was the fifth in a family of seven, and one of his 'chores' 
 Avas to ride the horse to mill; hence, the "mill -boy of the Slashes," you see. 
 He was a bright, wide-awake boy, and finally managed to get to Richmond 
 and start out in life as a lawyer. In 1797 he decided to try his fortunes in 
 
I4t) 
 
 THE CENTL'KY BOOK OI" FAMOIS AMKRICANS 
 
 a new region, and removed across the mountains int( 
 in Lexington — the town for which we are bound." 
 
 " I '11 bet he tlid n't go in a parlor car, though," said jack. 
 
 "Of course he dii 
 
 Kentucky, settling 
 
 n't," said 
 Marian. " Why, tiuy did n't even 
 have steam-cars then, did lliex , I'ncle 
 Tom ? " 
 
 " Xo, no: it was 1S30, at least, 
 before the railway pierced these 
 hills," Uncle Tom replied, "nearly 
 forty ) ears after Clay crossed the 
 mountains. You may be sure that 
 Henry Clay went on horseback, as 
 did most people then, along the old 
 highway to the West that had 
 been made out of the trail of 
 trappers and pioneers. He soon 
 became popular in Kentucky. He 
 had a frank, cordial wa\- about 
 him that made friends quickly, 
 and before long he was in 
 politics. He was sent to the 
 legislature in 1804, where he 
 athocated the gradual abo- 
 lition of slavery. In 1806 he 
 was sent to the Senate of the 
 I'nited States." 
 
 ►i-*.-- aas^ • 
 
 
 ■Srt^ 
 
IN THE m.UE-GRASS COUNTRY 1 47 
 
 " A senator so soon ! " cried Bert. " Why, how old was he ? " 
 
 " Not quite thirty," was Uncle Tom's reply. " But young men of prom- 
 ise quickly got to the front in those days." 
 
 " I should say so," said Roger. 
 
 " Why were n't we living then ? " remarked Jack. 
 
 " Prom that time on, for more than forty years, Henry Clay was a pub- 
 lic man, either in the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the Cabinet. 
 He was three times Speaker of the House of Representatives ; he was Secre- 
 tary of State under President John Quincy Adams ; he was one of the com- 
 missioners to sign the Treaty of Ghent that closed the War of 1812. From 
 first to last his policy was popular, because it was what is called American." 
 
 " Meaning by that?" queried Bert. 
 
 "Meaning by that," replied Uncle Tom: "'the best for America, and 
 America the best ! ' I don't mean that he went about bragging and ' spoiling 
 for a fight,' as the saying is; he was n't, by any means, one of those chip- 
 on-the-shoulder people sometimes called 'Jingoes' ; I mean that he labored 
 for the welfare of the republic in whose future he so ardently believed. 
 Henry Clay made mistakes, and had many shortcomings, but from first to 
 last he was an American : national, broad-minded, patriotic, proud of his 
 country, ardently devoted to the Union, earnest and eloquent for every mea- 
 sure or policy likely to advance American nationality — from curbing the 
 tyranny of England in 18 12 to struggling to keep the Union unbroken in 
 1850." 
 
 "That's the kind of man I like," cried Jack. "Why under the sun 
 was n't he President?" 
 
 " Simply because he was n't elected. Jack," said Uncle Tom. 
 
 " Well, it was a shame," Jack declared. " He was better than half the 
 fellows who were elected." 
 
 " A man who is so ardent and so splendid a party chief as was Henry 
 Clay," said Uncle Tom, "also makes many enemies. The crowds cheered 
 for ' the mill-boy of the Slashes ' and ' Harry of the West,' as they loved to 
 call their magnetic leader, but he always just failed of nomination or election. 
 For twenty years the prize of the Presidency dangled before the eyes of 
 Henry Clay only to be snatched away by less able men, and always to ac- 
 complish the very desire which Clay had most at heart — harmony and 
 union. When you read American political history, you will understand why 
 so popular a leader never became anything but a fallen idol." 
 
 " I don't see it," exclaimed Jack, hotly. Jack seemed already to have 
 become a Clay partizan by inspiration. Uncle Tom declared. " He did n't 
 fall. The people who went back on him fell," said Jack. 
 
THE CENTIRV BOOK OF lAMOl'S AMKRICANS 
 
 iHK PARK Al ASHl.AND. 
 
 " Good for you, Jack ! " cried Uncle Tom, who always did admire enthu- 
 siasm. " I like to see earnestness, even when I am not thorouy;hly in ac- 
 cord with il. \'our remark, loo, tiioui^h \,'our own. singularly enough is 
 exactly what Henry Clay's admirers said. I wonder if I can recall a spirited 
 bit of verse by an ardent Clay man — William W'ilberforce Lord. I got it 
 by heart once because then I believed it. Mr. Stedman considers it as fine 
 as W'hittier's lines on Webster. Let 's see how it sounds to-day. It was 
 written after Clay's overthrow, antl was called 'On tlie Defeat of a Cireat 
 Man.' " 
 
 .\nd I ncle rom, K-aning l)ack against tiit; comforlal)le cusiiions of the 
 comijarlinent, recalled Lord's spirited lines: 
 
 '• Fallen ! How fallen ? States and empires lall ; 
 
 O'er towers and rock-built walls. 
 .\nd perished nations, floods and tempests call 
 With hollow sound along the sea of lime; 
 
 The great man never falls ; — 
 He lives, he towers aloft, he stands sublime: 
 
 They fall, who give him not 
 The honor here that suits his future name, — 
 
 They die and are forgot. 
 
IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY 
 
 149 
 
 ' O giant, loud and blind ! the great man's fame 
 Is his own shadow and not cast by thee; 
 A shadow that shall grow 
 As down the heaven of time the sun descends, 
 
 And on the world shall throw 
 His godlike image till it sinks, where blends 
 Time's dim horizon with Eternity." 
 
 " Fine, but not Whittier," was the verdict of Roger of Boston. 
 
 "It 's true, all the same," said Jack. "Great heads, eh — yours truly 
 and Mr. Lord ? " 
 
 "Come back here a hundred years from now. Jack," Uncle Tom suggested, 
 " and see how your hero's fame stands the test of time. That, after all, is 
 the real standard of greatness." 
 
 With that they separated for the night, and next morning were up 
 bright and early for their first glimpse of Kentucky, as they sped on from the 
 eastern foot-hills toward Lexington, in the heart of the blue-grass country. 
 
 "Why is it called blue-grass. Uncle Tom?" asked Marian. "It looks 
 greener than green to me — and how beautiful and velvety." 
 
 " Later in the year you get the blue effect that gives this famous Ken- 
 tucky grass its name," Uncle Tom replied. "When the wind bends the high 
 grass, you catch the tint that underlies the green and gives a bluish tinge 
 to the waving blades." 
 
 " But that man in the smoking-compartment just told me," said Bert, 
 " that the blue grass was not of Kentucky origin. He says it was brought 
 here from Indiana, but that the Kentucky soil has seemed particularly adapted 
 to its development. Is that so, Uncle Tom ? " 
 
 "Give it up," his uncle replied. " I am not up in botanical history, as 
 your friend in the smoking-room seems to be. Perhaps he is right ; but for 
 all purposes, sentimental, picturesque, 
 and practical, the blue grass is es- 
 pecially a Kentucky product, and will 
 always be associated with this fertile 
 region." I 
 
 They reached Lexington and their 
 hotel in time for breakfast, and, soon 
 after, sauntered up and down broad, 
 prosperous-looking Main Street for a 
 glance at the attractive town. 
 
 Roger seemed inclined to resent its size and importance. 
 
 "Why, it 's bigger than our Lexington," he said, with the tone of one 
 
 HENRY CLAYS LNKSTAND. 
 
150 THE CENTURY BOOK OK KAMOIS AMERICANS 
 
 Avho thousfht that the Lexington of America should be the historical town 
 surrounding the storied Middlesex green. 
 
 "To be sure it is," said Uncle Tom. "This Lexington leads your Lex- 
 ington by nearly twenty thousand people. It is a business cent<;r, you can 
 see, Roger, and a thriving, go-ahead city. But let this satisfy you — it was 
 named lor your Lexington in Massachusetts. For while the settlers were 
 laying out their town, the tidings came to them of that famous fight that 
 opened the American Revolution, and at once they gave to the new Ken- 
 tucky settlement the name of that far-off Massachusetts battle-field." 
 
 " Good for them ! " cried Jack. " There 's appreciation for you, Roger." 
 
 " That was fine, was n't it ? " said Roger, highly satisfied with the infor- 
 mation ; and as they boarded a trolley in front of the Breckenridge statue 
 on their way to Ashland, the Boston boy raised his cap in salute to the en- 
 terprising Kentucky city, which he called " Sam Adams's stepson." 
 
 A ride of a mile along broad and pleasant Main Street brought them to 
 a turn in the road from where it w^as only a short walk to the estate fa- 
 mous throughout America under its name of " Ashland." 
 
 The " old Kentucky home " of Henry Clay lay at a very slight elevation 
 in the midst of broad and far-reaching pastures, while all about the house 
 itself clustered a stately growth of ash, oak, and walnut trees. 
 
 The house stood back some distance from the road, a broad driveway 
 leading to the ample front door. 
 
 But here again, as in the Webster case, the children learned that they 
 were not looking upon the real Clay house. That, so Uncle Tom informed 
 them, was torn down years ago because no longer safe, the small, yellow 
 building off in the fields being the only real sur\-ivor of Henry Clay's day. 
 
 " Well, here 's a curious thing ! " said Jack, standing still beneath a great 
 ash, and pushing back his cap in surprise. " Do you notice the coincidence, 
 Uncle Tom? Clay, Webster, and Calhoun — three statesmen of the same age 
 and time — each one of them in the Senate — each in the Cabinet — each 
 hoping to be President — each one a farmer on a big estate — the house of 
 each one practically wiped out of existence after the death of the owner, 
 and, standing not far from the house, the only real relic in each case — a 
 solitary little yellow building, used by its former owner as his study or office. 
 Now, is n't that odd ? " 
 
 The whole party exclaimed at the curious coincidence, and Uncle Tom 
 remarked : 
 
 "It is as I told you, Jack, when we were talking over Calhoun's story. 
 The similarity in the lives of these three great statesmen, though they 
 were so absolutely different as personalities, is marked and striking. But, 
 
IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY 
 
 151 
 
 "rf^/.. 
 
 
 CLAYS WALK AT ASHLAND. 
 
 I confess, I had not seen or known of all these points that you bring out." 
 You have a sharp eye for ' curios', old fellow." 
 
 The door of the mansion was flung open in hospitable welcome, and 
 under the guidance of an affable colored butler the children were shown 
 through the handsome house, every room of which is eloquent with memo- 
 rials of the great man who once called Ashland "home." 
 
 The house, they were glad to know, was in almost every respect an e.xact 
 and faithful reproduction of the original Clay mansion, built by " the great 
 pacificator" in 1809. 
 
 But, even more than the house, the surroundings of the house spoke of 
 the famous Kentuckian. Here, at least, were things that actually environed 
 
riKW TMC DAOUCKNEOTYOE 
 
 HENkY CLAY IN 1844. 
 When he was nominated for the Presidency of the United States. 
 
IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY 
 
 A MIRROR FROM ASHLAND. 
 Now in possession of John M. Clay, Esq. 
 
 him, and in which he dehghted — the tall pines transplanted by him from the 
 Kentucky mountains ; the winding path that w^as his favorite walk, tree- 
 shaded and shrub-bordered, just as arranged by him ; the wide stretches of 
 pasture land beyond the 
 
 house, which, as in the ®iik~ .. >.,Mgk"i»|<.'' n„aw»Bi> ■muf^i^^^ 
 
 founder's day, give the 
 finest grazing-ground in 
 the world to a blooded 
 stock that has become 
 famous in horse-history. 
 
 Boys and girls alike 
 were "simply crazy," as 
 their extravagant lan- 
 guage declared, over the beautiful Kentucky horses, which had been an 
 increasing feature in the landscape ever since their descent from the east 
 Kentucky highlands. But the Lexington horses, so Jack affirmed, "just 
 w^alk away with them all." 
 
 Beyond the town, through a frame of leafy walnut branches. Uncle Tom, 
 as he stood with his young people on the violet-studded Ashland lawn, 
 pointed out to them, two miles away, the tall column of the Clay monument 
 in the Lexington cemeter)-. 
 
 Leaving beautiful Ashland, the tourists boarded a trolley back to town, 
 and, a mile to the north, as Ashland was a mile to the south, they came to 
 the grave of a true American. 
 
 The towering marble shaft, topped by the ever-familiar figure of Henry 
 Clay, the lawmaker, sprang into the air from a pedestal that was the tomb. 
 Within this rectangular room the children saw, through the gate of open iron- 
 work, the marble sarcophagi that held the remains of Henry Clay and his 
 devoted wife. Encircled by a wreath carved upon one draped sarcophagus 
 stood the simple announcement: HENRY CLAY; while on the base of the 
 supporting pedestal these words were read — a message from the dead 
 statesman to his fellow-Americans : 
 
 " I can with unshaken confidence appeal to the divine Arbiter for the 
 truth of the declaration that I have been influenced by no impure purpose, 
 no personal motive, have sought no personal aggrandizement, but that in all 
 my public acts I have had a sole and single eye and a warm, devoted heart 
 directed and dedicated to what, in my best judgment, I believe to be the true 
 interests of my country." 
 
 "Well, I guess that 's so, is n't it?" was Bert's comment, as. at last, 
 they turned from the grave of Clay and walked down the grassy slope. 
 
>54 
 
 THE CENTURY HOOK OK FAMOIS AMERICANS 
 
 A BLLE-GRASS MEADOW PASTURE. 
 
 "Yes; I believe it is," his uiiclc replied. "With all his inconsistencies, 
 Henry Clay was immovable in one thing: his devotion to the Union. Al- 
 most his last public words were a plea for harmony. ' Let us,' he said, ' discard 
 all resentments, all passions, all petty jealousies, all personal desires, all love of 
 place, all hungering after the gilded crumbs which fall from the table of 
 power .... and think alone of our God, our country, our conscience, and our 
 glorious Union.' " 
 
 "That was fine," said Roger; " but they did n't mind him." 
 " No ; they did n't," Uncle Tom replied. " The conflict between freedom 
 and slavery was inevitable. It had to come, and not even the loving appeal 
 ot the great peacemaker could stop, although it did for a time stay, it. If it 
 had come in his day I am certain he would have been found on the side of 
 Union. There only could he stand who gave voice to this as the sentiment 
 of his old age : ' So long as it pleases God to give me a voice to express 
 my sentiments, or an arm, weak and enfeebled as it may be by age, that 
 voice and that arm will be on the side of my country, for the support of the 
 general authority and for the maintenance of the powers of this Union.'" 
 
 " Henry Clay," continued Uncle Tom, as once again they took the trolley 
 and, watching the tall Clay shaft recede in a verdant perspective, buzzed 
 
IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY 
 
 back to town, " was a notable figure in the history of the repubhc. Imperi- 
 ous, headstrong, brilHant, imaginative, restive under advice, impatient under 
 criticism, he lacked caution as a leader and accuracy as a guide. Though 
 fearless as a party chieftain, he fought mostly for compromise, and though 
 ambitious for the Presidency, he desired it for national rather than personal 
 ends. A statesman and not a politician, he hated selfishness in office and 
 greed in public trust, so that his integrity as a man and citizen is free from 
 spot or stain. A gentleman always, he could face down all assaults upon 
 his honor or his name, and if he had not been consumed by the one laudable 
 ambition to be President of the republic, his story would have been one of 
 success, of leadership, of popularity, and of a fame undimmed by the shadow 
 of failure or the cloud of personal ambition. But his record is still that of 
 a great American, and his country will gratefully remember his services, 
 while for years his home here in beautiful Lexington will be a point of pil- 
 grimage for the patriot, the citizen, the American." 
 
 THE CLAY MONL.MENT. 
 As seen from Ashlaod Lawn, across the city of Lexingtoi 
 
\ ^ I \ K I N I I ( ■ K S 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 IN AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE 
 
 'Jack's Discomfituj-e — Bcatitifnl Keiihicky — The Dark and Bloody Ground 
 — Lo2iisville Hospitality — Glimpses of Jackson — At the Hermitage — 
 Old Alfred' s Reminiscences — Relics and Stories — The Home and Char- 
 acter of Old Hickory. 
 
 S Jack registered for his party at the hotel in Nashville — 
 
 Jack always assumed this duty, and Uncle Tom declared 
 
 that it was done with such an air of proprietorship that he 
 
 always felt his own insignificance — he said to the clerk, as 
 
 he buried the pen-point in the box of shot : 
 
 "Whereabouts does the trolley start, for the Hermitage? Near here?" 
 
 "The Hermitage!" exclaimed the hotel clerk, with the hotel clerk's 
 
 superior though affable smile ; " wh)-, there 's no trolley to the Hermitage. 
 
 That 's twelve miles off" 
 
 "Is that so!" said Jack. "Well, that's the first time we 've been so 
 far from a lemon. Everything, everywhere, from Norfolk on, has been just 
 a trolley-ricie away. What 's the matter with the Hermitage ? " 
 
 "Oh, that 's all right," the clerk replied, with a twinkle; "but you see, 
 Old Hickory did n't think of trolleys when he settled there. Like to move 
 it for you, sir, but, yqu see, we can't. It 's a pleasant trip down there, 
 though. Better take it in." 
 
 " Why, that 's what we 're here Jbr,'-' .said Jack, turning away to join the 
 others, marshaled under Uncle Tom's lead at the elevator. 
 
 To them, Jack reported. In the midst of the laugh at Jack's expense 
 that followed. Uncle Tom assured his nephew that his inquiry was entirely 
 imnecessary, as all such details had been duly attended to, and that they 
 would leave for the Hermitage on the morning train. 
 
 "Meantime," he said, "we '11 still be loyal to your trolley program, 
 
I5S 
 
 THE CKNTIRY BOOK OK FAMOl'S AMEKKANS 
 
 Jack, and ride out this afternoon to see the X'andcrhilt I'niversity and the 
 hi_i,f exposition Iniildins^s at the farther end of the cit)." 
 
 1 hty did so. and were amply repaid for the trip, surprised and pleased 
 ^^ at the bigness and beauty of Nash- 
 
 ville — the ijreat exposition buildings 
 set in a broad, green park ; the State 
 Capitol, with its Grecian outlines, set 
 high on a hill ; and, close beside it, 
 the grave of President Polk, and the 
 iMie equestrian statue of General 
 Andrew Jackson, whose home, called 
 1>\ him '• the Hermitage." they were 
 now en route to see. 
 
 Their journey west and south from 
 Lexington had been a delightful one. 
 Fhe boys and girls all fell in love with 
 Kentucky. The green stretch of 
 "blue-grass" country between Lex- 
 ington and Louisville was a veritable 
 garden-lantl. and Roger declared that 
 he should prevail on his father to sell 
 out in Boston and buy one of the 
 beautiful estates in Pewee X'alley, or some other fair stretch of Kentucky 
 country, and go into the horse business. 
 
 At this there was a general shout. The idea of the Boston boy "weak- 
 ening on his beloved Hub," as Jack expressed it, was too much for them. 
 
 " -Ml the same," said Bert, " there 's no discount on this, " and he swept 
 his hand toward the verdant landscape that lay on each side of the rumbling 
 train. " That man in the smoking compartment yesterday told us that 
 Kentucky was the Lord's own country; ami it does look like it — on the 
 surface. ' 
 
 " .\nd yet," I'ncle Tom declared, "no region in luir land has been more 
 torn by ferocity and feud. Think of it! This was 'the dark anil bloody 
 ground ' — this peaceful-looking landscape ! " 
 
 " I'orest land, though : not pasture then, I guess," put in practical Bert. 
 " Of course, much of it ; but just as beautitul then as now, Bert," said 
 L^ncle Tom. " But it was the red-man's battle-ground. Here, again and 
 again. Northern and Southern Indians met in fierce struggle for the possession 
 of these choice hunting-grounds ; here hunters and pioneers struggled with 
 the red owners for a foothold. just a few miles to the south of wiiere we are 
 
 JACK ALWAYS KEulM ICKEH. 
 
IN AND AROUND TflE HERMITAGE 
 
 '59 
 
 •A VlU<IIABi.t (jAkiJi'.N-LA.\U 
 
 now the Kentucky river winds its way through the region made famous by 
 Daniel Boone; and at our very next stop — Frankfort, the capital of the 
 State — the great frontiersman lies buried in the only six feet of Kentucky 
 soil that, after all he did for this region, he could call his own. There, too, 
 in that same Frankfort cemetery, rises the monument to one whose name 
 and work you must recall — O'Hara, the soldier-poet." 
 
 " What, the one who wrote the ' Ijivouac of the Dead ' ? " cried Roger. 
 
 " Why, that 's the poem that is cut up and posted about among all those 
 soldiers' graves at Arlington," said Jack. 
 
 " (^h, yes; just across the river from Washington," said Marian ; " I re- 
 member that. And the man who wrote that splendid poem is buried here, 
 you say ? " 
 
 " Just beyond us here, in I'rankfort cemetery," replied Uncle Tom, while 
 Christine, looking through the window toward the town they were nearing, 
 
 repeated softly : 
 
 " On Fame's eternal camping-ground 
 Their silent tents are spread. 
 And (Jlory guards with solemn round 
 The Bivouac of the Dead." 
 
i6o 
 
 THE CENTIRV BOOK f)F lAMOLS AMERICANS 
 
 "Somehow, that poem always just j^'oes through me," said Marian. "It 
 makes me tiiii^le." 
 
 " A line piece of verse," said Uncle Tom. " One stanza not used in Arlinij;- 
 ton is local, and applies especially to the Kentucky soldiers of 1812 antl 
 
 1 846 who rest beneath their marble monu- 
 ment )onder in I' rankfort cemeter\ : 
 
 " Sons of the dark and bloody ground, 
 
 Ye must not slumber there 
 Where stranger steps and tongues resound 
 
 Along the heedless air ; 
 Your own proud land's heroic soil 
 
 Should be your fitter grave ; 
 She claims from war its richest spoil — 
 
 The ashes of the brave. " 
 
 •THE MAN IN THE SMOKING 
 COMPARTMENT' 
 
 fust then the train drew into Frank- 
 fort, and Uncle Tom pointed out the old 
 and new capilol Iniildings and told them 
 of Kentucky's contributions to the re- 
 public. 
 
 •• ' \'our own proud land's heroic soil ' 
 has a nc)tal)le record," he saitl. " .\' 
 Kenlucky man drew ni)' attention to it 
 yesterday as we wandered about Lex- 
 ington. Let me see if I can recall it. 
 Two Presidents of the United States — 
 Zachary Taylor and Abraham Lincoln — 
 were Kentucky born, you know, and the one Confederate President, Jef- 
 ferson Davis. Besides these, two Vice-Presidents of the United States 
 and two acting Vice-Presidents, two Secretaries of State, four Secretaries 
 of the Treasury, three Secretaries of War, one Secretary of the Navy, one 
 Secretary of the Interior, six Postmasters-General, six Attorneys-General, 
 seven Judges of the Supreme Court, two Presidents of the Senate, and six 
 Speakers of the House. That 's quite a list, is n't it?" 
 " I should say so," said liiri. 
 "Anything left for Ohio?" ([ueried Jack. 
 
 " You don't think that Kentuck\- man's 'Kentucky-ness ' made him swell 
 things, do you ? " asked Roger. 
 
 "Well, his loyalty may have led him into over-appropriation," said 
 Uncle Tom ; " for he included James G. Blaine, because the famous Speaker 
 taught school anil married his wife in Kentucky, and I suspect one or two 
 
IN AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE 
 
 l6l 
 
 others may have been Kentuckian by his adoption. 
 Still, it 's a strong list, and one not easily paralleled. 
 Kentucky 's a great State, you see." 
 
 So the)- all concluded before they were through 
 Avith it. Their two days in Louisville were crowded 
 with pleasure. The situation, extent, energy, and 
 stateliness of the city impressed them, its wide 
 streets and verdant lawns gave to it breadth and 
 beauty, while its hospitality was avoided only by a 
 vigorous effort. 
 
 But Uncle Tom, with a stern sense of duty, 
 dragged his " brood " awaj- from the delightful Third- 
 street mansion where lived a charming Kentucky 
 woman whom some of the boys and girls had met at 
 their Maine summer resort by the sea, and who in- 
 sisted upon keeping them all and indefinitely. So 
 at last they escaped across the Kentucky bordei 
 "b) the skm of their teeth," Bert biblicall) declaied 
 and reached the southernmost pomt m their trip 
 — NasliMlle and the homt of Audit \\ Jackson 
 
 ^r 
 
 SOLDILRS MO\L\IL\r \ND FOMl Ol O H \R \ IKANklORF k\ 
 
1 62 THE CENTURY BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 The mornint^ after their arrival in Nashville they took an early train 
 on the Lebanon Branch road, runninjj; east from Nashville, and, as they 
 made the hour's run through a j^reen and fertile country of rolling land 
 that, so Bert declared, looked " real New Englandy," I'ncle Tom gave 
 his young auditors brief glimpses of the remarkable man whose homestead 
 they were approaching. 
 
 "A stirring life, from the word 'go,' was that of Andrew Jackson," he 
 said. " We see him first a rough, red-haired, freckle -faced, fatherless boy 
 of the ' pincy woods' section of Carolina, picking up a poor living and a 
 poorer schooling. A bluff and boisterous boy, I imagine ; something of a 
 bully, but never a coward. Brought up on the border, he was a belligerent 
 before he was in his teens, fighting the British as a boy guerrilla, seeing his 
 brothers and mother die through British cruelty, and early learning the 
 lesson of hatred to the foes of America that clung to him through all his 
 eventful life. 
 
 " We next see him a Western emigrant, crossing the border into Ten- 
 nessee in I 788, when he was twenty-one years old, settling as a lawyer in 
 the new town of Nashville, and taking long horseback rides from court- 
 house to court-house through a region swarming with Indians and wild 
 beasts — enemies he was obliged again and again to face in fight. 
 
 "After this come success, recognition, popularity, advancement. He 
 helps draft the constitution of the new State of Tennessee, is sent to the na- 
 tion's capital, first as a representative, then as a senator; he becomes Judge 
 Jackson of Tennessee, then General Jackson, finally President Jackson. 
 
 " We see him building on his big plantation, toward which we are trav- 
 eling, a house of logs in 1S04. I will show you that very log house, yet 
 standing. There he and his dearly loved wife li\e for fifteen long years, 
 when, in 181 9, he builds the house now famous as the Hermitage. 
 
 "We might, if we had time, follow him step by step throughout his 
 steady progress from a ' piney- woods boy' to President. It would be a course 
 checkered with much hard fighting, many personal quarrels, lawsuits, duels, 
 bitterness, and anger, for Andrew Jackson loved hard and hated hard ; but 
 there would be in it, too, honesty, integrity, business ability, firmness, cou- 
 rage, loyalt)', and love. These were the things that sent him ahead, that gave 
 him popularity, that made people believe in and follow him. Let me give 
 you these steps upward, in just so many words: farmer-boy. soldier-boy, 
 saddler's apprentice, law-student, horse-trainer, lawyer, frontiersman, prose- 
 cuting attorney, land speculator, constitution-maker, representative, senator, 
 judge, storekeeper, farmer, flatboat-builder, wholesale shipper, cotton- 
 planter, stock-raiser, militia officer, volunteer soldier, general, conqueror in 
 
TX AXD AROUND THE HERMITAGE 
 
 i6- 
 
 ANiJkLW JACKbUN. 
 
 the war of 1812, victor in Florida, governor of Florida, United States sena- 
 tor, presidential candidate, President, hero by popular acclaim ! — there is a 
 record of steady progress filling a life of seventy-eight busy years, and punc- 
 tuated with all those fiery incidents that made Andrew Jackson at once a 
 terror and a triumph. I think there is no other figure in American history 
 whose success is so meteoric, or whose career was so dramatic as that of this 
 tall, thin, sinewy, strong-faced, stiff-haired, seventh President of the United 
 States, whom men still love to refer to as ' Old Hickory.' " 
 
 The train, soon after, left them on the platform of the little wayside sta- 
 tion called Hermitage — a depot, a cross-roads country store, a house or 
 
164 
 
 THE C1:NTII;V hook hK lAMors AMKKll A.NS 
 
 two in sis^'ht, and. strctcliiiij^ all ai)oiil, t^'rtx^'ii and wooded slopes and pastures. 
 The i^irl at .the store steppetl to the door and shouted, " Jack ! You Jack!" with 
 such startlin>j earnestness that our Jack really felt uncomfortable. The other 
 Jack came, and with him the carriaj^^es L'ncle Tom had ordered. Then fol- 
 lowed a deliijhtful two miles' drive to where, turning from the pike, they drove 
 through a shaded roadway up to the doorway of a low, rambling, square-built, 
 porticoed, two-story house, standing far back from the road — the Hermitage. 
 " How perfectly delightful ! " e.xclaimed Marian, as she surveyed the 
 breezy, hospitable-looking place, which seemed to speak a welcome in every 
 line anti corner of its un|)reteiitious amplitude. 
 
 They paid a lingering visit to the 
 homestead which, with twenty-five acres 
 of surrounding land, is now owned 
 b\ the State ol Tennessee, and cared 
 for 1)\ the Ladies' Hermitage Associ- 
 ation. L'nder the guidance of old Al- 
 fred, the last of the Jackson slaves, they 
 inspected the few. the very few, remain- 
 ing Jackson relics (for most of them, 
 unfortunately, have been scattered or 
 ;, transferred), the house, the grounds, 
 ^^ the garden, and the monument. 
 
 The old fellow proved entertaining, 
 and a loyal adherent of the " ole gin'ral '* 
 and of " Missus Jackson. " 
 
 "Why, I held the ole gin'ral's arm 
 jest like dat 'fore he died," he assured 
 Roger, grasping the boy's arm ; and he 
 delighted the girls by holding forth on 
 " Missus Jackson's " goodness and im- 
 jiartiality. 
 
 "She was a good missus," he declared, 
 " 'n mighty good to the pore folks. She 
 could sing, and ride a horse as well as 
 the gin'ral hisself and she was 'tentive 
 to her pra'rs and minded her Bible. 
 Many "s de time," he added reflectivelv. 
 "dat Missus has put me, Marse Andrew, and the Injun boy, one after 
 t' other, 'crost her knee and jest whopped us for bein' owdashus." 
 
 Tncle Tom hastened to e.xjjlain that "Marse Andrew " was Mrs. Jackson's 
 
 THE GIRL AT HIiRMITAOli STATION. 
 "•Jack! You Jack :•■• 
 
IN AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE 
 
 165 
 
 THE HERMITAGE— HOME OF ANDREW JACKSON'. 
 
 nephew and the general's adopted son, while the "Injun boy" was that 
 little Indian orphan, whose story is familiar, who was picked up by Jackson 
 on a Creek battlefield, sent to the Hermitage, and cared for by the conqueror 
 of his race. 
 
 "The Hermitage was a great place for children, white and black," 
 Uncle Tom declared. " Andrew Jackson had no sons or daughters of his 
 own, but he loved all children, and there were many nephews and nieces to 
 play about these grounds, while the boys and girls through the country that 
 were named 'Andrew' or ' Rachel' by his admirers were legion." 
 
 They wandered through the big breezy rooms of the old-fashioned man- 
 sion while Alfred drew their attention to things that seemed to him impor- 
 tant — the paper on the halls and stairway, imported from France by Jack- 
 son, and put on the walls under his supervision — a monstrous pattern of 
 commingled history and mythology, as impossible in scene as in perspective. 
 
 He took them to the wide-porticoed piazzas, up-stairs and down, and 
 showed them just where Jackson stood when he made his last public speech, 
 and he drew their attention to the cedar- shaded walk that led from the gate- 
 entrance. The great cedars that lined it were planted by the " ole gin'ral," 
 so he explained, "in the form of a git-thar." 
 
 "A what? " inquired puzzled Marian; and it required a repetition and an 
 explanatory sweep of the hand to show that the old custodian meant that 
 the cedar walk was shaped like a guitar. 
 
 Alfred also explained, as he led them about the house to show its pro- 
 
i66 
 
 THE CENTIRY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 portions, that when the Hermitage was built in 1S19 it was just a square 
 
 blockhouse with a small porch, 
 ein'ral. "ca'se he was President 
 
 » C^ 
 
 THE OLD HERMITAGE STILL STANDING. 
 B'jOi iSot. The swllcr baiUng is old Alfred's biRh|ibce. 
 
 ••But in iSj;5." he informetl them, ••the ole 
 you see, put on dese yere exaggerations," 
 and he indicated the ample pillared 
 porticoes which project from the 
 house at front and rear. 
 - i- The children smothered a laugh 
 
 - at the old man's apt though inno- 
 cent appellation, and then followed 
 him afield to the first Hermitage — 
 the old house of logs, a gunshot 
 away from the later mansion. That they learned, was Jackson's home at 
 the time of the war of 1S12 — the war that made him famous, when, behind 
 the cotton bales of New Orleans (only Bert assured them that there were 
 no cotton bales there at the time of the battle), he forced back the veter- 
 ans of Wellington and closed a leaderless war with a brilliant victory. 
 
 They roamed all about the place, resting again and again in the shade 
 of the great encompassing trees. Then old Alfred grew interested in the 
 enthusiastic young people and made an e.xception in their case. For he 
 unlocked the gate in the iron fence that encircled the monument and let 
 the boys and girls .stand within the temple-like 
 mausoleum that marks the grave of a statesman. 
 ••As simple as Webster's, so far as inscription 
 goes, is n't it ? " said Bert. •' But it tells the stor\-, 
 just as Webster's did. All the world knows An- 
 drew Jackson." 
 
 The girls read twice, carefully, the touching trib- 
 ute to his wife Rachel that Jackson caused to be 
 carved upon the slab that lies close beside his own. 
 •• Is n't it beautiful ? " said Christine. " I don't 
 see. Uncle Tom. how a man who could say such. 
 lovely things about his wife could be such a fighter 
 in war and politics. " 
 
 •■ Jackson's respect for women was almost 
 knightly in its courtesy," Uncle Tom declared. 
 •■ His affection for his wife was peculiarly deep and strong, and when she 
 died, just before his inauguration as President, he went to Washington, in 
 the midst of shouts of welcome and congratulation, a lonely and broken- 
 hearted man." 
 
 " Yes. sir. dat 's de troof " old Alfred affirmed. '• I 'member, jest 'fore he 
 
 J.^CKSONS TOMB. 
 
IN AND AROCND THE HERMITAGE 
 
 167 
 
 IN OLD TENNESSEE DAYS. 
 
 Avent, de ole gin'ral he planted dese jere willows hisself, beside ole Missus' 
 grave. Dey was jest switches den, but dey done growed, 'cept dat ar one 
 what was struck by lightnin'. De ole gin'ral loved dis place. Wen he gits 
 into his kerridge fer to go to Washington he done tuk oft" his hat to de house, 
 jest like it was a lady, and den he dribe away." 
 
 It was all very interesting. Yonder, at the old house in the fields, so 
 Uncle Tom told them. Aaron Burr had been a frequent visitor, and from it 
 
l6S Till-: CtNTLKY BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 Jackson went to war and victory; here, in the "new" house, Jackson had 
 received Lafayette as a g^iiest, and beliind the mansion were spread the long 
 tables for the great barbecue in honor of the famous Frenchman. Here he 
 received the news of his election ; here he outlined the action that made his 
 name a power in American politics; here "all the world" came to see and 
 honor him ; and here, on a June day, he died, an old man of seventy-eight. 
 The young people felt, indeed, that the Hermitage had been well worth the 
 visit. It seemed, so Christine declared, to put them nearer to the real man 
 with a good and tender side, whom they had only known by the unyielding 
 nickname of " Old Hickory." 
 
 A lunch at the Hermitage, a visit to the Confederate Soldiers' Home on 
 the adjoining grounds, a talk with numerous friendly and grizzled old veter- 
 ans who had worn the gray, a delightful drive back to the station through 
 woodlands vocal with hnch-songs and robin-notes, and through the mingling 
 green and white of Tennessee's spring foliage and blossoms, completed this 
 most satisfactory trip to the home of Jackson. 
 
 In the fields beyond the country store they waited for the up-train to 
 Nashville, and while they did so, Uncle Tom, as they all sat in the shade of 
 the great hickory-trees, .sought to give them. a brief summing up of the 
 character of the master of the Hermitage. 
 
 " I have already told you," he said, " that I can name no more unicjue 
 or picturesque figure in American history than .\ndrew Jackson." 
 
 " How picturesque, I'ncle Tom?" demanded Bert, who was always very 
 particular as to adjectives. " Can you apply that to such a bluff and gruff 
 old fellow as Jackson ? " 
 
 The girls remembered the inscription on his wile's tablet, and were in- 
 clined to protest against calling him bluff and gruff. But Uncle Tom did 
 not seem to find the boy's words objectionable, and simply assured Bert that 
 anything that occupied a unique or "decorative" position in material or in- 
 tellectual conditions could be called picturesque. 
 
 " Certainly," he added, " nothing could be more noticeably picturesque 
 in character or story than this brave and fiery old fighting-man. No man 
 was ever more devotedly followed, none was ever more cordially hated. 
 Partizans rallied around him as about a tribal chief; enemies raged against 
 him as against the bitterest foe. He came into our political history as a free- 
 lance ; his nomination and election up.set all the old traditions. The aristo- 
 crats prophesied anarchy ; the people hailed his inauguration as bringing in 
 the reign of the people. All the starch and show that had held sway 
 in presidential etiquette from Washington's time were overthrown. It was 
 a new departure, and Jackson's election to the Presidency," Uncle Tom 
 
IN AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE 
 
 169 
 
 declared, " was the most important event in American history from Wash- 
 ington's day to that of Lincohi." 
 
 " Jackson was the first ' people's President,' " he said. " More than Jeffer- 
 son, he was the father of national democracy ; more than Clay, he was in- 
 tensely, even belligerently, American ; more than Webster, he had what 
 we call, 'the courage of his convictions,' and would live up to what he 
 esteemed right, no matter who opposed it. Absolutely fearless, vigorous in 
 methods, quick in action, emphatic in speech, if he thought a thing should 
 be done, he did it, careless of consequence. 
 
 " Not a great man in the sense that Washington and Lincoln were great, 
 he was yet so brave, so outspoken, so determined, and so resolute that he 
 
 If" 
 
 
 JACKSON SQUARE AND THE CATHEDR,\L, NEW ORLEANS. 
 
 silenced all opposition and triumphed over all enemies, while his stern and 
 inflexible honesty rose almost to greatness." 
 
 " He did n't go much on civil-service reform. Uncle Tom, did he ? " asked 
 Roger. 
 
 "Was n't he the man who said, 'To the victor belong the spoils'?" 
 Jack inquired. 
 
 " No; he was not the originator of that detestable saying," Uncle Tom 
 
170 
 
 TIIK CENTIKY BOOK OF FAMOIS AMERICANS 
 
 replied ; " but he acted up to it, for it was the advice of one of his partizans. 
 Kven in that, thouy;h, was Jackson's picturesqucness displayed. He was in- 
 tensely loyal to his friends ; he was equally vindictive to his foes, and from 
 his administration certainly dates the system of political rewards and punish- 
 ments which for half a century marred and cheapened American politics 
 and patriotism. Jackson, you see, was the soldier in office. He knew no 
 master save his own Avill, which, he declared, was the will of the people. 
 And it did appear to be so, too; for the majority of the people believed so 
 thoroughl)- in him that his two terms as President were at once the most 
 popular the most dramatic and the most effective of those of all the Presi- 
 dents of the United States up to his time." 
 
 R,\CHEL, WIFE OF ANDREW J.^CKSON. 
 In a locket worn by ihc President. 
 
 " He won the l)attle of New Orleans, and he saiti 'the I'nion must and 
 shall l)e ]:)reserved.' 1 know that much about him," said jack. •' What 
 else ? " 
 
 " I can't enumerate here in detail, lack," I'ncle Tom replied; but this I 
 can tell you, Andrew Jackson was a patriotic President." 
 
IN AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE 
 
 171 
 
 ONE OF "OLD HICRORVS" Sl'ORTS— IN A TENNESSEE HUNHNG-I IKLD. 
 
 " Xo monkeying with the Constitution allowed — keep off the grass — 
 that kind of President, was n't he, Uncle Tom?" said Jack. 
 
 "That 's about it — in your peculiar and vigorous speech," Uncle Tom 
 admitted. "With the sternness of the despot he crushed the rebellious at- 
 tempts of the ' nullifiers,' and saved the Union from disruption ; with an 
 equally heavy hand he demolished the institution called the United States 
 Bank, which he considered a menace to the republic ; he brought England 
 to terms ; made France pay a just but delayed indebtedness ; settled disputes 
 of long standing with Denmark and with Spain ; and forced Europe to rec- 
 ognize and admit the strength and vigor of America as a nation." 
 
 "That 's the talk!" exclaimed Jack, with enthusiasm. "He had some 
 'sand' about him. General Jackson did." 
 
 " He w^as certainly what we call to-day American and aggressive," 
 Uncle Tom declared. " But he was so from inclination and conviction, not 
 from policy. He was a true man, whatever he did. 
 
 " Warm-hearted, fearless, patriotic, honest, and sincere, he lived, the 
 people's idol; and dying, was canonized by all America as the synonym of 
 leadership, force, and mastery. 
 
 " He w^as impulsive, he was hot-headed, he was obstinate. He made 
 many mistakes, and yet even these proved successes ; for, in all the history 
 of the republic, Jackson was the only living President who retired from 
 office more popular than when he went in. 
 
17- THK CEMIKV HOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 " rhrouj^'^hoiit all this rc<;^ion he was loyally loved. All over the lantl 
 men were his faithful partizans long after his public life closed, and his last 
 years at the Hermitage were those of a sage and an oracle, to whom men 
 looked for advice and direction. A remarkable man every way, boys ami 
 girls, was Andrew Jackson. IVom the time when, as a plucky boy of thir- 
 teen, he refused to clean the boots of the British officer, to the day when he 
 died yonder, at the Hermitage, an old and honored man, his story is well 
 worthy of study, and, wlienever studied, will l)e found suggestive, picturesque, 
 dramatic, American. 
 
 "There! I 've talked till train-lime. All alioard for Xasiiville. and 
 good-by to the Hermitage ! " 
 
 They whirled away toward Xashville. But in the intervals of " Jack- 
 son talk" and delight at the Tennessee landscape Jack waxed eloquent 
 over an account of the splendid "coon hunt" that "the other Jack," had 
 told him of, as the Northern and the Southern boy had sat together beneath 
 one of the sj-reat shade trees at the Hermitaire. 
 
 ^^CSS^SSi 
 
 1 
 
1^ ^ 
 
 -J 
 
 f^C 
 
 
 Irnl 
 
 M 
 
 j^^^^ 
 
 'T''- V;i 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 Uncle Tom 's Latest — Mamtnoth Cave Explorers — The Birthplace of Lin- 
 coln — Across the Prairies — By the ''Father of Waters " — Where Grant 
 got His Experience — A Leaders Life — A Herds Death. 
 
 T was a good three hours' run through regions where the 
 
 names had a certain familiar sound to those who had studied 
 
 the campaigns of the Civil War — Nashville and Franklin 
 
 and Bowling Green. Suddenly Uncle Tom started to his feet. 
 
 "Come, boys; gather up your traps." he said. "Put on 
 
 your hats, girlies. The next station is ours." 
 
 "The next station?" exclaimed Marian, who for the time was immersed 
 in the new " St. Nicholas," which Uncle Tom had bought for her at Nash- 
 ville. "The next, did you say? Why, we can't be back again at Louis- 
 ville as soon as this!" 
 
 " A hundred miles from there, my dear," laughed Uncle Tom. " This is 
 just a little joke of mine. Here we are — Glasgow junction! All out for 
 Mammoth Cave ! " 
 
 "Mammoth Cave! No, Uncle Tom! Are we really going there?" 
 came the surprised and exultant chorus. " Oh, is n't that just splendid ! " And 
 a demonstration of affection was made upon this scheming uncle who had 
 worked upon them another of his delightful surprises. 
 
 In the midst of it all the train stopped, and soon after they were lunching 
 at the comfortable little railroad inn ; and, before long, the short branch 
 railway bore them into the honeycombed hill region and up to the rambling 
 hotel of logs which stands in its pleasant woodsy park, upon the crust of 
 earth so wondrously seamed and tunneled by the crossways and caverns 
 of the mighty Mammoth Cave. 
 
 W'ill they ever forget that delightful burrowing in the ground — the 
 descent from the upper world ; the barred iron gate at the great black mouth 
 
>74 
 
 THK CKNTIRY HOOK i >K lAMolS AMKUICANS 
 
 of the cavern; their "convict i;;arb of blue jeans," as Jack described it ; tiie 
 swinj^fino torchlisxhts : the jolly party of youny; folks — students from a 
 Bmvlins^ Green institute — with whom they made the trip; the endless pas- 
 
 satil^es "stretching^ from nothing; to no- 
 where," as Marian expressed it ; the 
 i^reat domed chambers; the yawning 
 pits, the fantastic forms and figures 
 formed by stalactites and stalagmites; 
 the giant's coffin; the bridal altar; the 
 star chamber; the elephant's head; the 
 corkscrew; the statue of Martha Wash- 
 ington; the memorial cairns, or monu- 
 ments, piled up by generations of vis- 
 itors; the flaring fires lighted by the 
 guides to bring out strange formations 
 or gruesome contrasts ? These, and all 
 the other surprises, delights, wonders, 
 and what Christine called • shivery 
 sensations" of that eight-mile walk un- 
 derground, will stand out among the 
 chief memories of their " famous-men 
 ' hunt, " because the experience was at 
 once so unexpected and so novel. And 
 next morning, as they sped northwartl 
 toward Louisville, the personally con- 
 ducted five held a mass meeting in their 
 parlor-car compartment, and returned a 
 special vote of thanks to L ncle Tom. 
 duly engrossed in a shaky, " railroady " 
 hand on a telegraph blank, and as 
 shakily signed by each one of them. 
 But when they had left the curious cave region behind them, and were 
 speeding Louisville-ward again, Uncle Tom led their minds back to the tem- 
 porarily deserted channel of historic Americans, and advised them that they 
 were passing over storied ground. 
 
 " Up and down these highways." he said, "contending armies moved in the 
 fierce days of the Civil War, struggling for the possession of Kentucky, a 
 border State. Off there to the east, at Perrxville. was fought the most des- 
 perate battle ever waged on Kentucky soil. It was brother against brother, 
 and Kentuckv was saved to the Union. But even more than by the valor of 
 
 THE BOTTOMLESS PIT, MAMMOTH C.WE 
 
BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 HODGENS MILL AND DAM ON NOLINS CREEK. 
 Three miles from Lincoln's birthplace ; cowd of Hodgensville in the background- 
 
 the boys in blue was Kentucky saved to the Union by the wisdom and 
 patience and will of Abraham Lincoln, himself a Kentucky boy." 
 
 " That 's so," said Bert ; " he was born in Kentucky-, was n't he ? And so 
 was Jefferson Davis, too." 
 
 "Yes; some miles southwest of us, in Todd County. From this region, 
 by the way, came also Mrs. Lincoln, whose name was Mary Todd. Strange, 
 is n't it, how lines of coincidence cross?" Uncle Tom answered. "But, as I 
 was saying, I esteem the saving of Kentucky by Abraham Lincoln one of his 
 chief claims to greatness. It was a triumph of sound judgment and inex- 
 haustible patience. Xo other man — not Clay himself the great pacificator 
 — could have achieved the beneficent ends aimed at and attained here in 
 Kentucky by Lincoln, the great emancipator, whose early home lies not far 
 away from the very region we are now traversing." 
 
 "Oh, are we so near his birthplace?" cried Roger. "Whereabouts 
 is it?" 
 
 Uncle Tom consulted a moment with the porter, crossed to the window, 
 and then said : 
 
1/6 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 " Now, look — look out of the window — here, on the left. See that little 
 stream comin;^ down through the pastures ? Now we are crossing it. Boys 
 and girls, this is Nolin's Creek ; and on the banks of this little stream, 
 twelve miles farther up, Abraham Lincoln was born." 
 
 At once the boys' hats were doffed in salute to this, the most impor- 
 tant river in Christendom, so enthusiastic Jack declared, and the girls fluttereil 
 their handkerchiefs toward it ; for, as you know, this peripatetic five hail 
 been schooled in I'ncle Tom's belief that .\braham Lincoln was the world's 
 greatest man. 
 
 Even as thc\- rumbled over the bridge and lookeil across country to- 
 ward the rolling land where, when all was forest or scarcely-won clearing, 
 the great American was born. Uncle Tom dropped into poetry, as he some- 
 times would, and gave to his boys and girls those fine lines from Lowell's 
 matchless tribute in his " Commemoration Ode." 
 
 "It seems to fit just in this place," he said: 
 
 " Nature, they say, doth dote, 
 And cannot make a man 
 Save on some worn-out plan. 
 Repeating as by rote ; 
 For //;'///, the Old-World moulds aside she threw, 
 And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 
 Of the unexhausted West, 
 With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
 Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true." 
 
 "How was he difU-reiit from anybody else?" asked Bert. "You call 
 him 'new' and ' the American." Have n't we had other men as American? 
 What 's the matter with branklin ? " 
 
 " Nothing is the matter with him, Bert," said Uncle Tom. " Franklin, 
 in a way, was the most characteristic American ; certainly, up to the time of 
 
 MA. ABOARD FOR ST. LOCIS!' 
 
BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 177 
 
 Lincoln, he was the greatest American — as an American. But Lincoln 
 was a new type. Franklin had quite other environments, and was broad- 
 ened and deepened by foreign travel and i-diication. Lincoln was all Amer- 
 ican. Hadhe ne\er bee n Prtsi 
 dent he would have carxtd out 
 a career that Avould ha\c been 
 unique in our historj , for lu 
 learned from experience anc 
 knowledge of men how to mak 
 the most ot oppoiiunil\ uid t 
 
 ALONG THE ROLTI IN HI 
 
 become, as Lowell said ot him, ' wise, stead- 
 fast in the strength of God, and true.' It was 
 this nobility of soul that made him the savior of 
 his country. It was this wisdom, steadfastness, 
 patience, and belief in the. strength of his cause 
 
 and in the Eternal Justice that enabled Abraham Lincoln, in despite of criti- 
 cism, false accusations, and a restless and insistive North, to save Kentucky 
 to the Union, and by so doing to save the Union for us — for you as well as 
 for me, boys and girls, and for the ages yet to come." 
 
 Next morning they left Louisville, crossed the Ohio River, and, running 
 northward, changed cars at a little Indiana junction, and were soon speeding 
 westward out of the broken land of Indiana, and across the Illinois prairies 
 to the mighty Mississippi and its mightiest city — .St. Louis. 
 
17!^ THi: CKNTLKY BOOK OF KAMOl'S A.MKKICANS 
 
 The wonderlul levels of the far-reachinir prairie lands were a revelation 
 to tiicse sons and daughters of the hills and the sea. Indeed, Bert declaretl 
 that he cjot the same sense of space and vastnesson those verdant and fertile 
 prairies that he did on the ocean when they had steamed southward to Fort- 
 ress Monroe. Like the sea that da\ , the prairie was, as Bert e.xpressed it, 
 "one great rolling plain of color." 
 
 That was perhaps just a bit poetic ; but Jack went even beyond his 
 cousin, and declared that his impressions could find vent only in verse. With 
 a wave of the hand toward the verdant fields and the clear, overarching 
 skies, he delivered himself of this — Roger insisted on calling it "Jack's 
 Epic " : 
 
 " Green as the greenest of greenness, 
 
 Blue as the bluest of blues, 
 Flat as the flattest of flatness, 
 Wide as the widest of views." 
 
 " Bravo, Jack ! Hail to the twentieth-century Wordsworth ! " cried Uncle 
 Tom, while the girls crowned him with an elongated time-table, and the 
 whole party bent in homage to him as "the laureate of the peripatetic." as 
 Bert proclaimed him. 
 
 At last the prairies billowed up into what, carrying out the ocean simile 
 as the land ran into the bluffs along the river, they called the surf At sun- 
 set they saw the mighty Mississippi, and, crossing it by the famous Eads 
 Bridge, they left the train at the fine Union Station, and were soon at the 
 dinner-table in their great hotel in St. Louis. 
 
 Two days were spent in sight-seeing in this metropolis of the Missis- 
 sippi Valley — the "Future Great," as some of its indwellers refer to it. 
 They shot up to the roof of the tall Union Trust Building, and took a 
 bird's-eye view of the terraced city and the turbid river flowing at its feet. 
 They rambled through its broad streets, rode to its beautiful parks, saw its 
 great stores and splendid residences, walked along its " paved seashore," as 
 Marian described the sloping levee fringed with big "stern-wheelers"; and 
 there Jack, looking out upon the broad tide, recalled Lincoln's words: 
 
 The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to 
 the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New 
 England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, 
 in more colors than one, also lent a hand. On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down 
 in black and white. The job was a great national one, and let none be bannetl who iiore an 
 honorable part in it. And while those who have cleared the great river may well be proud, even 
 that is not all. . . . Thanks to all. For the great republic, for the principles by which it 
 lives and keeps alive for man's vast future — thanks to all. 
 
GEXER.\L GRANT KECONNOITERING THE CONFEDERATE POSITION AT 
 SPOTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE. 
 By C. W. Reed, after a sketch made at the time. 
 
i8o 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 A RIVER BOAT ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 "That 's good, Jack," said I'ncle Tom, nodding approval; "and here 
 beside the great river which he freed, in the very city in and about which so 
 many of his earlier experiences centered, let lis remember the man to whom 
 the thanks of the republic are specially due — Grant, greatest of American 
 soldiers, the product of an iron will and of a stern necessit)." 
 
 " See here, Uncle Tom ! " exclaimed Jack ; " is n't that father going back 
 on us? You said in New York that we would, for the purpose of this trip, 
 call Grant a New Yorker, and now you 're bringing him out west again. " 
 
 "That 's so, Jack," said Uncle Tom, with a laugh. " I did say so, and 
 1 'm not going to depart from that decision. But here we are on his earlier 
 stamping-ground ; and while I count him a great New Yorker, here, in 
 Missouri and Illinois, he first became known. Here his successes and his 
 failures tried his metal, and gave him to the nation schooled by experience 
 into the trained and reliable fighting-man. And yet it is a curious fact 
 that, though he was the greatest soldier of his day. Grant hated war." 
 
 This seemed so impossible a statement that the young folks all expressed 
 surprise, antl Marian saitl, sus])entling the wedding ceremony, as Jack 
 called her act of pouring into the Mississippi tlic via! ol ocean water she 
 had brought from I'ortress Monroe : 
 
 "Why, Uncle Tom ! Is that likely — a soldier to hate fighting?" 
 
 "That 's what he said himself" Uncle Tom replied. "'Although a 
 soldier I)y education and profcssit)n,' he declareil, ' 1 Inive never telt any sort 
 
BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI 181 
 
 of fondness for war, and I never advocated it except as a means of peace. 
 I never went into a battle willingly or with enthusiasm. I was always glad 
 when a battle was over.' " 
 
 "That sounds odd, does n't it?" said Bert. "How could he win if 
 he never liked to fight ? " 
 
 " ' I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,'" quoted 
 Roger, significantly. 
 
 GENERAL GRANT AND STAFF. 
 General Grant is sitting with his back to the smaller tree. From a ^ 
 
 "That 's it, Roger. He won because he fought to win," I'ncle Tom 
 declared. "That is what generalship means. It 's what the old darky at 
 Jackson's home called the ' git-thar ' quality ; and Grant, as )Ou know, had 
 but one end in view — to ' git thar ' ! " 
 
 " And he did, did n't he ? " said Jack, to whom Grant was always a hero. 
 
 "He did," Uncle Tom replied; "but only because he had learned 
 patience through hope long deferred, and endurance because of great 
 
1 82 THE CENTIKV BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 and repeated obstacles. In fact, his life was one of vicissitude — the best 
 schooiing^ for practical experience and ultimate success." 
 
 They walked across to inspect the Grant statue in Grand Avenue, and, 
 after they had roamed the city a little more, gathered about Uncle Tom in 
 the comfortable entresol of their hotel, and listened as he outlined for them 
 the story of Ulysses Simpson Grant. 
 
 " He was an Ohio boy," Uncle Tom began, " born at Point Pleasant, on 
 the banks of the Ohio River, not far from Cincinnati. His boyhood and 
 youth were uneventful. He got the appointment to West Point by acci- 
 dent, and went there against his will. After his graduation he was sta- 
 tioned at Jefferson Barracks — the pleasant military post we visited this 
 morning, ten miles below St. Louis. He served through the Mexican war, 
 came back a captain, married a St. Louis girl, and went to farming a little 
 ways out of town. He had a hard time of it. His farming was not profit- 
 able. He tried real estate and bill-collecting with no better success, and 
 finally went to Galena, in the northwestern corner of Illinois, and ' clerked 
 it' in his father's tannery. There he lived unnoticed and unknown until 
 the war came. He tried to get an army appointment, but could not; but at 
 
 BIRTHPLACE OK GE.NEKAL GRANT, POINT PLEASANT. OHIO. 
 
BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 183 
 
 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 From a photograph taken early in the \ 
 
 last was made captain of a volunteer company, then colonel, then brigadier- 
 general, and then commander of the military district of Cairo. F"rom that 
 time — January, 1862 — his hidden ability began to show itself While 
 others argued he acted. He took Fort Donelson; won the battle of Shiloh; 
 captured Vicksburg; conquered at Chattanooga; was made lieutenant-gen- 
 eral ; and at Nashville, where we were the other day, assumed command of 
 the armies of the United States. He took charge of the Army of the 
 Potomac in the spring of 1864. In one year he brought the war to a 
 close. Then he was made General of the United States Army, Secretary 
 of War, President of the United States. That is' his story — all the sue- 
 
1 84 
 
 THE CKNTLKV UUUK UF FAMOUS AMKKICANS 
 
 cesses and honors of his Hfc crowded into less than ten years. But to reach 
 that high position the experiences of an unsuccessful youth were necessary. 
 Hope deferred taught him patience ; discouragement taught him decision ; 
 failure taught him persistence. The tan-yar<l was the preparatory school to 
 the general's saddle." 
 
 "Well, that was all right," said Roger; "he tanned "em as a boy, and 
 when he was a general he tanned 'em, too." 
 
 "Yes; and he and victory rode tandem, eh, folkses?" declared Jack. 
 But the girls clearly counted these puns frivolous; Uncle Tom, too, 
 gave them but scant attention as, continuing, he said : " But he was the 
 same Grant, you know. The daring with which he flanked the enemy 
 at Vicksburg was just the same as that which had made him captain for the 
 action at the San Cosme gate." 
 " What was that ? " asked Bert. 
 
 "Why, don't )ou know ? " critnl Jack. " That was when he lugged a can- 
 non into a church steeple, was n't it, Uncle Tom?" 
 " Yes ; tell us about it. Jack." said his uncle. 
 
 " Not much to tell, only it was mighty 
 plucky," said Jack. " It was when 
 (irant was a lieutenant in Mexico. 
 The .Americans wanted to get into the 
 city, and were stopped by the enemy at 
 the San Cosme gate — that was one 
 of the principal entrances into the city 
 of Me.xico, you know. Grant saw a 
 w ay to flank them. He got permission 
 and a mountain howitzer, took some 
 gunners with him, and started for a 
 little church he saw across the fields 
 and ditches. The church had a high 
 steeple, but Grant took the howitzer 
 to pieces, carried it across the ditches 
 and up into the steeple, put it together, 
 loaded it, and banged away at the 
 eneni)- until he cleared them from the 
 gate. Then the Americans captured 
 it, and next day the city of Mexico surrendered, and Grant was made a 
 captain. Bright boy, eh ? " 
 
 " I should .say so," said Bert. 
 
 " Well, that was Grant every time." Uncle Tom declared. " He had a 
 
 CAPiAiN I'- -s. c;kani. 
 
BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 185 
 
 -. I OSMli GAIE, MEXICO. 
 . the- Mexican war. 
 
 keenness for perceiving what is called the strategical importance of a point ; 
 he was prompt at deciding what to do, and quick to do it after deciding. 
 That is the secret of much of his success. That is how he forced the San 
 Cosme gate ; that is how he won when, in the Civil War, opportunity came 
 to him." 
 
 " But I thought you said he was successful just because he ' fought it out 
 on this line if it took all summer,' don't you know," said Bert. 
 
 "They call him ' Grant, the hammerer,' don't they?" Roger asked. 
 
 " They do," Uncle Tom replied. " But he was equally ' Grant, the strat- 
 egist' If you will read, some day, how he got in behind Vicksburg, and 
 how he fought at Chattanooga, you will see that he was something more 
 than a hammerer." 
 
 "But that 's the way he got Richmond, is n't it, Uncle Tom? Just by 
 keeping at it, and not knowing when he was whipped — if he ever was 
 whipped. I don't believe he was," Jack declared. 
 
 " Any other man would have called it being whipped in the Wilderness 
 campaign," replied Uncle Tom ; " but Grant would not. By energy and te- 
 nacity he won, and the nation was saved. For, you see, he could tell when 
 
1 86 
 
 THE CENTUUY BOOK OV FAMdCS AMERICANS 
 
 hammering was needed, and could keep ri«,ditin<4 it out along a certain line, 
 no matter how often he was apparendy baffled. Other leaders adapted 
 themselves to circumstances: Grant conquered circumstances. It required 
 somethini:,^ more than skill or strategy to defeat so great a general as Lee 
 and his splendid fighting array. It needed skill />/us tenacity; and that, as 
 I told you, won the day. He just stuck to it, and ended the rebellion." 
 
 "That makes me think of something by James Russell Lowell about 
 Grant that our history teacher had us learn for Grant's birthday," Christine 
 remarked. "Shall I say it. Uncle Tom?" 
 
 "Certainly, my dear," he replied. " I shall be as delighted to hear it as 
 I am to know that due honor is paid in our schools to the birthdays of the 
 heroes of the nation. What were Lowell's lines?" 
 
 " It was from one of his last, unfinished poems, our teacher said," Chris- 
 tine e.\plained, " and it went something like this : 
 
 ' He came, grim, silent, saw, and did the deed 
 That was to do ; in his master grip 
 Our sword flashed joy; no skill of words could breed 
 Such sure conviction as those close-clamped lips ; 
 He slew our dragon, nor, so seemed it, knew 
 
 He had done more than any simplest man might do.' " 
 
 " That was Grant," said Uncle Tom. " Modest and imassuming, simple 
 and silent, he recognized the duty that was laid upon him, and did it." 
 
 " I guess there were no fuss and 
 feathers about him," said Jack. 
 
 " Not a bit," returned his uncle. 
 
 " Sagacious, resolute, energetic, 
 
 aggressive, audacious,courageous, 
 
 indomitable, indifferent to danger 
 
 (ir fatigue, relentless in battle, 
 
 \ magnanimous in victory — these 
 
 ^ were the attributes that brought 
 
 ^ Grant to success and made his 
 
 ^ name famous." 
 
 "He ought tohaveabig statue," 
 said Roger, emphatically. 
 Whv, what 's the matter with the one 
 
 THE TEMPORARY TO.MB OF GENERAL GRANT 
 Riverside Park, New York. 
 
 " Ought to have ! " cried Jack 
 in Riverside Park ? " 
 
 "What! that litde round box-cover?" said Roger 
 statue."' 
 
 That 's not a 
 
BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 187 
 
 r* — :: 
 
 fim^ -.11=, 
 
 nf?"!^ t Kk^ Tit't~"'^ik 
 
 ' •■r->innin>'w_^ ttrm fUT 'tV'^ E.if 
 
 
 THE PERMANENT TOMB OF GENERAL GRANT. 
 Riverside Park, New York. 
 
 "Oh, no; the new one alongside of it, I mean," said Jack. "Just wait 
 till that is finished. That '11 be big enough. Why, you can see it from 
 everywhere.'' 
 
 "But that is his tomb, you know," said Bert. "That should be fine, of 
 course. What Roger meant is his statue. I don't think this one in St. 
 Louis is as fine as it should be." 
 
 " Wait until you see the one in Chicago," said Uncle Tom. " That, I think, 
 will satisfy even your over-enthusiastic demands. But, after all, boys and 
 
i8S 
 
 TIIK 1 ENTURV BtJOK <IF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 girls, the best moiuinient to Cieneral Grant will be in the hearts of the Amer- 
 ican people, for whom he fou<,rht and won. That will grow, as time goes on, 
 until it overtops even the tallest statue. Hut wl' should remember to-day 
 that right here in the Mississippi Valley is where the great general was 
 schooletl in the e.\periences that worked finally for success. Here, ntar 
 the city, you have seen the Jefferson Barracks, where he was first stationed; 
 not far from here is the Dent farm, at Whitehaven, where he won his wife ; 
 and, near it, the little farm where he built his log cabin, and tried farming 
 and real estate until forced to go at something else. Four hundred and fifty 
 miles up the river, at Galena, he was busy as a tanner's clerk when the 
 war broke out. In Springfield, where we go to-morrow, he reported for 
 service with a company of volunteers four days after the President's call for 
 troops ; and one hundred and twent)-five miles down the river, at Cairo, 
 he first assumed a separate command. From that as a starting-point, he 
 fought on until, as Lincoln said, he made the Father of Waters flow 'un- 
 vexed to the sea.' So, you .see, the name of Grant is associated with 
 many points in this region, and here, therefore, it has been highly proper 
 to study him." 
 
 " And yet you called him a New \'orkcr," persisted Jack. 
 
 " Simpl)- because there he \\\vx\ after fame and greatness had made him 
 
 PRESENT ASPECT OF PITTSBURG I AM 
 Here Grant first won fame. On the hill to the right i 
 
 ., (iK Sllll.oli. IN 1 1 N\l >.- 
 I the llag'StafTuI the National Ccmcter>-. 
 
(.I.NICKAI, GRAM WKl'lING HIS .\Ii:MolkS AT MOUNT McGREGOR. 
 
IQO 
 
 THE CENTLRV BOOK Ol- I"AMi)LS AMERICANS 
 
 America's fopemost living man," said Uncle Tom, "'and because, especially, 
 it was in New \'(>rk that he waged the longest, the fiercest, the most dra- 
 matic fight of his whole life." 
 
 " A battle in Xew York! W'h)-, where was that?" exclaimed Marian, 
 overhauling her historical knowledge to locate such a famous fight. 
 
 " In that plain vine-covered, brown-stone house which I showed you at 
 Xnnilxr .^ East .Sixty-sixth stret^t," her uncle returned. "There Ulysses S. 
 
 Grant fought the battle against dis- 
 aster, disgrace, and death — and won 
 it. In all history," added Uncle Tom, 
 gravely, "there has been no more 
 pathetic, no more dramatic, no more 
 heroic spectacle." 
 
 "Tell us about it. Uncle Tom," said 
 ' hristine. 
 
 "He had reached the pinnacle of 
 I. line in his native land," Uncle Tom 
 K-clared. " He had led its armies to 
 \ ictory; he had been hailed conqueror 
 and deliverer; he had stood at the 
 head of the republic as President ; he 
 had traveled in foreign lands and been 
 wilcomed by kings and princes and 
 I'lople as the greatest of American 
 soldiers. Honored by his country- 
 men, respected b)' the world, there 
 was but one other thing he desired — 
 to leave his children a heritage equal 
 to his fame. For their sake he went into business. The old story of his 
 \outh was repeated — failure. But it was failure through the rascality of a 
 man who traded upon the name, the honor, and the reputation of the great 
 general who trusted him ; and when the crash came, the name, the honor, 
 the reputation of the great general, were trailed in the dust. 
 
 " He was stripped of everything. He was almost penniless. Defeat 
 .seemed destruction. But even as in war, his darkest moment was but the 
 entrance to action. He set to work to retrieve himself, to save his credit 
 and his name. He became the annalist of the events that had made him 
 great. He determined to tell the story of his campaigns, and his success is 
 scarcely exceeded in the history of literature. 
 
 " But almost before pen touched paper a fell disease struck him down. He 
 
 GE.NERAL GRANTS NEW YORK HOMK. 
 No. 3 East Sixt>'-sixth street. 
 
BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI 
 
 191 
 
 was threatened with a speedy and painful death. Then his wonderful will 
 came into play: he would not surrender; he would fight disease and death 
 until he had finished the work he had set himself to do. Stubbornly, tena- 
 ciously, he clung to his purpose. At times he seemed close to defeat, but, 
 rallying, he fell to the work again. When we were in New York I showed 
 you the Sixty-sixth street house where that fearful fight was fought. The 
 battle shifted to a mountain-top near Saratoga. There, on Mount McGregor, 
 he rallied, there he sank, there again he held death at bay, until at last he 
 conquered. The memoirs were completed; the task he had set for himself 
 was done. Then he laid down his pen — the pen that, indeed, had been 
 mightier than the sword; he said, 'I am ready,' and died — a greater hero 
 than ever he had been in war, a nobler figure than when in the presence of 
 kings, or as the head of his own republic." 
 
 " ' Victor for us and spotless of all blame, 
 
 Doer of hopeless tasks which praters shirk — 
 
 One of those still, plain men that do the world's rough work,' " 
 
 said Christine, returning to Lowell's ode once more, while even the boys 
 were silent. The story of that victory of the vanquished stilled even their 
 exultant enthusiasm in the nation's peerless soldier — mighty even in death. 
 
 A JAPANESE PICTURE OF GENERAL GRANTS RECEPTION IN JAP.\N. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 AT LINCOLN'S HOME. 
 
 The Mississippi Valley — Pioneers of France — /;/ Lincoln s Land — The 
 Simplicity of it All — The American — A ''Rebel's" Tribute. 
 
 LL aboard ! " once again. Then, along the bluffs of the Mis- 
 sissippi, they rode five-and-twenty miles to terraced Alton 
 and its white-paved hill-slope, where, across the river, the 
 turbid Missouri, rolling down from its source in the Rockies, 
 nearly three thousand miles away, joins its flood to the 
 tideless Mississippi, bound for the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, twelve 
 hundred miles to the south. 
 
 That is what Uncle Tom told them as, at Edwardsville, five miles below 
 Alton, they first saw the Missouri. It seemed to link them more closely to 
 the great Northwest and the last of the borderers. The young travelers, in- 
 deed, were quite bewildered by the joint statistics of the Mississippi and 
 Missouri flung at them by Uncle Tom. 
 
 He told them that the Missouri was really the main stream ; that the 
 length of the great river from its source in the Rocky Mountains to its many- 
 mouthed delta was thirty-nine hundred miles ; that it represented, with its 
 tributary rivers, more than fifteen thousand miles of navigable water ; and 
 that it drained a territory larger than central Europe. He told them what 
 an important part the mighty river and its feeders had played in the early 
 history of the land, and how, for over a hundred and twenty years, France 
 had held the whole great basin in fee from that far-off day when, down the 
 very stretch of water on which they were now looking, the brave Chevalier 
 de la Salle, with his Indians and Frenchmen, came paddling into the 
 Mississippi from the tributary Illinois, and, first of white men, traced the 
 course of the mighty river from Alton to the gulf and gave to France, 
 as Parkman says, " a region watered by a thousand rivers and ranged 
 by a thousand warlike tribes." 
 
194 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OK FAMOIS AMERICANS 
 
 •• And we bought the whole outfit for fifteen miUions," said Jack. • Three 
 cheers for Thomas Jefterson ! What is it worth now. Uncle Tom?'" 
 
 " Give it uj), jack — billions." returned I'ncle Tom. falling l)ack upon the 
 
 LIKE-MASK Ol" AHRAllAM LINCOLN. 
 
 convenient basis of vague and glittering generalities. " But I can tell you, 
 young people, the story of this Mississippi watershed, from La Salle's day 
 to our own winning of the West, is mightily interesting. Missionaries, 
 voyageurs, courier du bois, pioneers, trappers, traders, Indian-fighters, 
 PVance's bluecoats, England's redcoats, the stars and stripes, the stars and 
 bars, liberty, union, progress — all these flash out on history's screen, an 
 American vitascope full of life and color and dramatic action. Oh, no ; we 
 don't monopolize all the romance of history in the valley of the Hudson, or 
 round about Plymouth Rock. Why, right here in this hilly town of Alton, 
 Lovejoy died for fighting slavery; and here, years after, Abraham Lincoln 
 gave it the first fall in its mighty wrestle for existence." 
 
AT LINCOLN S HOME 
 
 195 
 
 "And Lincoln was a champion wrestler, was n't he?" said Jack. 
 
 "Just as Washington was," said Roger. "But what was the 'first 
 fall • ? '• 
 
 •'Why, here in Alton, ' Uncle Tom explained, " Lincoln made one of his 
 great speeches in the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. Those speeches 
 made Lincoln famous ; they made him President ; they were the first steps 
 in his progress to martyrdom and imniortalit)." 
 
 " Are we coming into the Lincoln region now ? " queried Marian. 
 
 " Yes," Uncle Tom replied; "from here on stretches the country through 
 which he traveled again and again as country lawyer and growing states- 
 man ; here his tall form, his sinewy frame, his odd voice, his countless 
 stories, his stirring words, all became familiar, and from here sprang the 
 many true stories and the thousand legends which even now surround his 
 life and make one agree with Emerson's statement that if Lincoln had lived 
 at a time when printing was unknown he would in a few years, by his prov- 
 erbs and fables, have become mythological, like ^sop or Pilpay, or one of 
 the Seven Wise Masters, the story-tellers of antiquity." 
 
 LOVEJOYS PRINT|,\G OFFICE, ALTON, ILLINOIS. 
 Near which Lincoln made one of his great speeches. 
 
 "Then here is just the place to tell us his story. Uncle Tom," said 
 Christine. "What was it?" 
 
 " 'The short and simple annals of the poor,'" answered Uncle Tom. 
 
 "Why, that 's from Gray's 'Elegy,'" Christine said. 
 
 "Yes; that poem was one of Lincoln's favorites," Uncle Tom replied; 
 " and when asked for the story of his life he replied with that line from Gray. 
 
196 THE CENTL'RV BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 It fits, certainly. His was a story that for years was preparing to be told; 
 for the real story of Abraham Lincoln is crowded into less than seven brief 
 but busy years of effort, action, and achievement." 
 
 •• Is n't that so with the lives of most public men ? " inquired Bert. 
 
 •• \()ur own recent researches should be the best answer to that, Bert," 
 Uncle Tom replied. " Look at the famous men with whom you have be- 
 come acquainted. Nearly every one of them had a record of eminence be- 
 fore fame was reached — the two Adamses, Jefferson, Hamilton, Webster, 
 I'>anklin, Clay, Calhoun. But Lincoln, up to the time of his Presidency, 
 never held but one civil ofifice, unless we count his term as a representative 
 in Congress a civil ofifice. It scarcely seems that. The one distinctively 
 civil office he did hold was village postmaster, — a position so insignificant 
 that he was said actually to carry around his post-office in his hat. All his 
 life seemed a preparation by hard and bitter experiences for the hardest and 
 bitterest of all — the Presidency of the United States." 
 
 " But he did get ahead," persisted Bert. 
 
 "So modestly, or at least so silently," replied Uncle Tom, " that when 
 he was nominated for President men had to ask 'Who 's Lincoln?' Up to 
 that day he was practically ' unknown, unhonored, and unsung.' " 
 
 .\t this, three, at least, of I'ncle Tom's auditors sprang at him with a 
 shout, and Bert cried gleefully : 
 
 "Aha, Uncle Tom! Ciot you there, have n't we? 'Unwept,' not 
 'unknown.' Is n't that so, boys and girls? We did n't study our Walter 
 Scott for nothing. See canto six, ' Lay of the Last Minstrel,' don't you 
 know? Give it to him. Jack." 
 
 Whereupon Jack, nothing loath, gave voice to the whole quotation: 
 
 '• Breathes there a man with soul so dead. 
 Who never to himself has said. 
 
 This is my own, my native land ! 
 Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
 As home his footsteps he hath turned. 
 
 From wandering on a foreign strand ! 
 If such there breathe, go, mark him well; 
 For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 
 High though his titles, proud his name, 
 Boundless his wealth as wish could claim ; 
 Despite those titles, power, and pelf. 
 The wretch, concentred all in self. 
 Living, shall forfeit fair renown. 
 And, doubly dying, shall go down 
 To the vile dust from whence he sprung, 
 Unwept, unhonored, and unsung." 
 
Lincoln said of this pictu 
 
 LINCOLN AND HIS SON ■TAD." 
 ' Please explain to folks that Tad and I are looking at a photograph album. They might think 
 
 ; reading a book. We 
 
 ; and I don't like giving out false impressions." 
 
198 
 
 \HV. CENTURY HOOK OF KAMOl'S AMERICANS 
 
 "There, sir; 'unwept,' not 'unknown,' you see," said Marian. 
 
 • Rigiit you are!" cried Uncle Tom, in laughing acknowledgment. 
 •• I '11 have to be careful when 1 droj) into quotation before the school-boy 
 or girl of this 'advanced age; and 1 ni glad to acknowledge it, too, and 
 cry for quarter." 
 
 And quarter at once was granted witii lh(,- hug and caress that sweeten 
 criticism. 
 
 "Hut, somehow," said Christine, musingly, "that extract from Scott 
 does n't seem to fit Lincoln's case — does it, now? He did n't go away and 
 come home and make fun of his native land; and he certainly did n't go 
 down ' unwept, unhonored, and unsung.' Seems to me that one verse from 
 his favorite Gray's ' Elegy ' fits him better : 
 
 ' Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 
 
 The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear; 
 Full many a flower is bom to blush unseen. 
 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'" 
 
 " Well, that certainly does seem more ap- 
 plicable to his case during nearly fifty years of 
 c, ' I ncle Tom replied. 
 
 •■ iiiit that does n't fit, either." declared Bt-rt. 
 
 Txltcr give up poetical parallels. Lincoln did n't 
 
 jlush unseen' or 'waste his sweetness,' did he?" 
 
 " Not much," said Jack. " He was very much 
 
 in evidence at just the right time." 
 
 "And yet," said Uncle Tom, "we can even 
 
 connect that fervid extract from Scott with the 
 
 reat President. For that 'Breathes there 
 
 a man ' was the text for Edward Everett 
 
 1^|^|p<^ __^ 
 
 
 THK INAUr.UR.VnON OF LINCOLN. 
 From .1 sketch by Theodore R. Davis, made al the lime. 
 
AT LINCOLN S HOME 
 
 199 
 
 ■•HE WAS AS ILLVSANT AND P\IIL\1 Willi L \s V^ Willi sLNMOkS 
 AND bECRElAklbb 
 
 Hale's matchless story of ' The Man Without a Country,' which you all know 
 and love ; and that story was written to stimulate patriotism at the time 
 when Abraham Lincoln was calling for volunteers to defend and preserve 
 the Union in the dark days of the war." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; don't you remember how splendidly Dr. Hale worked that 
 'Breathes there a man' into the story?" said Marian. "I declare, I 
 
THE CENTURY BOOK OK KAMoL'S AMERICANS 
 
 cry every time I come to that i)art where poor Nolan tried to read the 
 poem." 
 
 " And so you can connect that poem with Lincoln after all, I'nclc Tom," 
 said Roy^er. " I never saw such a man. We can't down you, can we ? ' 
 
 " I 'm in Lincoln's country, you see, Roger," said Uncle Tom. with a 
 laugh, "and nothing could ever down him. So it must be in the air, eh?" 
 
 " Go on with the 'short and simple annals of the poor,' L ncle Tom, " said 
 Ikrt, reverting, as usual, to the main topic. 
 
 "Well," began his uncle, "you saw, back in Kentucky, tlic little stream 
 on the banks of which Abraham Lincoln was born on the i 2th of February, 
 1809. It is near to what is now the village of Hodgensville ; but there was 
 no village thereabouts when Lincoln was a boy. Indeed, I doubt if we have 
 seen, in all our travels, 
 ranch, hut, or cabin hum- 
 bler or meaner than the 
 miserable little hovel in 
 which was born the great- 
 est President of these 
 United States. It would 
 be hard for me to tell you 
 the real facts. You would 
 think 1 was overstraining 
 the case just for effect. 
 
 '.■>r-''':'' ■■ 
 
 ..^ *i^i'^gi,^^m^^i^- 
 
 #^* 
 
 ■-;-vi^l^~'i 
 
 ^^X^'i^ii^^-^ 
 
 \IEW 01 IJlO.MAi LI.NCUL.N 6 1 .'^K.M, WHERE 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN WAS BORN. 
 
 F.irm now occupied by Mrs. Rich.ird Creal. The house stood b.ick of 
 
 the gmup of trees ne-ir the right center of picture ; a rock spring is 
 
 at the end of the path under the group of trees in left center. 
 
 Hut this you can believe — .Abraham Lincoln's 
 stor\- was poor enough at the start ; but, for 
 
AT LINCOLN S HOME 
 
 that reason, his rise was all the more wonderful. For, as in fairy-tale or 
 wonder-story, the prince or hero was all the more notable because of the 
 difficulties he overcame or the tasks he accomplished, so with our great 
 American. The fact that 
 he faced and conquered 
 obstacles that have dis- 
 couraged millions of less 
 determined men, — ob- 
 stacles of birth, upbring- 
 ing, surroundings, educa- 
 tion, and circumstance, — 
 makes him all the more 
 our hero, all the more a 
 character to be admired, 
 honored, wondered at, re- 
 vered. Boys and girls," 
 continued Uncle Tom, 
 solemnly, " I stand be- 
 fore his story in simple 
 amazement, marveling at 
 the ways of Providence, 
 that, in his case, so set at naught man's most mathematical statement that 
 'out of nothing, nothing can come.'" 
 
 " "Ex nihilo nihil Jit' " murmured classical Bert. 
 
 " Is n't this one of the cases in which you can say that the exception 
 proves the rule ? " inquired Roger. 
 
 " Perhaps so," Uncle Tom replied, "and yet it is even more one of the 
 cases that show how wonderfully and how 
 wisely is plotted out the making of a mighty 
 man. See how carefully Lincoln was whittled 
 out to fit the place he was sent to fill. He 
 began life away down — a 'poor white' on a 
 scrubby hillside farm. His father was shift- 
 less ; his mother was overworked ; he him- 
 self was a forlorn and ragged little son of the 
 soil. He had uphill work to learn his letters 
 and get an education; but he got one. He 
 never went to school more than a year in all 
 the days of his life put together ; but he never stopped studying. Strong, 
 sinewy, good-natured, obliging; with a will of his own, but alwavs con- 
 
 GLOBE TAVERN. SPRINGFIELD. 
 Where Lincoln lived after his marriage. 
 
 HOUSE WHERE PRESIDENT 
 
 LINCOLN WAS BORN. 
 
 From a sketch from memory, in possession of 
 
 R. T. Dunett, Esq. 
 
TIIK CENTIRV BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 SENATOR STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 
 Lincoln's chief political rival before ihc war, and :ilanch supporter afterward. 
 
 sidcrate of others ; a peacemaker, althoui^di, as you know, a champion 
 wrestler ; a favorite throiij^h all this backwoods region, and as honest as 
 the tlay is lon-.^-, Ahraham iJncoln scrxcd his hard apprenticeship to experi- 
 ence, and came out trietl and true, lie was chore-boy, hired man, fiat- 
 boatman, rail-s|)Iitler, clerk, storekeeper, soldier, inventor, surveyor, post- 
 master, representative in Congress, lawyer, politician. President — going on 
 two steps and slipping back one, until well up the slope where Fame stood 
 waiting at the top." 
 
 "A politician, Uncle Tom? Why not a statesman?" queried Bert. 
 
 "Why not, Dert?" was Uncle Tom's reply. "Now, what is a states- 
 man ? " 
 
 "Oh," saitl the bo)-, "a 'way-up |)(>lilician, 1 guess." 
 
 "That 's about it," laughed Uncle Tom. "A man must be a politician 
 in llu- best sense of that much-abused word before he can become a states- 
 maiL And Lincoln was the true politician. Established as a practising 
 lawyer in Springfirld, whither we are now bound, he found appreciation, 
 succes.s, popularity. Traveling all over this part of Illinois, 'riding the cir- 
 cuit,' as it was called, h^om court-house to court-house, he became known in 
 
AT LINCOLN S HOME 
 
 twenty counties, and gradually made for himself a reputation as a trustworthy 
 counselor, an honest adviser, and a capable lawyer. Law is the stepping- 
 stone to politics, and an honest lawyer will be an honest politician. Lincoln 
 began to speak in public, and to interest himself in local, State, and national 
 questions. He had served a silent term in Congress in Daniel Webster's 
 day ; he had heard John Ouincy Adams's earnest appeals ; he had imbibed 
 Henry Clay's principles ; and he had developed a hatred for slavery which, 
 while not that of the fanatic, the one-idea man, or even of the advanced 
 reformer, was that of the conservative and the patriot." 
 
 " And yet he was the man who put an end to slavery," said Roger. 
 
 " Because, after all, it is the conservative and the patriot who act," Uncle 
 Tom replied. "There is need for the reformer, need even for the fanatic. 
 Before Abraham Lincoln came John Brown, you know. But the man of 
 balance, of moderation, of caution, is the man who finally brings about the 
 needed result. And, even here, I am scarcely able properly to place Abra- 
 ham Lincoln for you, even as his story seems "^li-j^ht, wlvn w look at the hero 
 himself. In his case the subject dwarfs ipj ^' 
 
 the narrative, and greatness like his is f 
 far beyond qualifications." 
 
 The visit to Springfield was thor- 
 oughly enjoyable. From the moment 
 that they drew near to the city out ol 
 its adjoining farms arnd prairies, and saw 
 above the trees the great dome of thr 
 new Capitol, the ardor of inxcstigation 
 seized them. Had 
 not Uncle Tom 
 curbed their energ\ 
 and held their ardor 
 in check, they would 
 have sallied out to 
 "do the town" at 
 once. 
 
 But Uncle Tom 
 was a careful guar- 
 dian. He insisted 
 on the girls remain- 
 ing quietly at the 
 hotel, although he 
 allowed them a walk 
 
 iHi', 1'Ki:sii)i;n I a i iiii ikuni ihkinc; wak-uavs— 
 
 RECONNOITERLNG THE ENEMY. 
 
204 
 
 THE CENTLRV HOOK oK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 into the Capitol ((rounds and throuLjh the corridors of the great cross-shaped 
 buikling. where tlicy freely criticized the poorly-executed historical paintings, 
 and lialletl with inquiry before the fine statue in the grounds. 
 •• Menard, " they read. "Who was Menard, Uncle Tom?" 
 "Oh, one of the old e.xplorers," Uncle Tom replied, off-hand, but in so 
 " unexplanatorv " a tone, as Marian expressed it, that she charged him with 
 not really knowing himself and he confessed he was a bit misty, but prom- 
 ised to look it up for her. 
 
 The boys", meantime, had procured bicycles and whirled away on a tour 
 of investigation up and down the broad and shaded streets of what is es- 
 teemed "the best paved city in the State of Illinois." It is proof of their 
 
 --S'^-''^:-^i»'.'C 
 
 
 THE HOUSE IN SPRINGFIELD IN WHICH LINCOLN LIVED WHEN HE W.\S 
 ELECTED PRESIDENT. 
 
 loyalty to Uncle Tom and the girls, however, that they confined themselves 
 to streets and parks, and refrained from any " Lincoln hunt," as Jack said. 
 Next morning, however, they began in earnest and saw all there was to 
 see in Lincoln's pleasant home-town. Here was the site of the old Globe 
 Tavern, where the young lawyer took his bride and began his married life 
 
AT LIN'COLN S HOME 205 
 
 at the extravagant price of " four dollars a week for board and lodging." 
 Here, the site of the law offices where he first " hung out his shingle," and 
 especially the very building in which were passed his most successful days 
 as a lawyer — the old office of " Herndon and Lincoln." The Lincoln office 
 they found to be a dentist's " studio," and Jack declared it was like pulling 
 teeth to get any trustworthy information about Lincoln thereabouts, al- 
 though he was partly compensated by an introduction to a man who used to 
 play " hand-ball " with Lincoln in front of that identical office. 
 
 They visited the old State- House, now the County Court- House, set in 
 the center of a public square. It was built the very year that Lincoln moved 
 to Springfield, and in it he served as a legislator, and made his mark in the 
 world as a public character and a leader of men. 
 
 At last they stood before the home of Lincoln. 
 
 Jack was inclined to resent its simplicity, and Roger declared that he 
 knew " lots of folks " in the villages about Boston who had better and bigger 
 houses than this. 
 
 " Of course you do," said Uncle Tom. "There are plenty of people in 
 the villages about Boston who are better off than Lincoln ever thought of 
 being. This simple two-story frame house is typical of the man. There is 
 nothing about it uncommon, pretentious, or imposing. It is just a plain 
 house of one of the people. But it was Lincoln's home. That is sufficient. 
 Not Nero's golden house or any home of royalty in old or later days stands 
 higher in the world's esteem. And yet, plain though this house is, it is, as 
 you know, a vast step beyond the great President's early home." 
 
 A small girl, not over well informed concerning Lincoln matters, showed 
 them through the house, which is now the property of the State of Illinois. 
 The collection of Lincoln relics was neither extensive nor important, and Uncle 
 Tom informed them that the few belongings of the house and other relics 
 of the great man were now widely scattered. There had been a struggle 
 for possession, he said, and, as a result, some were in this Lincoln home- 
 stead, some in the memorial chamber in the Lincoln tomb, some in Chicago, 
 and some in Washington. " One would imagine," said Uncle Tom, " that so 
 modest a collection of relics could all be housed together, but in the strife 
 for ownership they have gone to half a dozen custodians." 
 
 "Somehow," said Christine, "it makes me think of that in the Bible — 
 it is n't wrong that it should, is it. Uncle Tom? — 'They parted my raiment 
 among them, and for my vesture, they did cast lots ! ' " 
 
 And Uncle Tom said, quietly, "That is not the only instance, my dear, 
 in which we may find a parallel between the Bible story and that of Lincoln." 
 
 They rode a mile or so beyond the city to beautiful Oak Ridge Ceme- 
 
206 
 
 THE CF.NTLKY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMKRICANS 
 
 tcry. where, just within the entrance, rises 
 the monument to Lincoln above the ped- 
 estal which is his tomb. 
 
 " Ouincy granite!" said Uncle loni, as 
 tii( y approached the pile of gray and bronze. 
 • It takes us back to that plain little farm- 
 house, at the foot of Penn's Hill, does n't 
 it — the home of the "old man eloquent' of 
 Lincoln's congressional days — the man who 
 gave Abraham Lincoln his clear course 
 concerning emancipation — John Ouincy 
 .Adams. " 
 
 I'Vonting them was the open doorway to 
 tlie memorial chamber, full of Lincoln relics. 
 l)Ut Uncle Tom passed this by and led the 
 \\a)- to the rear, where, through a grated 
 iron door, they saw before them the tomb ol 
 Lincoln. 
 
 The marble sarcophagus that stood over 
 the grave bore within the circle of a carven 
 
 wreath the single word, " Lincoln " ; above the wreath was the sentence so 
 
 characteristic of the man : " With malice toward none, with charity for 
 
 all " : across the top of the sarcophagus was laid the stars and stripes. 
 The children were silent a moment. 
 
 The place, the associations, the man, alike 
 
 held them speechless. Then Jack said: 
 
 •• • Xow he belongs to the ages ! ' Was 
 
 n't that what Stanton said as Lincoln 
 
 died, Icicle Tom? Vou told me once." 
 • Yes, that was it, Jack, and the great 
 
 war secretary spoke truly, " I'ncle Tom 
 
 replied. " I think of that as I stand here ; 
 
 and I think, too, of a noble poem by a 
 
 Southerner and an e.\-rebel soldier, 
 
 Maurice Thompson: 
 
 THE PROSCENIUM BOX 
 
 At Ford's Theater, where Lincoln was 
 April 14, 1865. 
 
 ' Years pass away, but freedom does not pass ; 
 Thrones crumble, but man's birthright crum- 
 bles not ; 
 And, like the wind across the prairie grass 
 .\ whole world's aspirations fan this spot 
 
 ■^•'^•'^^SgieS*^*' 
 
 THE MONUMENT AT SPRINGFIELD. 
 After a photograph taken by J. A. W. Piltman for J. C. Po» 
 
AT LINCOLN S HOME 
 
 207 
 
 With ceaseless pantings after liberty, 
 
 One breath of which would make even Russia 
 fair 
 And blow sweet summer through the exile's cave, 
 And set the exile free ; 
 For which I pray, here, in the open air 
 Of Freedom's morningtide, by Lincoln's grave.' " 
 
 "And he was a rebel soldier !", ex- 
 claimed Roger. "You would n't think 
 so from that, would you ?" 
 
 " Many things happen differently 
 from what one would think, Roger," 
 Uncle Tom replied. "The man who 
 lies within this crypt was the best 
 friend the South ever had, and the 
 time will surely come when her people 
 will build statues to honor him with an 
 even deeper reverence than they give 
 to the heroes and leaders of that ' Lost 
 Cause ' which they can never forget, 
 but for which now^ they would not wish 
 success. No man loved the Southern 
 people more than Abraham Lincoln. He loved all alike, because they were 
 Americans. As Mr. Thompson, from whose poem I just quoted, says : 
 
 LINCOLN'S BOOKCASE. 
 From the Keyes Lincoln Memorial Collection, Chicago. 
 
 ' He was the North, the South, the East, the West, 
 
 The thrall, the master, all of us in one. 
 
 There was no section that he held the best; 
 
 His love shone on impartial as the sun.' 
 
 No nobler American, no nobler man ever lived, boys and girls, than he be- 
 fore whose honored grave we stand — Abraham Lincoln, the American." 
 
 Still sobered, and silent, they turned at last from the crypt and spent a 
 brief season in the memorial chainber, where they seemed especially impressed 
 by the fitting arrangement of three commemorative busts — Lincoln be- 
 tween two other great and historic martyrs, Coligny and William the Silent. 
 
 Then they rode back to town ; they visited once more the plain, homely 
 brown house that had been the home of Lincoln, and, soon after, left for 
 Chicago deeply impressed by all that they had seen, but especially wath the 
 simplicity of everything, so in accordance with all they knew or had heard 
 of the great emancipator. 
 
 On the journey to Chicago Uncle Tom gave them just a little talk on 
 
2oS THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 the famous man now in their thoughts, and sought properly to point out to 
 them his place in history. 
 
 " Before all else," he said, "Abraham Lincoln was a man of the people. 
 By that I don't mean that he was uncultured or uncouth. Lincoln was 
 always a gentleman in the best sense of the word, and no man had a finer 
 native dignity. He never lowered himself He was at once the peer of the 
 greatest, the equal of the poorest. He understood the people better than 
 any other man that was ever sent to lead them. Let me give you a bit from 
 Maurice Tliompson once more. I consider his poem a remarkable one, 
 and true, to the heart of it : 
 
 ' .Annealed in white-hot fire he bore the test 
 
 Of every strain temptation could invent ; 
 Hard ])oints of slander shivered on his breast, 
 
 Fell at his feet, and envy's blades were bent 
 In his bare hand and lightly cast aside; 
 
 He would not wear a shield ; no selfish ainn 
 Ciuitled one thought of all those trying hours, 
 
 No breath of pride. 
 No pompous striving for the pose of fame 
 
 Weakened one stroke of all his nobler powers.' " 
 
 "Why, it 's like a photograph," said Christine. "Thank you so much 
 for telling us of that poem, Uncle Tom. 1 mean to read it all when I get 
 home." 
 
 " Do so, all of you ; it will surprise and inspire you," said Uncle Tom. 
 " Lincoln had a remarkable face," he continued. " How many of you can 
 recall it now as you remember the picture ? " 
 
 '• I can see just how it looks," Marian declared, shutting her eyes to 
 help her memory. 
 
 " I think you can," said Uncle Tom. " Lincoln, it is asserted, is the only 
 President with an absolutely impressive likeness." 
 
 " What 's the matter with Washington, Uncle Tom ? " asked Jack, still 
 with closed eyes. " I can see his face too." 
 
 " I don't vouch for that statement ; I only repeat it," said Uncle Tom. 
 " But Washington's portraits are as varied in looks as in quantity. Lincoln 
 never varies. When once his picture has been studied the general expression 
 is never forgotten. Just as marked in mind as in feature was this won- 
 derful man. Absolutely without vices or eccentricities, he had strongly- 
 marked characteristics. Tender-hearted but inflexible when occasion re- 
 quired ; sunny-tempered, but tinged with melancholy ; simple in speech and 
 life, but capable of eloquence and of stirring words that will live forever; 
 
AT LINCOLN S- HOME 
 
 209 
 
 A COUXCIL OF WAR IN THE CABIN OF LINCOLN'S SPECIAL STEAMBOAT. 
 
 and above all else logical, which all orators are not, you know : brave, 
 broad-minded, just and true, his humanity embraced all men, his faith in 
 the people he knew so well never faltered; his homely phrases have grown 
 into maxims, his loving words into a benediction. There never was, in any 
 age of the world, a leader more directly selected by Providence to guide 
 the destinies of his people and be the savior of the republic. Born in the 
 lowest ranks of life, he rose to the highest leadership. Upon his life, 
 through four years of terrible war, hung the destinies of a nation and the 
 redemption of a race. Study his story closely, boys and girls. It grows 
 greater with each re-telling ; for, as time goes on, Abraham Lincoln will rise 
 above his fellows as unquestionably the greatest, noblest man of this won- 
 derful nineteenth century, now almost ended." 
 
 " Why not the greatest of any century, Uncle Tom ? " said Bert. " Can 
 you match him in any ? " 
 
Till-; CKNTfKV HOOK OK lAMOLS AMERICANS 
 
 • I told you once before, Bert," I'ncle Tom replied, "that greatness like 
 Lincoln's is beyond comparison or qualification. I make no comparisons 
 now. 1 _i:,Mve you instead, as the end of my little talk, Lowell's splendid 
 tribute to the tjreat President. You see, when I get to talking of Abraham 
 Lincoln I distrust myself; for words are weak and he alone is strong." 
 
 .\nd, with a final bit of quotation 
 from the " Commemoration Ode, " 
 Uncle Tom brought his remarks to 
 a close : 
 
 " I praise him not ; it were too late ; 
 .•\nd some innative weakness there must be 
 In him who condescends to victory 
 Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait. 
 Safe in himself as in a fate. 
 
 ".So, always firmly, he; 
 He knew to bide his time, 
 .\nd can his fame abide. 
 Still patient in his simple faith sublime. 
 
 Till the wise years decide, 
 tireat captains with their drums and guns 
 Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
 But at last silence comes ; 
 These all are gone, and. standing like a tower. 
 Our children shall behold his fame. 
 
 The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
 Sagacious, patient, drieding praise, not blame. 
 New birth of our new soil, the first American." 
 
 ONE OF THE LAST LINCOLN PORTRAITS. 
 From a photograph taken Match 6, 1865. 
 
 
 ^-/iAi-*^ . 
 
 'l^€/l^___ 
 
 I ACSIMILE OK LOWELLS LINES. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 BY THE POTOMAC 
 
 In tJic Big Citv of the West — Across Ohio — In- tJie Land of Rotuaticc — TIic 
 Great White Dome — At Mount Vernon — The Greatest of JMen. 
 
 HEY had a fine time in Chicago. Every one does when one 
 has friends there ; and every one of course has friends in the 
 big, open-handed, open-hearted city. 
 
 They walked and rode and " hiked " over a sufficient por- 
 tion of its one hundred and eighty square miles of area ; they 
 shot up to the roofs of its " sky-scrapers " ; they tunneled far beneath its 
 dividing river ; they strolled along its lake front ; they shopped in its great 
 stores; they spent many pleasant hours " a-wheel," and decided that, with 
 its four thousand acres of park land and its hundred miles of boulevard, 
 Chicago was indeed a paradise for cyclers ; they marveled at its breadth, 
 its bignes.s, and its prosperity — in fact, the only thing they did not wonder at 
 was the resident Cticagocins' "civic pride," which, Roger declared, was as big 
 as its boundaries, and he did n't know that he blamed them for their enthusiasm. 
 They visited its few historic points, noted its memorial buildings, monu- 
 ments, and tablets. Christine, standing before the building that marks the 
 spot on DeKoven street where, so Jack told her, Mrs. O'Leary's historic 
 cow kicked over the equally historic lamp, and laid a city in ashes, dropped, 
 as was her wont, into an appropriate poem, and gave them portions of Whit- 
 tier's beautiful "Chicago." You know that poem, of course. It begins: 
 
 " Men said at vespers, ' All is well ! ' 
 In one wild night the city fell." 
 
 If you do not recall it, look it up at once, for it fitly marks the underlying 
 sympathy which, in times of disaster or of stress, makes all the world akin : 
 
 " A sudden impulse thrilled each wire 
 That signaled round that sea of fire ; 
 Swift words of cheer, warm heart-throbs came ; 
 In tears of pity died the flame ! 
 
TIIK CENTURY BOOK OK KAMOIS AMKRICANS 
 
 THIC GREAT KIRE AT CHICAGO, OCTOBER, 1871. 
 
 " From East, from West, from South, from North, 
 The messages of hope shot forth, 
 And, underneath the severing wave, 
 Tlie world, full-handed, reached to save." 
 
 Christine'.s sympathetic voice gave especial beauty to the final verses, re- 
 cited upon the very spot where started the flame that unloosed the heart- 
 strings of lialt tile world : 
 
 " Ah ! not in vain the flames that tossed 
 Above thy dreadful holocaust ; 
 The Christ again has preached through thee 
 The Gosi)c'l of humanity! 
 
 " Then lift once more thy towers on high, 
 And fret with spires the western sk\-, 
 To tell that God is yet with us. 
 And love is still miraculous ! " 
 
 "Well, she 's lifted 'em, has n't she?" said Jack — "towers and spires 
 and all, 1 truess it 's a sjood thing to have a fire once in a while, wht'n 
 
BY THE POTOMAC 
 
 213 
 
 there 's pluck and sand behind it, as there was here. I don't beHeve the 
 old Chicago would know the new Chicago ; do you, Uncle Tom ? " 
 
 " I imagine they would need to be presented to each other, just as much 
 as old Fort Dearborn and John Kinzie's log-house would need an introduc- 
 tion to Lincoln Park and the Auditorium." 
 
 At last the too brief visit was over ; grips and dressing-cases once more 
 were locked and strapped ; the good-bys were said, and, all aboard once 
 again, the tourists were speeding southeasterly across five States, en route 
 to Washington, the national capital. 
 
 All day the train rolled on across the wide-spreading fields of Indiana and 
 Ohio, while Uncle Tom, in the intervals of fun, chatter, and quiet, told them 
 the story of George Rogers Clark, the brave borderer, who had won Indiana 
 for the republic, and of the second Mayflower in which New England " pil- 
 grims " had sailed to the colonization of the Ohio wilderness. 
 
 That same Ohio country, he told them, was in Washington's mind when, 
 in the dark hours of the Revolution, in the shadow of possible defeat, he 
 
 VIEW ON ST.-VTE STREET, CHICAGO, LOOKING NORTHWARD, FROM MADISON STREET. 
 14* 
 
214 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 ->«,, 
 
 ,--*tfei?^' 
 
 THE LAKE SHORE DRIVK. CHICAGO. 
 
 declared that the colonists would never give up, Init if driven from the At- 
 lantic seaboard, "then," asserted the great commander, "we will retire to 
 the valley of the Ohio, and there we will be free." 
 
 Next morning they awoke in Maryland and the romance of history. 
 For miles the railroad cleft the lofty ridges, and, following the course of the 
 twisting Potomac, now beneath rocky heights, now along wooded slopes, and 
 always in sight of the flashing river, it bore them through a land as rich in 
 studies for stories as were ever the Scottish Highlands, only awaiting the 
 Walter Scott who will some day give its stirring romance to the world. 
 
 Across the rushing river and through these broken hill-gaps, so Uncle 
 Tom told his young people, twice did the South invade the North ; here, 
 beside the Potomac, had young George Washington, as bo\- and man, passed 
 and repassed as surveyor, as explorer, as envoy, as colonial major and 
 colonel, the chief instrument of Dinwiddle in his strife with the French 
 along the Ohio, the only stay and safety of England in the tragedy forever 
 famous as Braddock's defeat. l"or. here at Cumberland, where they break- 
 fiisted, Uncle Tom explained, were the headquarters of the invaders of the 
 
BY THE POTOMAC 
 
 215 
 
 ^4^^ 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF BRADDOCKS DEFEAT. 
 
 French possessions ; it was Washington's point of departure upon the peril- 
 ous trips in which he won ahke confidence, experience, and fame. 
 
 Here, too, in this hill-country, just the place for foray, feud, or siege, 
 amid the straggling stone houses upon the heights and along the river-bank, 
 was played, in later years, said Uncle Tom, " the curtain-raiser that prefaced 
 the mighty strife of brother against brother, when John Brown and his men 
 
i6 
 
 THK CKNTl KV 1K)')K OK KAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 Stood at bay in tlic old engine-house here at Harper's I'erry — as dramatic 
 a situation as one of Stevenson's hand-to-hand conflicts, in a country as 
 rugged as that stern old borderers' sense of dut\." 
 
 It was all mightily interesting. As Uncle Tom told them the story of 
 Harper's I'crrx, the young people looked with eager eyes upon the steep 
 and rocky heights, the winding, rushing river, the old houses on each bank, 
 and the monument that marks the spot where Brown of Ossawatomie and 
 his handful of followers faced death unflinchingly for principle — a fool- 
 ish and harebrained band of fanatics, no doubt, but, as Bert assured them, 
 "his soul is marching on"; and Uncle Tom declared that "yonder gray- 
 stone monument beside the Totomac and the canopy-covered rock on the 
 
 beach at Plymouth are foster-broth- 
 ers — each the beginning of a new 
 era in the history of America and 
 the world." 
 
 " And we 've seen 'em both," ^aid 
 Jack. 
 
 "Perish with him the folly that seeks through 
 evil good," 
 
 said Christine, drawing upon her 
 favorite \\ liitlier, 
 
 '• Long live the generou.s purpose unstained 
 with human blood ; 
 
 Not the raid of midnight-terror, but the 
 thought which underlies ; 
 
 Not the borderer's pride of daring, but the 
 Christian's sacrifice." 
 
 Liiristine was always, so Jack de- 
 clared, "rounding up with Whit- 
 tier," and Uncle Tom had to admit that Whittier was really the only poet 
 who had given immortality to this romantic region. So, when in the region 
 about Sharpsburg, he recalled the struggle at Antietam near by, and the 
 later turning-point of the Civil War at Gettysburg, Christine thought rather 
 of Barbara I-Vietchie and Stonewall Jackson, and knew that it was these 
 very hill-gaps that had made history and a noble poem as w^ell, 
 
 '• On that ])leasant morn of the early fall, 
 When Lee marched over the mountain-wall — 
 Over the mountains, winding down, 
 Horse and foot, info I-Vederick town."' 
 
 JOHN HKOWN. 
 
BY THE POTOMAC 
 
 217 
 
 South of Washington Junc- 
 tion, where the railroad 
 branches off to Frederick, Un- 
 cle Tom pointed out to them, 
 across the Virginia border, the 
 direction in which, so he said, 
 lay Leesburg, the nearest pomt 
 of departure for the home ot a 
 famous American — a states 
 man and a President, a man 
 whose name is now al- 
 most a household word '^' 
 — James Monroe of ^ 
 Virg-inia. '"r^" 
 
 •^3®S 
 
 taW .' 
 
 JOHN BROWN'S FORT, HARPER'S FERRY. 
 This building is now in Chicago. A granite monument marks its site at Harper's Ferry. 
 
 " What, the Monroe Doctrine man ? " said Roger. 
 
 " Only' Jefferson was the real Monroe Doctrine man, was n't he?" said 
 Jack. 
 
 " No ! is that so. Uncle Tom ? " was Bert's query. 
 
 " So recent students of American politics tell us," Uncle Tom replied. 
 "They assert that Jefferson undoubtedly inspired it, for Monroe was his 
 friend and follower. Indeed, Jefferson regarded Monroe so highly that he 
 said of him, ' his soul might be turned inside out without discovering a 
 blemish to the world.'" 
 
 " Pretty good send-off for James, that, was n't it now ? " Jack observed. 
 
 " Monroe seems to have deserved it," said Uncle Tom. " He was 
 as brave as he was good. He fought under Washington at the battle of 
 Trenton, and was the last of the five ' Revolutionary ' Presidents. As to the 
 ' Monroe Doctrine,' however, we must give a certain amount of credit to our 
 old friend John Ouincy Adams. He had a liberal hand in suggesting, out- 
 lining, and preparing it. James Monroe lived off here a little ways, on his 
 fine old estate of Oak Hill, near Leesburg, and thirty-three miles from Wash- 
 
2lS Tin; ( ENTLKY HOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 ington city. Oak Hill is a great stock-farm and creamery now, and in good 
 condition, though out of the possession of the Monroe family. Vou remem- 
 ber we saw Monroe's tomb in Hollywood Cemetery, at Richmond." 
 
 "Oh, yes; that queer iron summer-house sort of affair," said Bert. 
 
 "Monroe died, however, in New York, in 1S31," said Uncle Tom, "at 
 the house of his daughter, Mrs. Gouvcrneur. Her husband, by the way, 
 was a descendant of my old colonial hero Jacob Leisler, the people's gov- 
 ernor, who was martyred for independence in New York in the days of 
 William and Mary, — a forerunner both of the American Revolution and the 
 Monroe Doctrine, too." 
 
 " Uncle Tom," laughed Jack, "you are — a corker! " Jack really could 
 n't find anything but his e.xpressive slang to meet the case. " You just 
 make everything come your way." 
 
 " I don't. Jack. History does. Facts do," declared Uncle Tom. "Blooil 
 does intermingle, you see, and the world is not so wide or so big after all." 
 
 So. with talk and with story, the morning wore awa)-, and they drew 
 near to Washington. .And when, at last, the great white dome and the 
 tapering shaft of the mighty monument burst upon their view, they felt at 
 home again. For here they were once more on familiar ground ; salt water, 
 they knew, was now not so far away, and their journe)- of exploration to the 
 South and West was over. 
 
 They renewed the old associations ; revisited the places that had the 
 strongest hold on their memory ; honored Congress with a brief attendance 
 and a divided attention, and found a new interest in the capital and its 
 notable spots by connecting sites, houses, or places, statues or scenes, with 
 the famous Americans whose lives and homes had been their study as they 
 had wandered aljout the lantl. 
 
 They visited the Petersen house on Tenth street, in which Lincoln died 
 — now a veritable museum of Lincoln relics and 
 reminders, and the property, as it should be, of the 
 government. They hunted up the spot in Statu- 
 ary Hall in the Capitol where John Ouincy Adams 
 fell stricken with death — oddly marked with con- 
 centric circles, as shown in the diagram on this page. 
 
 They tried to imagine his mother, Mrs. John 
 Adams, hanging out her " Monday wash " in the 
 now splendid East Room of the White House ; 
 they conjured up Jackson, tracing out with his cane 
 
 the majestic proportions of the splendid Treasury Building; they hunted up 
 the sites of houses made famous by being the houses in Washington of 
 
THE ST. MEMIN PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON. 
 From a photograph in possession of Mr. Charles Henry Hart. 
 
220 THE CENTIRY UOOK OK FAMOIS AMERICANS 
 
 the great men they had studied — Webster and Clay and Madison and 
 Grant ; and marveled as once again they listened to the story of how the 
 new Washington had obliterated or swallowed iij) the old, and become a 
 noble and beautiful capital. 
 
 So, in time, tiiey came to Mount \ ernon, — the Mecca of every Amer- 
 ican who has in his heart one atom of affection for his native land, and time 
 or money enough to visit the national capital. — no more to be left out of 
 such a trip than Jerusalem out of Palestine, the Vosemite out of California, 
 or Stratford-on-Avon out of England. 
 
 The place showed no perceptible change from their former visit, except 
 that the trolley-road was more pretentious and the trolley-trips more fre- 
 (juent. Still as brightly, between its sloping banks, the broad Potomac 
 
 WASHINGTON S SECRETARY ANU BOOKCASE AT MOLNT VERNON. 
 
 slipped southward to the bay; still, through its gaps of green, as they came 
 sailing down the river, the famous old mansion stood just as invitingly on 
 its green and shaded knoll. Trees, garden, lawns, outbuildings, barricaded 
 rooms, relics, mementos, and reminders — all were in as good condition and as 
 full (if interest as ever ; and, even as before, they found themselves awed into 
 silence before the sacred tomb, and ihrilk-d into enthusiasm bv the throng 
 
BY THE POTOMAC 
 
 221 
 
 AN OLD-TIME VIEW OF iMOUNT VERNON. 
 Published in 1798, by I. Slockdale, Piccadilly. 
 
 of suggestions and memories that hang forever about the pillared portico 
 and cupola-crowned roof of that rambling old V'irginia farm-house, renowned 
 through all the world as the home of Washington. 
 
 There happened to be but few visitors to Mount Vernon that morning. 
 Our tourists had the place virtually to themselves; so, seated comfortably 
 in chairs within the broad, high portico, they looked out upon the beautiful 
 river with which so many years of Washington's life were associated. They 
 "took in" the view that he so dearly loved, and talked upon the one theme 
 of which no American ever tires — the life of Washington. 
 
 "Was there ever any other man in all the world so much thought of 
 — really thought of — as Washington ? " Christine inquired. 
 
 " I doubt if there ever was, my dear," Uncle Tom replied. " Indeed, I 
 am sure there was not. Every nation has its great men — has, indeed, its 
 greatest man ; and yet in every nation are varying opinions. Greece killed 
 Socrates, and now he is her greatest man ; but it was later ages and alien 
 people who so elevated him, even as they gave to Caesar, killed by his coun- 
 trymen, his proper place as the greatest Roman. England's greatest man 
 may have been Cromwell, or Shakspere, or Alfred ; opinions differ there 
 even as they differ in France and Germany, in Austria. Italy, fir Spain. 
 
THK CENTL'RV B(JOK OK l-AMOLS AMEKH ANS 
 
 The test of greatness is popular remembrance — anil I know of no char- 
 acter in history who holds this place so unquestionably as does George 
 Washington." 
 
 "'First in war, first in peace, lirst in the hearts of his countr)men,' " 
 quoted Jack. 
 
 " More than Lincoln ? "' inquired Bert. 
 
 " Lincoln's fame has but just begun," I'ncle Tom replied. " It is 
 American. The fame of Washington is world-wide. It has steadily grown 
 for over a hundred years. It shows no dimming of its glory, and he 
 who seeks to belitde it is like one who beats upon a great wall with 
 his puny fist to make no impression thereon and only to find himself ridicu- 
 lous. So we might add to Jack's quotation from Marshall's speech, first 
 in the hearts of his fellow-men. For, as you see, all the world honors 
 Washington. To no one man have all nations so paid the united homage 
 of esteem. Statesmen, historians, poets, politicians alike point to Wash- 
 ington as the supremely great, 
 even while some of them scoff at 
 republics and doubt the worth of 
 liberty and equality." 
 
 Whereupon J ack cried : " That 's 
 just where Byron comes in. 
 Don't \on know what he said 
 right on that point? We had to 
 learn it last Washington's Birth- 
 day : 
 
 ' Where may the wearied eye repose. 
 
 When gazing on the Great, 
 Where neither guilty glory glows 
 
 Nor despicable state ? 
 Yes, one — the first, the last, the best — 
 
 The Cincinnatus of the West, 
 Whom envy dared not hate — 
 
 Bequeath the name of Washint,'ton, 
 To make men blush there was but one ! ' " 
 
 "And he was an I'lnglishman ! " 
 said Bert. 
 "Confederates booming Lincoln, Britishers hurrahing for Washington 
 
 it is kind of odd, is n't it, though?" said Roger. " How do you account 
 
 ft)r it, I'ncle Tom ? " 
 
 CREAM-JUG, SALT-CELLAR, CANDLESTICK. AND 
 CADDY-SPOON USED AT MOUNT VERNON. 
 
BY THE POTOMAC 
 
 « - 
 
 Vjf 
 
 
 yi/a(f^ 
 
 UNDER THE ELM AT CAMBRIDGE 
 General \\ ashington taking command of the army 
 
 " It IS one of the proofs of great 
 ness," Uncle Tom replied ' when 
 foemen become admirers fame can 
 go no higher The best thought 
 of the South now yields reverence 
 
 to Abraham Lincoln ; after a hundred years of scrutiny and criticism the 
 latest and broadest of English historians says of George Washington, ' No 
 nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life.' " 
 
 " Who was that, Uncle Tom ? " asked Marian. 
 
 " Green," Uncle Tom replied ; " not the historian of England's kings and 
 
124 
 
 TIIK CENI'LKV liUoK i H- lAMULS AMKKKANS 
 
 wars, but of England's pcoijU- — among whom, indeed, by ancestry, Wash- 
 ington can claim a jjlace." 
 
 " Is n't that so, Uncle Tom? " said Bert. "Was n't Washington nearer 
 an English gentleman than an American? " 
 
 " Don't get that folly in your head, my boy," Uncle Tom replied. " It is 
 a favorite error with certain American critics who would exalt Lincoln at the 
 e.xpense of Washington. Such criticism is unnecessary. The two need not 
 be compared. They are types by themselves. Washington may not have 
 been a man of the people in the sense that Jackson was, or Lincoln, but he was 
 an /\merican and of America. .\nil yet he sprang from the soil as much as 
 they or any one else. Here in these Virginia valleys he grew to manhood — a 
 
 country boy, a farmer's son as much as any tan- 
 ner's son or any ' mill-boy of the Slashes.' Fifty 
 miles below where we now sit, on the banks of 
 the broadening Potomac, he was born in 1732, 
 in a low-roofed old farm-house that would seem 
 very plain and small to you to-day." 
 
 "Is it standing now?" asked Marian, who 
 always wished to locate any reference to place 
 or personality. 
 
 " Oh, no ; it was jjurned when Washington 
 was three years okl, " I ncle fom replied. '■ But 
 the spot has been properly marked at last. 
 In Washington's day the place was known as 
 Bridge's Creek. To-day it is called Wake- 
 fieltl, and a year ago a modest but satisfactory 
 monument was placed upon the spot where once 
 stood the farm-house that was the birthplace of 
 Washington. As a boy, he lived in another 
 farm-house on the banks of the Rappahannock, 
 opposite the city of I'redericksburg, forty miles 
 to the south of us. In 1743 his brother Law- 
 rence 1)uilt a house here on this estate, and 
 called it Mount Vernon, from the British ad- 
 miral under whom he had fought at Carthagena. 
 When Lawrence died in 1752 George Wash- 
 ington became owner of Mount \'ernon, and 
 here was his home until his death." 
 
 •' And is this the very house that his brother l)uilt ? " asked Christine. 
 "Oh, no; the original house was scarcely one third the size," Uncle Tom 
 
 MONUMENT ON THE SITE OF 
 
 GEORtJE WASHINUTONS 
 
 niRTHPLACE. 
 
 By permission of John Crawford & Son, designers 
 
BY THE POTOMAC 
 
 225 
 
 IHi: RElkliAl' FROM LONG ISLAND. 
 A marvel of generalship. Washington directing the passage of the American army aci 
 
 i the East River, at night. 
 
 replied. " The old house was rebuilt and enlarged after the Revolution, in 
 1785, upon plans designed by Washington himself. As you see it to-day, 
 therefore, you see Washington's own work, alike as to house and grounds." 
 
 " He had to be away from here a great deal, did n't he ? " inquired Marian. 
 
 "Far more than he wished," Uncle Tom replied. "Washington dearly 
 loved his home and farm life at Mount Vernon. To him, his horses and 
 liis dogs, his acres and his crops, were very important affairs. But he was 
 at home only twice during the Revolutionary War, and when he was Presi- 
 dent his most enjoyable moments were those passed as a sort of vacation 
 liere at Mount Vernon." 
 
 " How many public offices did he hold in his life ? " asked Bert. 
 
226 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 GENliRAL GEOkCJE WASHINGTON ON THE WAY lO HIS INAUGURATION. 
 
 "Not SO many in number — soldier, congressman, President, that was 
 all ; but that service extended through nearly fifty years. Remember, he 
 began young. His schooling was slight, indeed. But the woods and the 
 fields were a greater school — his university. He was a public surveyor of 
 land at sixteen, tramping with pole and chain over these very fields and 
 slopes on which we are now looking. At nineteen he was the governor's 
 adjutant, a major in the Virginia militia, and from that time he was before 
 the people, known and honored of men." 
 
BY THE POTOMAC 22 7 
 
 " Regular genius, eh?" said Jack. 
 
 " No, not a genius. Jack ; a builder upon sure foundations, but building 
 slowly, solidly, safely. Washington was not born great. He grew into 
 greatness. Things had to be done, and he did them. And as he did them 
 he gained patience, confidence, ability. See now how gradually he pro- 
 ceeded. From his nineteenth to his twenty-seventh year he was major and 
 colonel in the British colonial service, facing the French at Great Meadows 
 and Fort Necessity, and casting the only ray of glory that lighted up Brad- 
 dock's disastrous defeat." 
 
 "Which was a defeat because his advice was n't taken; is n't that so. 
 Uncle Tom ? " said Roger. 
 
 " Certainly," replied Uncle Tom ; "and men soon learned to know that, 
 and to appreciate the young colonel's ability. From his twenty-seventh to 
 his forty-third year he was farmer, member of the Virginia legislature (the 
 house of burgesses at Williamsburg, you know), and of the first and second 
 Continental Congress." 
 
 " I thought he was not in the Congress that signed the Declaration of 
 Independence," said Marian. 
 
 " He was a member when it met in May, 1775, but the next month he 
 was elected commander-in-chief and resigned his seat," Uncle Tom e.xplained. 
 "From his forty-third to his fifty-first year he was commander-in-chief of 
 the American forces, serving through the entire Revolutionary War without 
 pay; from his fifty-first to his fifty-seventh year he was farmer, pioneer, del- 
 egate to the Continental Congress, and president of the convention that 
 framed the Constitution of the United States; from his fifty-seventh to his 
 sixty-fifth year he was President of the United States ; in his sixty-sixth year 
 he was lieutenant-general of the armies of the United States, and in his sixty- 
 seventh year he died — above us here, in the little room that we have seen 
 to-day, and forever, sacred while this building stands, as the death-chamber 
 of Washington." 
 
 "Well, that 's checking off his life pretty well. Uncle Tom," said Bert. 
 " But — tell me — just what was it that made Washington great?" 
 
 Uncle Tom tried to put it into few words. 
 
 "Good judgment," he began, "and great good sense; wonderful talent 
 for organization and administration — that is, thinking out things and putting 
 them through ; high moral character, manliness, courage, unselfishness, mod- 
 esty, a mighty will, perfect integrity, unfaltering loyalty, a clear conviction 
 of duty, sincerity, magnanimity, justice, truthfulness, nobility of soul. It was 
 the combination of all these qualities that made George Washington great. 
 
 " And no man to-day questions his greatness," Uncle Tom continued. 
 
22S 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OF lAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 MINIATURE OK MARTHA WASHINGTON. 
 Painted in 1801, signed " R. F." 
 
 THE DK BREHAN MINIATURE OF 
 
 WASHINGTON. 
 
 Original in possession of Mrs. F. T. Moorhcad. 
 
 "A farmer-boy, lie became the nol)lest of rulers; in all the history of the 
 world no man has a loftier name ; no name was ever so dear to the thought- 
 ful amonj^r mankind ; no man ever had his name become so closely the syno- 
 nym for heroic virtue, or .so unhesitatiny;ly upon men's lips as the watchword 
 oflibertN'. In truthfulness, in integrity, in endurance, in wisdom, in justice, 
 in devotion to duty and loyalty to purpose, he stands supreme, at once the 
 model for those in authority and an ideal and example for us all. His story 
 is a twice-told tale, and yet it is ever new. It will never end while men and 
 women honor nobility of character, or boys and girls love to hear the story 
 of how the farmer-boy grew into the hero, the simple gentleman into the 
 world's greatest man. It will never end, for never will the world cease to 
 honor, reverence, and love the name of Washington." 
 Bert nodded emphatic approval. 
 " That 's so," he said ; '' great man, was n't he ! " 
 "Great," responded Roger, while Jack replied, "Immense." 
 "That 's ju.st it," said Marian, as with thoughtful eyes she looked out 
 upon the Potomac. " He 's too great to think about the same as you do 
 about other people." 
 
 " He was very great and good, I know," said Christine ; "but I don't see 
 whv we can't think of the nice, ever\-dav things about him, and so get kind 
 
THli LITll.li OIKL WHu HAD KAUILR LL 1 U AsUIMj i U.N i.N 1 liA.N ULI. 
 
BY THE POTOMAC 23 1 
 
 of close up to him ; do you, Uncle Tom ? Here 's where he lived with his 
 wife Martha — right here at Mount Vernon. Can't you see him riding and 
 walking around here, looking after things and having a good time ? That 's 
 a good deal easier than to think of him perched up on top of some high 
 monument." 
 
 "Well, I don't know," said Roger; "that 's the way I always think of 
 him — prancing along on horseback, like most of the statues we have seen.'' 
 
 " Or else like the one in front of the Capitol at Washington," said Bert. 
 
 "What, that third-base one, where he 's calling out 'Judgment'?" 
 queried Jack. 
 
 " There ! just see, now," said Christine ; " see how quick you are to bring 
 him down from the pedestal and make a man of him, Jack, even in joke ! 
 Don't you see what I mean. Uncle Tom ? " 
 
 "I think I do, my dear, and appreciate it," Uncle Tom replied. "The 
 tendency is to put Washington out of reach by reverence, to make a demi- 
 god of him as the old Greeks and Romans did of their leaders and rulers. 
 Christine wishes to give him the human heart. That 's right ; he had one, 
 I assure you. So, while I would elevate Washington where he could be 
 seen, and where he can stand as the ideal and pattern for all our boys and 
 girls, I still like to think of him and to have you think of him as a man 
 among men ; with faults and failings, just as all men have, but able so to 
 school himself that we forget his failings and remember only his virtues. 
 So, too, I like to think of him here, at Mount Vernon, where, as Christine 
 says, he ' lived with his wife Martha,' interested in the things about him, 
 showing sympathy and affection and tenderness and friendliness and hospi- 
 tality to all with whom he came in contact. I like to think of him here — 
 as we can — hunting the fox with young Jacky Custis, or 'getting off' 
 pretty Nellie Custis from her ' horrid ' music-lesson ; riding about the farm in 
 a broad-brimmed white hat and drab clothes, with his hickory stick and his 
 saddle-umbrella; listening to the fun of the negro story-tellers at the quar- 
 ters, and shaking all over at some good joke; taking a bowl of hot tea to the 
 bedside of a visitor who, he thought, had caught a cold ; protecting the 
 young son of Lafayette here at Mount Vernon when the boy's gallant father 
 was in danger in France ; walking up and down this very, portico, with 
 a toddling baby girl clinging to his great fingers ; romping with the little 
 daughters of his Secretary of State, or exchanging compliments and fun 
 with the nice little girl who, when she bade him good-by, said she had 
 rather let him in the door than let him out, — in fact, it must be confessed, 
 boys, that Washington had an especial preference in favor of the girls." 
 
 " And showed his sense," said Marian. 
 
232 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 " Another sign of greatness," declared polite Roger, with a bow toward 
 the girls, which Jack at once imitated with siipertliious extravagance. 
 
 "So you see, boys and girls," said L ncle lom, "while our Washington 
 is high above us as the hero and the beacon, he may also be very near to us 
 as the man. A leader of men, he was also a lover of men, noble because he 
 was good, and great because he was noble ; ' the purest figure in history,' as 
 Mr. Gladstone declares; 'the greatest man of our own or any age,' so 
 Lord Brougham, another famous Englishman, asserts ; ' the only one upon 
 whom the epithet "great," so thoughtlessly lavished by men, may be 
 justly bestowed.' 
 
 " Come ! it 's almost trolley-time. One more turn through the grounds, 
 one more w^alk through these glory-haunted rooms, and then : All aboard 
 for W^ashineton — ami home." 
 
 
 ^Wf^^Bf*'' 
 
 'lasaisjjli^sgsj^tatee?^-^"^.^ 
 
 MOUNT VERNON PLACE AND 1 HE WASUINGIUN MONUMENT, BALTIMORE. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 TALKING IT OVER 
 
 Fatnous Americans in Washington — Homeward Bound — A "Quiz" in 
 Fame-study — Impressions — Patriotism — Memories — Good- by. 
 
 NCLE TOM," said Marian, as they sat in a shady place 
 between the Capitol and the splendid new Congressional Li- 
 brary, which they had just been investigating, " were all these 
 men we have been hunting up ever here in Washington ? " 
 "What do you think about it, my dear?" said Uncle 
 Tom. " Run over your list and see how closely you can connect them with 
 this place." 
 
 Literal, as usual, Marian drew out her list of persons and places, and 
 proceeded to check off the names. 
 
 "Let's begin at the beginning," she said. "Franklin? No; Franklin 
 was n't here, of course." 
 
 "Of course he was n't," Jack decided. "Why don't you go back to 
 Noah while you are about it." 
 
 " Not so fast, not so fast, my young friends," said Uncle Tom. " Do 
 you remember that Franklin was postmaster-general of the colonies at the 
 time of Braddock's defeat ? " 
 
 "Well?" said Jack. 
 
 "Well," returned Uncle Tom, " Braddock held a conference of colonial 
 notabilities yonder in Alexandria. Franklin met both Braddock and Wash- 
 ington there, or in Frederick — " 
 
 "What, where Barbara Frietchie lived?" asked Christine. 
 
 "Yes; and Franklin, you see, may have passed through this region," 
 Uncle Tom asserted, " when he came this way to give good but unheeded 
 advice to Braddock." 
 
 " But there was nothing here then, was there ? " asked Bert. 
 
234 THE CENTLRV BOOK <IK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 " Xo," Uncle Tom replied: "nothing but a hill, a marsh, and a swamp. 
 Still, it was the site of Washington. Go on, Marian ; who next?" 
 
 " Washington." 
 
 " Why, he picked out the place himself," said Bert. " Of course he was 
 here in the early days of the republic." 
 
 " Of course," again decided Jack. " Go ahead, Marian." 
 
 "Hamilton? Now, he could n't have been here, could he?" Marian 
 declared. " I le was killed by Burr before Washington was built." 
 
 "Oh, no, no, my dear," .said Uncle Tom. "The government was estab- 
 lished here in Washington in 1800. Hamilton was not killed until 1804. 
 He had a hand in the selection of this site. Uon't you remember that in 
 New York I told you how Hamilton and Jefferson walked for half an hour 
 in front of Washington's house on Broadway, deciding the location of the 
 national capital ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes; then I sujjpose, of course, he was here,' said Marian, still 
 puzzling over her list. "And Patrick Henry — he, too, I suppose. He was 
 a \ irginian, and I suppose had to come this way when he went to Congress. 
 .And all the rest of these" — here she ran over her list hurriedly — "they 
 were either Presidents or senators, so, of course, they were here — the two 
 Adamses, Jeffenson, Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Mad- 
 ison, Monroe, all of them." 
 
 "Yes; they were all residents of Washington, some of them for many 
 vears," Uncle Tom replied. "We have, you know, found either the house or 
 the spot where stood the house in which each one of them lived. As for 
 the Presidents, we know about them. Washington laid the corner-stone of 
 the Capitol and located the White House. John Adams was the first Presi- 
 dent to occupy it as a residence, and, as I have told you, his down-east wife 
 used the big, bare east room to dry her Monday's washing in. In that same 
 east room Jefferson served the si.xteen-hundred-pound cheese sent him by 
 the Massachusetts farmers, and the White House lights were always 'out' at 
 ten o'clock when ' Early to bed and early to rise' John Ouincy Adams was 
 President. We saw the little room there, \ou remember, in which Jackson 
 used to smoke his corn-cob pipe, and in which he dashed it to the floor and 
 cried : ' By the External ! I '11 fix 'em. Send for General Scott,' when the nulli- 
 fiers threatened to destroy the Union. Up and down the floor of the Presi- 
 dent's room in the White House went the cea.seless tramp-tramp of Lincoln 
 the night before the battle of Gettysburg, and in that same White House 
 Grant gave his daughter in marriage to an Englishman — the first child of 
 a President married at the White House. 
 
 "So we could go on," continued Uncle Tom, "and link plenty ot inter- 
 
fkZ 
 
 ^go^T^f VA^kar^-ori iiyia^ii 
 
 IN THE EARLY DAYS OK THE REPUBLIC. 
 
.36 
 
 THE CENTLKY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 esting things here in Washington with our dift'ercnt famous men. But we 
 have n't time. Our train starts in two hours, and we must be oft. But it has 
 been a good idea to centralize all our characters here in the capital of the na- 
 tion to which they devoted .so much of their lives, their thought, and their 
 labor, and which to-day gratefully remembers and honors them." 
 
 Two hours later, as their train crossed the eastern branch of the Potomac 
 bearing them toward home, the boys and girls craned their necks and strained 
 their eyes for a good-by glimpse of the tall white shaft and the great white 
 dome — alike the landmarks and the glory of that splendid capital city of 
 the repul)lic. 
 
 Then they turned their faces northward, and in due time were exchanging 
 greetings and caresses with the dear ones at home. Their journey was over. 
 
 But their retrospect, it would seem, had but just begun ; for when, ne.xt 
 day, they all gathered for a conference — or, as Jack called it, an "experience 
 meeting " — in his father's comfortable library, the flow of tongues was so con- 
 stant and resistless that Mr. Dunlap declared it "Out-Babeled Babel," while 
 the " Oh, don't you remember," and the " Say, did you see," and the " Uncle 
 Tom said "came so fast and vociferous that Uncle Tom at last was obliged 
 to constitute himself chairman of the meeting, rap it to order, and request 
 each lady and gentleman to spc-ak to the question, one at a time, and not 
 to usurp the floor. 
 
 "We '11 have a quiz in fame-study," he declared, "and your father. Jack, 
 sliail be the interlocutor. Come, try them," he said, turning to Mr. Dunlap. 
 " I 'd like to have you see if they 've brought back anything worth the 
 bringing." 
 
 "Well, let's see," said Mr. 1 )unhip ; "you 've studied twelve or fifteen 
 famous -Americans on their nati\e heaths. What do you think of their back- 
 
TALKING IT OVER 
 
 237 
 
 WASHINGTON'S WRITING-TABLE. 
 Jow in the Governor's room, City Hall, New York. 
 
 ground, as the story-writers would say ? Come, Roger, as the visiting 
 member, we '11 give you the preference. WHiat impressed )'ou most ? " 
 
 "Oh — I don't know," began Roger slowly. "Statues, I guess. We've 
 seen loads of them. But that one of Lincoln in Chicago — St. Gaudens's 
 
 — is best of all, I think. The 
 Washington monument in Rich- 
 mond crowds it pretty close, but 
 
 — somehow — there was a real 
 grandeur to the Lincoln, and yet 
 it was so perfectly simple and 
 natural. Seems to me all the 
 statues are too high up — out 
 of reach. The Clay monument 
 at Lexington and the Douglas 
 at Chicago were away up in the 
 air, like a pin stuck in a pen- 
 holder. It gives you a stiff neck to look at them. Both the Lee at Rich- 
 mond and the Grant at St. Louis seemed out of reach, while the Grant at 
 Chicago — very near the Lincoln in Lincoln Park, you know — is a magnifi- 
 cent thing, but has so much granite about it all, and is so 
 high up, that it looks as if the General were just charging 
 across the Rocky Mountains. But St. Gaudens's Lincoln is 
 just the thing. There he stands right among the people — 
 just like him, don't you know. Why, you feel like going right 
 up and shaking hands with him. He 's grand, but so natural. 
 And he 's right where you can get at him. So is the P'ar- 
 ragut in Madison Square and the Nathan Hale in City Hall 
 Park, in New York. I do like to get at people." 
 
 " Roger 's right," said Uncle Tom, nodding his approval. 
 " That St. Gaudens's Lincoln is indeed most impressive. The 
 great paved semicircle, with that heroic, natural figure 
 in the center, seemed to me strong in its magnificent 
 simplicity. The Grant statue near it is more im- 
 posing, but it is almost forbidding in its mas- 
 sive foundation. It is all castellated and for- 
 tress-like — grim, as a relentless soldier, while 
 Lincoln stands there modest but mighty, a 
 friendly figure, one of the people amid the 
 THE farragut'^monument. P^^P'^- ^"^ what a splendid background 
 In Madison Square, New York. that great park aud that ocean of a lake make 
 
23S THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOL'S AMERICANS 
 
 for two such vast Americans! Yes; the study of statues is certainly inter- 
 estinj^j. Roger, you 're a boy of discrimination." 
 
 " Well, Bert, let 's have your report," said Mr. Dunlap. 
 
 Bert declared himself as having been especially impressed with, as he 
 expressed it, "what folks don't know," particularly the lack of knowledge 
 concerning famous men in the very places where they were born and Iirought 
 up, or had made their homes later in life. 
 
 "A prophet is not without honor, you know, Bert," said Mr. Dunlap, 
 "save in his own country and in his own house." 
 
 "That 's so. I 've often experienced that," saiil Jack, shaking his head. 
 
 "You, Jack Dunlap? Why the house is just run for you," Marian 
 cried in the midst of the laugh that greeted Jack's modest announcement, 
 while Bert, sticking to the subject, said: "But it did n't seem to be that so 
 much. There 's honor enough for these great men in their homes, but 
 no information." 
 
 " Familiarity breeds — forgctfulness, perhaps," Mr. Dunlap again haz- 
 arded. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Bert. "Anyhow, we struck this 'don't know' business 
 everywhere — except at Richmond. They could answer questions there. 
 Why, the trolley-car conductor at Lexington did n't know Ashland as Henry 
 Clay's home, but as Major McDowell's stock-farm. Then Uncle Tom knew 
 more about Lincoln in Springfield than the hotel -proprietor, our driver, and 
 the man who has the store where Lincoln's office was, all put together. E\'en 
 in Ouincy it was hard to get from people real facts about the Adamses ; 
 Philadelphia people could n't tell you much about Franklin, and New York 
 is as misty about Hamilton as St. Louis is about Cirant. You 've just 
 got to post up for yourself before going on a great-man iiunt." 
 
 " That 's so, Bert," Uncle Tom confessed. " But, after all, it 's only natural. 
 Reverence for historic character is a matter of education ; interest in every- 
 day affairs is spontaneous." 
 
 " You know what I 've often confessed to you. Jack," said his father 
 " My one anil only (.liary was kei)t as a boy in the momentous year of 1864, 
 and yet you could read that diary through from January to December and 
 not suspect that a war was being fought in America. .\nd it was not becau.se 
 the war had no interest to me. It had a mighty interest. My father's house, 
 you know, was a center for war fever. But that 's just it — a boy's personal 
 affairs are to him of more monicnl llian the affairs of the nation — and men 
 are but children of a larger growth, you know." 
 
 " But education is counteracting this indifference, I think," I'ncle Tom 
 declared. "Wherever we went I i/'ot more information from the boys and 
 
ONE OF THE NATION'S HEROES — GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN. 
 After the bust by Augustus St. Gaudens, modeled from life in i888-8g. 
 
240 
 
 IHE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 yirls I qiicstioncil than from the ' ^rown-ups.' The salvation of the repubhc, 
 after all. lies in the hantls and hearts of its boys and i,nrls." 
 
 " Now, Marian, it s your turn," said her father. 
 
 " What impressed me most aliout these people ? " she queried, referrintj to 
 her well-worn list. "Let me see — I jjuess what Uncle Tom told us once, 
 
 WASHI.NGTON \l \\ll.i:V KORGE. 
 
 that, after all, they were men. It seems as though we heard horrid, mean 
 little things about every one of them ; but that 's because people like to talk, 
 I suppose ; and, after all, I could n't but see that the great and noble things 
 they did pushed the little things out of sight. Every man of them all went 
 up in the world from pretty small beginnings, and I suppose success starts 
 mean things about people just as much as it starts fine things. It takes all 
 sorts of people to make a world, and, for my part, I 'm going to forget the 
 gossip and remember only the glory." 
 
 " That 's the talk, my dear! " exclaimed I'ncle Tom. " I wish you could 
 put that spirit into certain of our historians who seem to think that truth 
 
TALKING IT OVER 
 
 241 
 
 consists in picking flaws. No one of us is perfect ; we all have our failings. 
 Forget the bad, remember the good. For it is the good in people that lives 
 the longest, and perhaps even the things we call failings in our great men 
 were but the steps by which they mounted to brave and wise and excellent 
 deeds for the good of their fellows and the glory of the republic. You know 
 how I stand. I believe that never anything in this world was without use 
 and advantage. The wars of Alexander and Ca;sar and Attila and Napo- 
 leon were all for the world's good, though fought for selfishness and ambi- 
 tion ; so slavery and the Civil War were necessary to the growth of this re- 
 public. There is no such thing, boys and girls, as an unmixed evil. Now, 
 we have progressed, I trust, beyond the need of blood and tears ; the days 
 of slavery and war are over, and the republic can say with Tennyson — 
 
 ' I hold it truth with him who sings 
 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things.' 
 
 I hope that America at last has reached its higher things — though, even 
 yet, the signs of foolishness have not altogether passed." 
 
 Mr. Dunlap might have branched off into a discussion with his brother 
 on this open question, but Jack, improving the op- 
 portunity, filled in the pause. 
 
 " Want to know what impressed me the most ? " 
 he asked. "Well — tombs." 
 
 There was a general laugh at the sepulchral tone 
 in which Jack announced his impression- — -so foreign 
 to such a really "live" boy as Jack Dunlap. 
 
 " You need n't laugh," he said. " That's right — 
 they did. I 'm sure we saw enough of them ; we 
 seemed to run up against them everywhere. There 
 was Polk's, in the State-House grounds at Nashville; 
 and Adams's, inside the place where he went to J^ 
 church ; and Jackson's, in his own front-door yard : ^ 
 and Jefferson's, hung up there on a hillside; and 
 Webster's, almost on the seashore ; and all the others. 
 They 're interesting enough, but they 're not big 
 enough. What 's the matter with having a West- 
 minster Abbey sort of place for them ? We 're a big 
 country and we ought to honor our great men in a great 
 way. Grant's new tomb is going to be something like franklins clock. 
 — when it is finished. But none of the rest amount in the Philadelphia Library. 
 
24- 
 
 THE CENTl'RV HuOK Ol- KAMOIS AMERICAN'S 
 
 "NO FUSS OR FEATHERS.- 
 President Grant on the street in Washington. 
 
 to a Hannah Cook, from Webster's shaliby little headstone at Marshfield to 
 Lincoln's ramshackle aftair — half museum and half ruin — at Springlield." 
 
 " O, see here, Jack ! you 're going- it altogether too strong ! " exclaimed 
 Bert. " I thought they were fine, most of them." 
 
 "No, sir! there is n't a fine one in the whole lot, except ("iranl's," lack 
 insisted. 
 
 "Lincoln's ilitl look .somewhat shal)l)v and run-ildwn — or rather, not 
 kept up," Roger admitted, "but that can be fixed; and I 'm sure we are 
 agreed that Webster's just suited him." 
 
 " And, surely, no one would change Wasiiington's. or Jackson's, or 
 Franklin'.s," declared Marian, rcnnembering their devotion to the memory 
 of their wives. 
 
 "That 's all right. Vou can have: your opinion; I '11 keep mine," said 
 
TALKING IT OVER 243 
 
 Jack. " You asked what impressed us most, and I 've given it to you 
 straight. I 'd hke to see something great and appropriate over the graves 
 of every one of these men; for they all were great, and should be honored by 
 something great." 
 
 '' Can storied urn or animated bust 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
 Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust, 
 
 Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? " 
 
 quoted Mr. Dunlap, looking at Jack significantly. 
 
 " I don't care," the boy persisted. " That 's what I think. I don't mean for 
 their sakes, but for our own. They were great, and deserve great memorials." 
 
 " Now, I don't know," said Christine. " They were great ; but they were 
 great because they were simple. That 's the one thing about all of them 
 that most impressed me." 
 
 " What ! Daniel Webster simple ? W^ashington, Patrick Henry, John 
 Adams, Andrew Jackson simple — do you really think so, Christine?" cried 
 Jack. 
 
 "Yes, every one of them," Christine declared. "That 's not what folks 
 remember about them all, I know, but they were all simple in their lives and 
 ways. Uncle Tom said so, and I think it 's fine to know that such great and 
 noble men could be so nice and plain and homelike about things — from the 
 way they lived to the way they died, — and were buried," she added, with a 
 challenging look at Jack. 
 
 " You don't remember what Emerson says about greatness, I suppose," 
 said Mr. Dunlap, " but it just fits Christine's theory. ' Nothing,' he says, 
 ' is more simple than greatness ; indeed, to be simple is to be great.' " 
 
 Whereupon Roger slipped across the room and shook Christine's hand in 
 evident congratulation ; but Jack remained unconvinced. 
 
 " Well, all these things that you boys and girls have noted and reported 
 are of course interesting," said Mr. Dunlap, " though they seem to me 
 rather on the negative than the positive side, rather criticism than approval." 
 
 "But that, I think, is all right," Uncle Tom declared. "They wish to 
 see things so perfect in the honors paid to the great that they become 
 critical, and notice the little ' outs ' that are at once apparent. Bert and 
 Jack may be, in the main, correct in their monuinental criticisms; but, after 
 all, what greater honors can be paid our famous ones than those of remem- 
 brance, emulation, and praise ? It is what these men did for the republic and 
 for us, the manner in which they served the nation and advanced its strength 
 and glory, that America will never forget, and which will endure as their best 
 monuments and memorials." 
 
244 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 "I think," said Mr. Dunlap, " that just here Uncle Tom might exalt the 
 office that most of the men whose tracks you have been following filled at 
 some time in their lives. Most of your baker's dozen were, at one time or 
 another, Presidents of the United States." 
 
 JOHN BRIGHT, AN ENGLISH FRIEND OF AMERICA 
 In the dark days of '6i. 
 
 "And the three who did n't get there wished they could." said Jack. 
 
 "President of the United States of America ! " continued Mr. Dunlap. 
 " Why, that in itself is enough to immortalize a man. The office would 
 make almost the smallest great. What king or queen in all the world 
 is the equal of the man whom the people delight to honor in a land 
 where the people is king? So, above all things, boys, when you come 
 
TALKING IT OVER 245 
 
 into power as voters be careful whom you advance to this exalted position. 
 There is none higher. Let me, right in this place, read you what was 
 said by one of the best and bravest Englishmen that ever lived — John 
 Bright, the friend of America at a time when all the wealth and power of 
 Europe seemed hostile to the republic, in the dark days of i860 and '61." 
 
 And Mr. Dunlap, taking a book from one of his library shelves, read 
 aloud this : " ' Every four years there springs from the vote created by the 
 whole people a President over that great nation. I think the world affords 
 no finer spectacle than this; I think it affords no higher dignity — that there 
 is no greater object of ambition on the political stage on which men are per- 
 mitted to move. You may point, if you like, to hereditary royalty — to 
 crowns coming down through successive generations in the same families, to 
 thrones based on proscription or on conquest, to scepters wielded over veteran 
 legions or subject realms, but to my mind there is nothing more worthy of 
 reverence or obedience, nothing more sacred, than the authority of a freely- 
 chosen magistrate of a great and free people.' " 
 
 "Three cheers for John Bright!" cried Jack. "His head was level, 
 was n't it ? " * 
 
 " Yes ; but yours will be just as level, my boy," replied his father, " if you 
 will keep such words as his in view and try neither to belittle your birth- 
 right by unjust comparisons nor cheapen it by unwise boastings. Not that I 
 fear that you will do either. Jack," he hastened to assert; "you 're a pretty 
 good patriot, though sometimes an e.xtravagant one." 
 
 " Better to overdo in that particular, I think, than to fall short," Uncle 
 Tom declared. "What was that sonnet by Professor Woodberry, Jack, that 
 you and I learned together last year ? Do you remember it ? " 
 
 "What 's that? " said Jack, still a bit unsteady over his father's uninten- 
 tional criticism. " Do you mean his sonnet to one who objected to his hav- 
 ing too much patriotism ? " 
 
 "Yes, that 's the one," said Uncle Tom; and Jack, with a look toward 
 his father, said: "This is a sonnet, please bear in mind, to one who objected 
 that the fellow was overdoing his patriotism. And this is what the poet said 
 to him : 
 
 ' ■ " The richej of a nation are her dead 
 
 Whom she hadi borne to be her memory 
 
 Against her passing, when that time shall be, 
 And in the Csesar's tomb she makes her bed ; 
 And oft of such decay in books I 've read — 
 
 Carthage or Venice, who had wealth as we ; 
 
 Yet, all too wise for patriots, blame not me ! 
 I know a nation's eold is not man's bread. 
 
THE STATUE OE THE REPUBLIC AT THE WOkLUS FAIR. 
 
TALKING IT OVER 247 
 
 " But rather from itself the heart infers 
 
 That ached when Lincoln died ! those boyish tears 
 Still keep my breast untraitored by its fears ; 
 
 Farragut, Phillips, Grant — I saw them shine, 
 
 Names worthy to have filled a Roman line ; 
 If I prove false, it is the future errs." 
 
 " That 's very fine, Jack, both for Professor Woodberry, who wrote it, and 
 you, the orator," Mr. Dunlap said, as the applause subsided, "and it 's very 
 true, too. The future may err, but see to it that you boys and girls do not. 
 The riches of a nation are her dead ! You know that now. The phrase fits, 
 and Professor Woodberry's sentiment, too, applies capitally to all you boys and 
 girls, who, after your pilgrimage to historic shrines, should now be infused 
 with a practical patriotism. That is what the dozen or more men you have 
 been investigating all displayed ; that is what every American should aim to 
 possess. Be not selfish individuals, or selfish patriots, even, but citizens of 
 America, heirs to her greatness and glory, ready to fill any post of duty or of 
 honor you may be called to occupy ; loyal to your home-land, ready to do 
 your share in aid or in service to your fellow-men — in other words, be intel- 
 ligent, loyal, faithful, active citizens of the republic. And this call comes to 
 you girls just as much as to the boys. ' It is as great to be a woman as a 
 man,' one of our philosophers has said, and patriotism — true patriotism — is 
 not limited to sex or strength. So, at last, shall your study of our famous 
 Americans prove of service to you all, and Uncle Tom's latest labor of love 
 will not have been in vain." 
 
 The good-bys were now to be said, for, next day, Roger was to return 
 to his Boston home. But before the party broke up. Uncle Tom, as he had 
 done at the close of their Washington trip, asked each one of his boys and 
 girls what would be the thing longest remembered by them of this delight- 
 fully-extended tramp about America. 
 
 In one thing they were all agreed — the greatness of the American re- 
 public, the vastness of its area, the beauty, wealth and size of its cities. Even 
 New York's grandeur and Chicago's bigness did not impress them more than 
 the signs of prosperity and taste displayed in Richmond and Lexington and 
 Louisville and Nashville — centres, all of them, of culture, business energy, 
 architectural beauty, modern ideas, and up-to-date enterprise. They agreed, 
 too, that such a trip as they had taken to the homes of famous Americans was 
 possible to all who could spare the means or time to take it ; for their homes 
 lay along a line of continual travel and were all readily accessible, while the 
 comforts of modern railway journeys made the trip at once easy and enjoyable. 
 
 " It 's as good as an education," said Bert. 
 
u^^ 
 
 TllK ( KMLKV HOOK OK FAMOUS AMKKICANS 
 
 And Christine agreed, with the addition, "if only I ncle Tom s tlic 
 teacher," in which sentiment one and all concurred. 
 
 But when it came to picking out the one thing that they would longest 
 remember in connection with their trip their replies were of course as di- 
 verse as their natures. 
 
 " I don't believe I shall ever forget the thirteen Hamilton trees near his 
 
 11 IK LOKM.K 
 
 U r.KUADUAV AND 1 WKMV- I'HIkU S IkEE 1 , NliW VoKK. 
 From a photograph by Pach Brothers. 
 
 home on Convent avenue," said Bert, "or the last of the Confederate earth- 
 works on the old Kentucky battle-ground of Munfordville." 
 
 Marian was certain she should always remember that sick chamber in 
 the Sixty-sixth Street house in New York where General Grant wrote his 
 memoirs, passed through the furnace-fire of misfortune, and fought the valiant 
 fight with death ; " though, to be sure," she added, " I was awfully interested 
 to see the place wdiere Pocahontas fell in love with Rolfe." 
 
 " Oh, that 's ancient history," said Jack ; " it was not nearly so interesting 
 to me as old Alfred at the Hermitage, though I think I shall always remember 
 the boy conductors on the trolley-cars at Nashville, and the White Squad- 
 ron in Hampton Roads — both of them were pretty fresh, you know." 
 
 Roorer wavered between the star chamber and its morninij effects in 
 
TALKING IT OVER 
 
 249 
 
 Mammoth Cave, and Jefferson's one-brick wall at the University of Virginia, 
 which seemed to him at once odd and incongruous. Christine, as usual, 
 reserved her opinion. 
 
 Then, when all had spoken, she said : " Well, I saw so many, many 
 things I never can forget that it's hard to pick out just one or two. But 
 really, I don't think I ever can forget the beautiful way President Jackson 
 spoke of his wife on her tablet in the garden at the Hermitage, nor that odd 
 sick-chair of dear old Franklin in Philadelphia. Oh, yes, there 's one thinq- I 
 think I shall remember even longer than those, and that was the little black 
 girl playing at Lincoln's feet when we were looking at St. Gaudens's .splen- 
 did statue in Chicago. Don't you remember her? It was all so appropriate, 
 you know, for she seemed to be almost at his feet, 
 even though the pedestal was too high for her to 
 reach him ; and she was playing there in such 
 perfect and unconscious freedom that really it 
 seemed almost typical, as you call it. Uncle Tom." 
 
 " It was, indeed, my dear," Uncle Tom re- 
 plied. " I beHeve you 're a born poet, Christine. 
 You always see the sympathetic side of things, 
 and, after all, it is the sympathetic that is prac- 
 tical. Here, let me give you this final bit of 
 verse. It is by a young poet named Cutler, 
 who, in 1 86 1, read this splendid war poem 
 before the very so- 
 ciety at Harvard 
 College that, thirty 
 years after, listened 
 to a eulogy of 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 from the lips of the 
 Confederate sol- 
 dier, Thompson. It 
 seems to me to fit 
 Christine's thought 
 and type, as well 
 as the real mean- 
 ing of our trip to 
 the home of those 
 who made the re- 
 public great. madison square garden and tower, new york. 
 
25<-» 
 
 THE CENTURY BOOK OK FAMOUS AMERICANS 
 
 And Uncle Tom recited this: 
 
 '• < ) Law, fair form of Liberty, God's light is on thy lirow ; 
 U Liberty, thou soul of Law, God's very self art thou '. 
 One, the clear river's sparkling flood that clothes the bank with green, 
 And one. the line of stubborn rock that holds the water in ; 
 Friends whom we cannot think apart, seeming each other's foe, 
 Twin flowers upon a single stalk, with ecpial grace that grow ; 
 O, fair ideas ! we write your names across our banner's fold, 
 For you the sluggard's brain is fire, for you the coward bold ; 
 O, daughter of the bleeding past! O, hope the prophets saw ! 
 God give us Law in Liberty, and Liberty in Law ! " 
 
 "Amen to that!" said Mr. Dunlai), almost solemnly. "For such a hope 
 did Franklin labor and Washin^^on tight and Jefferson struggle and Web- 
 ster plead; for it did Adams legislate and Jackson stand firm and Grant 
 batde and Lincoln die. For it must you all, boys and girls, strive heroic- 
 ally, patriotically, practically — if you would make America the resistless, 
 law-abiding republic which is to be the future's glory and pride." 
 
 With that the " Convention adjourned," as Jack declared, shic die. With 
 many good-bys and much exchange of promises, the peripatetic five sepa- 
 rated, and the pilgrimage to historic hoines was a thing of memory ; but, 
 you may be sure, it proved a strong and lasting one. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Only the important names arc entered here. There are slight allusions to many persons and places in the 
 book which it has not been thought necessary to include in the Index, and the entries given generally refer 
 to an important mention {or illustration') of the subject. When the treatment of a subject occupies a num- 
 ber of pages the reference is to the first page only. 
 
 Adams, Abigail, 24. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 17. 
 
 Adams, Jolin, 17. 
 
 Adams, Jolin Quincy, 17, 218. 
 
 Adams, Samuel, 10, 1 7. 
 
 Alton, Ills., 194. 
 
 Andros, Sir Edmund, 51- 
 
 Ashland, the homeof Henry Clay, 138. 
 
 Bacon, Nathaniel, 92. 
 
 Battery, The, New York, 51. 
 
 Blue-Grass Country, The, 137. 
 
 Boone, Daniel, 138. 
 
 Boston, I. 
 
 Bright, John, 244. 
 
 Brown, John, 216. 
 
 Burr, Aaron, 57, 167. 
 
 Calhoun, John C, I40. 
 
 Calvert, Leonard, Landing of, 82. 
 
 Cape Charles, 84. 
 
 Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, 79. 
 
 Charlottesville, Va., 117. 
 
 Chateau de Chaumont, France, 76. 
 
 Chesapeake Bay, 84. 
 
 Chicago, Ills., 211. 
 
 Christ Church, Philadelphia, 75. 
 
 City Hall, New York, 53. 
 
 Clay, Henry, 138. 
 
 Clinton, De Wilt, 50. 
 
 Clinton, Governor George, 50. 
 
 Convent Avenue, Nesv \'ork, 62. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 85. 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, 109. 
 
 Decatur, Stephen, 83, 128, 130. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 21, 76. 
 
 De Grasse, Admiral, 86. 
 
 Delaware, Lord, 85. 
 
 Dock Square, Boston, II. 
 
 Douglas, Stephen A., 202. 
 
 Dutch Gap, Virginia, 104. 
 
 Duxbury, Mass., 34. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen. 86. 
 
 Emancipation Proclamation, 25. 
 
 Faneuil Hall, Boston, 11. 
 
 Federal Hall, New York, 52. 
 
 Fort Hill, S. C, 142. 
 
 Fortress Monroe, 88. 
 
 P'rankfort, Kentucky, 159. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, I, 65. 
 
 Franklin, N. H., 46. 
 
 Frederick, Va., 216. 
 
 " Golden Hill," New York, 53. 
 
 Grant, General U. S., 49, 180, 242. 
 
 Hale, Nathan, 56. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 49. 
 
 Hampton Roads, 88. 
 
 Hampton, Va., 92. 
 
 Harlem Heights, Battle of, 61. 
 
 Harper's Ferry, 216. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, 93, 137. 
 
 Hermitage, The, 157. 
 
 Hingham, Mass., 44. 
 
 Hodgensville, Ky., 175. 
 
 Hollywood Cemetery, Riclimond, 105. 
 
 Houston, General Samuel, 144. 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, 158. 
 
 Jackson, Rachel, wife of Andrew, 170. 
 
 Jackson Square, New Orleans, 169. 
 
 Jay, John, 50. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 71, 107, 116. 
 
 Kentucky, 137. 
 
 Kidd, Captain, 51. 
 
 King's (now Columbia) College, New 
 York, 61. 
 
 Lafayette, 168. 
 
 Lafayette, Bartholdi's Statue of, 130. 
 
 Lawrence, Captain James, 53. 
 
 Lee, Richard Henry, 22. 
 
 Lee, Robert E., 113. 
 
 Leisler, Jacob, 51. 
 
 Lexington, Ky., 146. 
 
 Liberty Bell, 76. 
 
 Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, 
 114. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 175, 193. 
 
 Livingston, Robert R., 50. 
 
 " Long Walk," Boston Common, 12. 
 
 Lord, William Vv'ilberforce, 148. 
 
 Lowell's Commemoration Ode, 210. 
 
 Mammoth Cave, 173. 
 
 Marsh.all, Chief Justice, 102. 
 
 Marshfield, Mass., 37. 
 
 Mississippi River, iSo, 193. 
 
 Missouri River, 193. 
 
 " Monitor " and " Merrimac," 86. 
 
 Monroe, James, 217. 
 
 Montgomery, Tomb of, 53. 
 
 Monticello, 117. 
 
 Montpellier, 124. 
 
 Mount Vernon, 220. 
 
 Nashville, Tenn., 157. 
 
 Natural Bridge, Va., 138. 
 
 Newport News, Va., 92. 
 
 New York, 49, 236. 
 
 Nixon, John, Reading the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, 64. 
 
 Nolin's Creek, Ky., 175. 
 
 Norfolk. Va., 88. 
 
 O'Hara's " Bivouac of the Dead," 159. 
 
 Old Dominion, 85. 
 
 Old Point Comfort, 88. 
 
 Old Province House, Boston, 12. 
 
 Old South Church, Boston, I. 
 
 Otis, James, 3. 
 
 Park Street Gate, Boston Common, 14. 
 
 Payne, John Howard, 47. 
 
 Pendleton, Edmund, 97. 
 
 Penn, William, 80. 
 
 Philadelphia, 65. 
 
 251 
 
 Pittsburg Landing, 1S8. 
 
 Plymouth, Mass., 33. 
 
 Pocahontas, 85, 104. 
 
 Poe, Edgar Allan, 109. 
 
 Point Pleasant, Ohio, 182. 
 
 Polk, President, 158. 
 
 " Poor Richard's Almanack," 69. 
 
 Priscilla, 36. 
 
 Public Library, Boston, 12. 
 
 Quincy, Mass., 17. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 86. 
 
 Read, Deborah, 66. 
 
 Richmond, Va., 97. 
 
 Rolfe, John, 85. 
 
 Salisbury (now Franklin), N. H.,46. 
 
 .San Cosnie Gate, Mexico, 184. 
 
 " Sheridan's Ride," 137. 
 
 Sherman, General William T., 239. 
 
 Smith, Captain John, 85, 105. 
 
 Springfield, Ills., 203. 
 
 Standish House, Duxbury, Mass., 35. 
 
 Standish, Miles, 35. 
 
 St. John's Church, Richmond, 98. 
 
 St. Louis, Mo., 177. 
 
 St. Paul's Church, Washington's Pew 
 
 in, 58. 
 Stuart, Chai les, 86. 
 Stuart, Gilbert, 79. 
 Stuyvesant, Peter, 51. 
 Temple, Charlotte, 54. 
 Todd, Mary, 175. 
 
 Trinity Churchyard, New York, 53. 
 University of Pennsylv.ania, 71. 
 University of Virginia, 133. 
 Van Arsdale, Jack, 52. 
 Vanderbilt University, 158. 
 Van Twiller, Wouler, 51. 
 Vernon, Admiral, 86. 
 Wall Street, New York, 51. 
 Washington, Crawford's Statue of, 
 
 III, 113. 
 Washington, D. C, 233. 
 Washington, George, 214, 220. 
 Washington, Houdon's Statue of, loS. 
 Washington, Ward's Statue of, 54. 
 Webster Buildings, Boston, 8. 
 Webster, Daniel, g, 22, 37, 131. 
 "White House of the Confederacy," 
 
 109. 
 White, Peregrine, 43, 
 Whittier, John G., 41, 211, 216. 
 William and Mary College, 92. 
 Williamsburg, Va., 92. 
 Winslow, Ciovernor Edward, 37. 
 Winslow, Josiah, 37. 
 Yorktown, Va., 93. 
 Zenger, New York's first " newspaper 
 
 man," 51. 
 
C 12 88 
 
% 
 
 l»mo-'' 
 
 The 
 
 (entury 
 
 fAMOUS 
 
 Americans 
 
 The Story of a Younq People's 
 Pilgrimage to Historic Homes^ 
 
 BY 
 
 Elbridge 
 s 
 
 Brooks