University of Pennsylvania. He kept on improving and inventing useful
things. He made printers’ type and presses better than they were before.
One night his whale-oil lamp smoked. He went to work to fix it. To do
this he had to find out what made it smoke like that. Before he finished
he had invented the best lamp in the world. With his new knowledge of
the action of drafts, he went on and invented a stove, to take the place
of the fireplace, which before this time was generally used for heating
and cooking.
Many people thought the most striking thing that Franklin did was to
make a silk kite with a steel wire projecting from the end of the long
cross-stick to fly in the clouds during a thunderstorm. When the
lightning struck the steel wire, it ran down the kite string to a big
iron key which Franklin had hung there for that purpose. He then put the
key into a big, wide-mouthed glass jar. This was like catching the
lightning in a trap. In this simple way, Benjamin Franklin proved that
lightning is nothing but electricity flashing up in the clouds.
Thus, by studying into things every chance he had, Benjamin Franklin
became not only one of the most learned men in the world, but the
greatest inventor of his time. He was honored with the title of Doctor
of Philosophy by the greatest universities in Europe. Better than this,
he was known and loved by the people all over the world.
While the War for Independence was under way, the leaders of the new
nation, called the United States of America, came to Doctor Franklin and
urged him to go to France and persuade the king and the people to help
the United States. Doctor Franklin said he would see what could be done.
When he reached Paris he received a more wonderful welcome than was ever
given to a king. “The good Doctor Franklin’s” portrait and his stove
were seen in nearly every home in France. He became “the fashion” in
Paris, “the city of fashion.” Storekeepers were selling “Franklin” hats,
“Franklin” canes, “Franklin” snuffboxes and so on. While he was
entertained by the king of France, the kings of four other nations came
to see him. Not only did he “stand before kings,” but he sat at table
with the rulers of five great nations of Europe. The French government
supplied him with money, men, and ships to help to win the independence
of the United States. Then he stayed in France and signed the treaty of
peace, which he brought home to America.
He arrived at the old wharf in Philadelphia where he had landed many
years before--a poor, hungry lad of seventeen, running away from his
cruel brother. This time he was welcomed by thousands of people,
cheering. Cannon were booming. The bells of the city were ringing. Above
them all tolled the great Liberty Bell of Independence Hall. The happy
people shouted to one another--
“Hurrah for Doctor Franklin! Hurrah for peace!”
And Benjamin Franklin told some of them about the words his uncle had
read to him when he was a boy:
“Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before
kings.”
GEORGE WASHINGTON AND HIS MOTHER
When George Washington was a little boy there was no such country as the
United States. The part of America where he was born was called
Virginia, but it was not a state then. It was a colony, or new country,
settled by people from England.
These colonists lived along the eastern shore. Back from the sea coast
were beautiful valleys and high hills covered with woods. That region
was called a “howling wilderness,” because there were tribes of Indians
roaming through its forests, hunting bears and wolves, war-whooping, and
killing and scalping one another. Sometimes they stole up to a lone
cabin or settlement to murder a few white people who were brave enough
to try to live there, and set fire to their little home.
The wealthy Virginia colonists built handsome houses on their large
estates. “The First Families of Virginia,” as they came to be called,
owned negroes that had been stolen from the jungles of Africa and sold
to the planters. These slaves worked in the tobacco fields and did other
work on the farms. Then there were also white men who had broken the
laws in England, and were condemned to hard labor in the fields of
Virginia instead of being shut up in the prisons of England. As most of
the labor on their farms and plantations was done by black slaves and
white convicts, the young gentlemen of the colony thought all that kind
of work was too low for them to do. So, instead of laboring to improve
their new country, as men did in other colonies, the strong young men of
Virginia led lives of ease--drinking, carousing, gambling, and horse
racing.
Little George Washington’s father was a wealthy planter who owned three
plantations. He was a member of a great English company buying up vast
tracts of land in the new country. He also owned a big interest in some
iron mines. And besides all these, he was owner and master of a ship
which took his tobacco and iron to London and brought back cargoes of
silks, furniture, tea, coffee, and many other things not then made or
raised in Virginia. Mr. Washington sometimes sailed to England on his
ship and commanded his crew. From this he was called “Captain.”
Captain Washington’s oldest son, Lawrence, fourteen years older than
George, had enlisted in the army while at school in England, and was now
a captain fighting the Spaniards under Admiral Vernon.
When George was seven years old the Washington house was burned down,
and the family had to move about fifty miles in a sailboat to another
estate named “Ferry Farm,” on the Rappahannock River. From there George
went to school, riding several miles a day on his own pony.
The schoolhouse was a mere shed in the center of a wornout tobacco
field. George did not learn much there, but he did have a great time
playing soldier. Small as he was, he was captain of the “white men.” The
other “men” were Spaniards, French, or Indians, for England was at war
with all these people most of the time. So, just then, there were three
“captains” in the Washington family--Augustine, the father, Lawrence,
the soldier son, and George, the school leader.
When George was eleven his father died, leaving the best part of his
wealth to Lawrence. By English law the most of the property went to the
eldest son; so the people of Virginia felt that this was the right thing
to do. But George’s mother thought it was all wrong, when the oldest son
of her husband’s first wife was made a rich man and her oldest son was
left a poor boy by their father’s will. As for George, he believed it
must be right because his father had willed it so. Instead of being
jealous or grudging his half-brother such good fortune, George began to
plan how to earn his own living. In this way the boy George Washington
was preparing for the great War for Independence.
To keep his little brother from going to work, Lawrence persuaded his
stepmother to let him find George a good place where he might become an
officer in the English navy. He could do so through Admiral Vernon, for
whom Lawrence had named the mansion he had built where his father’s
house had burned down. But when the time came for parting with her
oldest son and stand-by, stern, dignified Mary Washington broke down and
cried, pleading with George not to leave his mother alone in her
widowhood and poverty. It was so hard for George to give up what he
thought was his only chance in life, that his face turned white. But for
his mother’s sake, he gave it all up. Taking
[Illustration: WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL TO HIS MOTHER.]
off his bright “middy” uniform, he folded it away in his new sailor
chest, never to be worn again. When he saw the warship, which had been
anchored below Mount Vernon, sailing away in the morning sunshine, young
George Washington’s future looked as dark as ever it could to a
heartbroken lad of fifteen. But who would have led the colonists in
their rebellion against England if George Washington had entered the
English navy then, and had later become a British admiral instead of
commanding general of the American army?
By the time George was twenty-one his brother Lawrence was dead and, as
his father had willed it, most of the property, including “Mount
Vernon,” belonged to the oldest son of the second wife. George at once
provided for his mother against worry or want in future. But he had to
tell her that he was a man now and that his devotion to country must
come first--even before his duty to his mother.
The English governor of Virginia sent him, still little more than a boy,
as messenger of the British government to the French and Indian
commanders in the distant Ohio region. This was a lonely journey of many
hundred miles through frozen and pathless forests full of cruel savages.
George had several hairbreadth escapes, once from drowning in an icy
river, and once from being shot by a treacherous Indian guide. A great
writer says of his wonderful success on this difficult and dangerous
errand through that western wilderness: “He went in a schoolboy, he came
out the first soldier in the colonies.”
The brave youth was appointed Major Washington, and given command of a
little army to fight the French and Indians. He soon gained a victory
which was called “the first blow” in a war which lasted, in America and
Europe, more than fifty years. As a member of General Braddock’s staff
young Washington saved the remaining part of the British army at Fort
Duquesne.
He was Colonel Washington when he was sent to the Congress which adopted
the Declaration of Independence. While there he was made
commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the War for Independence.
His faith and courage and patience endeared him so to the country that
no other man could be thought of for the first President of the United
States except the “Father of his Country.”
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, THE ORPHAN BOY FROM THE WEST INDIES
On the little island of Nevis, in the West Indies, lived a small boy who
had lost his mother, a bright young woman from France. His father, James
Hamilton, who was a Scotch planter, soon left the island, and the boy,
Alexander, heard little of him after that. No one knows to-day what
became of the father of Alexander Hamilton, but his grandfather was a
Scottish laird, or lord.
The next that is known of Alexander is that he was a clerk in the store
of a merchant on Santa Cruz, a smaller island, and that the lad was not
contented there. When he was twelve he wrote back to a friend in Nevis,
“I would be willing to risk my life, but not my character, to exalt my
station.”
Alexander studied with a minister of Santa Cruz who did all he could to
help the boy to improve his position in life. As Alexander was a devout
lad it is believed that the good man was trying to fit him to be a
minister.
The first thing young Hamilton did to win credit was to write a
wonderful description of a hurricane, or violent wind storm, that did
great damage on the island. The article was printed in a London
newspaper. When the people who knew the lad read his account, they could
hardly believe that one so young could have written it and several
wealthy planters decided to give such a bright boy a chance “to exalt
his station” by sending him to school in America.
Soon the little Scotch lad who could speak French and write splendid
stories in English was on his way to Boston in a British packet boat. It
is stated that on that voyage he first heard of George Washington. When
Alexander Hamilton reached Boston, he found the people up in arms
because the British government had sent soldiers to keep order in that
rebellious city; but the boy had been brought up to think that the king
and the great men of England were always right.
The little Britisher from the West Indies was first sent to a grammar
school not far from New York to prepare for college. He was so keen and
studied so hard that he was fitted to enter King’s College in New York
City at the age of sixteen. After the war against the king the name of
the college was changed from King’s to Columbia.
After a year in college, the British-bred youth went to Boston again.
This was about the time when the “Sons of Liberty” dressed up as Indians
and threw the taxed tea overboard into Boston harbor. This act was
intended to show the king and the English statesmen that the Americans
would not pay taxes when they had nothing to say in the government as
to what taxes they should pay. No doubt Alexander, while studying for
college, had learned something of the history and the spirit of the
people in America, so that he did not feel so sure that all the king did
was right. After he returned to New York, there was a great mass meeting
in “the Fields” to talk about the unjust acts of the king of England. In
the city were many Tories, loyal to the king. Young Hamilton went down
from college to hear the discussion, and it was not long before he was
answering a rich Tory in a sharp, vigorous way. The people shouted to
him to go up on the platform, and the brilliant West Indian youth of
seventeen made a strong speech that became the talk of New York City.
A little while after this the students called on the president of King’s
College. He was a Tory, and very bitter against the people who were
fighting for their rights as British subjects. He scolded the students
roundly, calling them traitors, rascals, and other hard names. This made
the young men so angry that it might have gone hard with the old
gentleman if young Hamilton had not jumped up on the porch and spoken
earnestly in his defense. The president, seeing who was speaking, and
thinking that the youth was talking against the Tories again, put his
angry red face out of an upper window and shouted: “It’s a lie! Don’t
believe a word that rogue says. He’s crazy!”
As Hamilton was really taking their foolish president’s part, this made
the students shout and laugh. The young orator, taking advantage of
this, kept on talking till the old Tory made his escape by a back way to
a British man-of-war in the river near by. After this Hamilton wrote
pamphlets and newspaper articles about the rights of the people.
Events began to happen thick and fast. Washington was elected
commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and drove the British
soldiers out of Boston. Then the Americans decided to separate from
England; so the Declaration of Independence was written and signed.
Young Hamilton was soon in the midst of the fight--in command of an
artillery company. When Washington and his ragged Continentals were
retreating from New York, he saw a youth in charge of a battery keeping
the red-coats from crossing a wide river, so that the American
commander-in-chief and his little army could keep on their way to
Philadelphia.
“Who is that young man?” asked Washington.
“That, your Excellency, is Alexander Hamilton.”
The great general was so pleased with the skill and courage of the young
officer that he soon invited him to become his _aide_ and secretary,
with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The commander-in-chief liked to
have bright young men around him. Colonel Hamilton was now twenty.
Colonel Aaron Burr was a year older. “Light-Horse Harry” Lee was about
the same age; and General Lafayette, who was added to General
Washington’s staff that summer, was only nineteen. Colonel Hamilton was
such a discreet and faithful secretary that it was said, “The pen of the
army is held by Hamilton.” In some ways Hamilton’s pen was mightier than
his sword.
At Brandywine, where Lafayette was wounded, Hamilton’s horse was shot
under him; but he kept at the head of his regiment, on foot. At Valley
Forge young Hamilton had occasion to remember the language his mother
used in talking with him when he was a baby on the island of Nevis, for
he often spoke French with young Marquis de Lafayette. The West Indian
colonel was welcome wherever
[Illustration: THE FIRST MEETING BETWEEN WASHINGTON AND HAMILTON.
_From an old print_]
he went. He was thoughtful and kind to the sick, writing beautiful
letters home for disabled and dying soldiers.
One day when the young staff officer was hurrying to meet his chief,
Lafayette detained him. Finally breaking away from the friendly young
Frenchman, Hamilton found Washington waiting for him. The
commander-in-chief said, “Colonel Hamilton, you have kept me waiting
these ten minutes! I must tell you, sir, that you treat me with
disrespect.”
The young _aide_ flushed scarlet and replied: “I am not conscious of it,
sir; but since you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part.”
“Very well, sir, if it be your choice,” said Washington.
With face still aflame, Hamilton turned and left the commander-in-chief.
Within an hour the general was sorry he had been so severe with “my boy”
as he called his _aide_, and sent for him, asking that their too hasty
words might be forgotten. But even then Hamilton could not quite forgive
his chief for reproving him. So Alexander Hamilton was placed in command
of a detachment in the south, where “Light-Horse Harry” and Lafayette
were officers also. At Yorktown, the last battle in the War for
Independence, Colonel Hamilton was the first man of the American army to
mount the wall before the town, where he was quickly followed by his
devoted men. Within a very few minutes the American flag was floating
over Yorktown.
After the war, Hamilton returned to New York City to practise law. He
had married the daughter of General Schuyler, one of the richest men in
that state. Attorney Hamilton soon became successful and prosperous.
When the time came to frame the Constitution which was to bind the
thirteen states into one Union and make them true to their name, the
_United_ States, Alexander Hamilton was one of the leaders in that great
undertaking.
After that, his former chief was elected the first President. One of the
first acts of President Washington was to send for Alexander Hamilton to
be the first Secretary of the Treasury. The young Secretary had to
create success for the new nation, like making “bricks without straw.”
There was no national treasury. Continental money was without value, so
that when anything was considered worthless it was said to be--“not
worth a continental.”
Rival states had been jealous of one another, and as there was no head,
nothing was owned in common by the whole country--but debts. Money had
been borrowed of other nations, and of patriotic people in America, to
carry on the War for Independence. Many good people thought it would be
impossible for the new government, just starting, to pay its debts,
besides building up a new government and meeting the running expenses.
But Alexander Hamilton, still a young man, saw that a country in debt
could never be independent, and that if the government of the United
States did not pay all it owed, it could not go on, any more than a
bankrupt business which could not pay its bills. The only way to secure
credit was to pay every dollar it owed.
Hamilton devised ways and means to do all this with such success that,
in the street parades which the people arranged in different cities to
celebrate the new Constitution, wherever a float represented the
_Constitution_, the only man’s name on the ship of state was “Hamilton.”
The plans of the young Secretary of the Treasury worked like magic, and
the new government was soon on a solid foundation.
Daniel Webster, the greatest orator who ever lived in America, in
speaking of Hamilton’s work, compared it to two miracles told of in the
Bible; one, that of Moses when he drew water from a rock for the thirsty
Israelites in the wilderness; the other, the raising of a dead man to
life by Elijah. These are Webster’s words:
“Hamilton smote the rock of the national resources and abundant streams
of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of public credit,
and it sprang upon its feet.”
Alexander Hamilton continued to act as the first President’s private
secretary. It is generally believed that it was he who wrote out
Washington’s immortal “Farewell Address.” When he gave up the office of
Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton returned to the practise of law. He
had gladly given up a large income and served his country for about
one-third the amount of money he had been receiving from his law
business.
In New York Hamilton’s chief rival was Aaron Burr, whom Washington had
disliked and allowed to retire from his military staff. But Colonel Burr
was a brilliant lawyer and a popular politician. When Thomas Jefferson
was elected President of the United States by the House of
Representatives, Aaron Burr might have been chosen President if three
men had voted the other way. Burr was bitterly disappointed, and blamed
Hamilton for his defeat. Nursing revenge in his heart Burr practised
shooting. As Hamilton continued to oppose Burr’s schemes, Burr easily
found an excuse to challenge him to fight a duel.
Dueling was still a common means of deciding questions of honor.
Hamilton’s eldest son had been killed in that way. As a man was called a
coward if he did not fight, Hamilton accepted Burr’s challenge, though
he felt sure it would mean death to himself. The place chosen for the
shooting was the spot where Hamilton’s son had lately been killed. When
the signal was given, Alexander Hamilton pointed his pistol upward and
fired into a tree to avoid hitting Burr, whose aim was as true as when
shooting at a target. Hamilton fell, face downward, and died next day,
declaring that he forgave the enemy who had planned and practised to
kill him.
This duel did more than anything else to show the wickedness of the duel
as a way of settling disputes. Aaron Burr later was accused of being a
traitor to the country which Hamilton had given his great and noble life
to place upon a firm foundation. What is true of dueling is also true of
war--the unworthy party may succeed by wicked means. But America
remembers Aaron Burr as a curse, and Alexander Hamilton as a blessing to
his country.
THOMAS JEFFERSON, THE FATHER OF DEMOCRACY
Thomas Jefferson was born on his father’s many-thousand-acre farm near
Charlottesville, Virginia, on the banks of River Anna, whose name was
shortened to “Rivanna.” Thomas’s father, Colonel Peter Jefferson, had
come over the sea from Wales, and his mother was Jane Randolph, a
daughter of one of the “F. F. V.’s,” or First Families of Virginia.
The Jefferson boy grew up tall, thin, awkward, freckled and red-haired.
His father, like George Washington’s, was a wealthy planter, who died
while Thomas was yet a lad. But young Jefferson’s mother was not left
poor like Washington’s; she was able to send her son to William and
Mary College. Though Thomas was always reading and studying, he was very
fond of playing the violin. Several stories are told about Jefferson and
his “fiddle,” as they called it then. One is that he played duets with
Patrick Henry; another is that he once performed with George Washington,
who played quite well on the flute.
Thomas was so eager to learn and so afraid of wasting time in college
that he took the four years’ course in two years, graduating at
nineteen. Besides the regular college branches, he studied architecture,
and after graduating devoted some time to that profession before fully
deciding to study law.
Young Jefferson was not admitted to practise law until five years after
finishing his college course. This was because he was not content merely
with “reading law,” but he read many books on other subjects and
continued his study of music.
While he was attending court at Charlottesville, his home at Shadwell
was burned to the ground. An old negro house-servant came to tell the
young master all about the fire. Lawyer Jefferson thought first of his
large library and asked if his precious books had been saved.
“No, massa,” said the old slave. “Dem books is all burnt up, but de fire
didn’t cotch your dear old fiddle. I carried dat out, myse’f, I did.”
Perhaps the best story of all that are still told of Jefferson and his
fiddle is that about two young men admirers of the young and beautiful
widow Skelton. They called on her one evening and found “Tom” Jefferson
there already. He was playing his violin while she accompanied him on
her spinet--an old-fashioned piano. They listened a moment and laughed.
“We won’t play ‘second fiddle’ or break up their duet,” said one of the
callers. So they went away without leaving their names. It was not long
before Thomas Jefferson, like George Washington, married a wealthy widow
and brought her to live on one of the largest and finest estates in old
Virginia.