of the war.--The next summer Captain Church, with a lot of "brisk
Bridgewater lads" chased King Philip and his men, and took many of
the Indians prisoners. Among those then taken captive were King
Philip's wife and his little boy. When Philip heard of it, he cried
out, "My heart breaks; now I am ready to die." He had good reason
for saying so. It was the custom in England to sell such prisoners
of war as slaves. Following this custom, the settlers here took this
boy, the grandson of that Massasoit[11] who had helped them when they
were poor and weak, and sold him with his mother. They were sent to
the Bermuda Islands,[12] and there worked to death under the hot sun
and the lash of the slave-driver's whip.
Not long after that, King Philip himself was shot. He had been hunted
like a wild beast from place to place. At last he had come back to
see his old home at Mount Hope[13] once more. There Captain Church
found him; there the Indian warrior was shot. His head and hands were
cut off,--as was then done in England in such cases,--and his head
was carried to Plymouth and set up on a pole. It stood there twenty
years.
King Philip's death brought the war to an end. It had lasted a little
over a year; that is, from the early summer of 1675 to the latter
part of the summer of 1676. In that short time the Indians had killed
between five and six hundred white settlers, and had burned thirteen
villages to ashes, besides partly burning a great many more. The war
cost so much money that many people were made poor by it; but the
strength of the Indians was broken, and they never dared to trouble
the people of Southern New England again.
[Footnote 11: See paragraph 68.]
[Footnote 12: Bermuda (Ber-mu'dah): the Bermuda Islands are in the
Atlantic, north of the West India Islands and east of South Carolina;
they belong to Great Britain.]
[Footnote 13: See map in paragraph 84.]
95. Summary.--In 1675 King Philip began a great Indian war against
the people of Southeastern New England. His object was to kill off
the white settlers, and get back the land for the Indians. He did
kill a large number, and he destroyed many villages, but in the end
the white men gained the victory. Philip's wife and child were sold
as slaves, and he was shot. The Indians never attempted another war
in this part of the country.
Who was Wamsutta? What happened to him? Who was "King Philip"? Why
did he hate the white men? What did he say to himself? What is said
about the "Praying Indians"? What happened to one of them? What was
done with three of Philip's men? Where and how did the war begin?
To what part of the country did it spread? Tell about the Indian
attack on Brookfield. What happened at Hadley? Tell how a woman drove
off an Indian. Tell all you can about the Great Swamp Fight. What
is said about Canonchet? What is said of King Philip's wife and son?
What happened to King Philip himself? What is said about the war?
WILLIAM PENN
(1644-1718).
96. King Charles the Second gives William Penn a great piece of land,
and names it Pennsylvania.--King Charles the Second of England owed
a large sum of money to a young Englishman named William Penn. The
king was fond of pleasure, and he spent so much money on himself and
his friends that he had none left to pay his just debts. Penn knew
this; so he told His Majesty that if he would give him a piece of
wild land in America, he would ask nothing more.
[Illustration: WILLIAM PENN AT THE AGE OF 22.]
Charles was very glad to settle the account so easily. He therefore
gave Penn a great territory[1] north of Maryland[2] and west of the
Delaware River. This territory was nearly as large as England. The
king named it Pennsylvania, a word which means Penn's Woods. At that
time the land was not thought to be worth much. No one then had
discovered the fact that beneath Penn's Woods there were immense
mines of coal and iron, which would one day be of greater value than
all the riches of the king of England.
[Footnote 1: Territory: any very large extent of land.]
[Footnote 2: See map in paragraph 97.]
97. William Penn's religion; what he wanted to do with his American
land.--Penn belonged to a religious society called the Society of
Friends; to-day they are generally spoken of as Quakers. They are
a people who try to find out what is right by asking their own hearts.
They believe in showing no more signs of respect to one man than to
another, and at that time they would not take off their hats even
to the king himself.
[Illustration: Map of eastern Pennsylvania and surroundings.]
Penn wanted the land which had been given him here as a place where
the Friends or Quakers might go and settle. A little later the whole
of what is now the state of New Jersey was bought by Penn and other
Quakers for the same purpose. We have seen[3] that neither the
Pilgrims nor the Catholics had any real peace in England. The Quakers
suffered even more still; for oftentimes they were cruelly whipped,
thrown into dark and dirty prisons where many died of the bad
treatment they received. William Penn himself had been shut up in
jail four times on account of his religion; and though he was no
longer in such danger, because the king was his friend, yet he wanted
to provide a safe place for others who were not so well off as he
was.
[Footnote 3: See paragraphs 62 and 76.]
98. Penn sends out emigrants to Pennsylvania; he gets ready to go
himself; his conversation with the king.--Penn accordingly sent out
a number of people who were anxious to settle in Pennsylvania. The
next year, 1682, he made ready to sail, himself with a hundred more
emigrants. Just before he started, he called on the king in his palace
in London. The king was fond of joking, and he said to him that he
should never expect to see him again, for he thought that the Indians
would be sure to catch such a good-looking young man as Penn was and
eat him. 'But, Friend Charles,' said Penn, 'I mean to buy the land
of the Indians, so they will rather keep on good terms with me than
eat me.' 'Buy their lands!' exclaimed the king. 'Why, is not the whole
of America mine?' 'Certainly not,' answered Penn. 'What!' replied
the king; 'didn't my people discover it?[4] and so haven't I the right
to it?' 'Well, Friend Charles,' said Penn, 'suppose a canoe full of
Indians should cross the sea and should discover England, would that
make it theirs? Would you give up the country to them?' The king did
not know what to say to this; it was a new way of looking at the matter.
He probably said to himself, These Quakers are a strange people; they
seem to think that even American savages have rights which should
be respected.
[Footnote 4: Referring to the discovery of the American continent
by the Cabots, sent out by Henry the Seventh of England, see paragraph
22.]
99. Penn founds[5] the city of Philadelphia; his treaty[6] with the
Indians; his visit to them; how the Indians and the Quakers got on
together.--When William Penn reached America, in 1682, he sailed up
the broad and beautiful Delaware River for nearly twenty miles. There
he stopped, and resolved to build a city on its banks. He gave the
place the Bible name of Philadelphia,[7] or the City of Brotherly
Love, because he hoped that all of its citizens would live together
like brothers. The streets were named from the trees then growing
on the land, and so to-day many are still called Walnut, Pine, Cedar,
Vine, and so on.
Penn said, "We intend to sit down lovingly among the Indians." On
that account, he held a great meeting with them under a
wide-spreading elm. The tree stood in what is now a part of
Philadelphia. Here Penn and the red men made a treaty or agreement
by which they promised each other that they would live together as
friends as long as the water should run in the rivers, or the sun
shine in the sky.
[Illustration: PENN MAKING THE TREATY WITH THE INDIANS.]
Nearly a hundred years later, while the Revolutionary War was going
on, the British army took possession of the city. It was cold, winter
weather, and the men wanted fire-wood; but the English general
thought so much of William Penn that he set a guard of soldiers round
the great elm, to prevent any one from chopping it down.
Not long after the great meeting under the elm, Penn visited some
of the savages in their wigwams. They treated him to a dinner--or
shall we say a lunch?--of roasted acorns. After their feast, some
of the young savages began to run and leap about, to show the
Englishman what they could do. When Penn was in college at Oxford
he had been fond of doing such things himself. The sight of the Indian
boys made him feel like a boy again; so he sprang up from the ground,
and beat them all at hop, skip, and jump. This completely won the
hearts of the red men.
[Illustration: STATUE OF WILLIAM PENN. (On the Tower of the new City
Hall, Philadelphia.)]
From that time, for sixty years, the Pennsylvania settlers and the
Indians were fast friends. The Indians said, "The Quakers are honest
men; they do no harm; they are welcome to come here." In New England
there had been, as we have seen,[8] a terrible war with the savages,
but in Pennsylvania, no Indian ever shed a drop of Quaker blood.
[Footnote 5: Founds: begins to build.]
[Footnote 6: Treaty: an agreement; and see paragraph 69.]
[Footnote 7: See Rev. i. 11 and iii. 7.]
[Footnote 8: See paragraph 90.]
100. How Philadelphia grew; what was done there in the Revolution;
William Penn's last years and death.--Philadelphia grew quite fast.
William Penn let the people have land very cheap, and he said to them,
"You shall be governed by laws of your own making." Even after
Philadelphia became quite a good-sized town, it had no poor-house,
for none was needed; everybody seemed to be able to take care of
himself.
When the Revolution began, the people of Pennsylvania and of the
country north and south of it sent men to Philadelphia to decide what
should be done. This meeting was called the Congress. It was held
in the old State House, a building which is still standing, and in
1776 Congress declared the United States of America independent of
England. In the war, the people of Delaware and New Jersey fought
side by side with those of Pennsylvania.
William Penn spent a great deal of money in helping Philadelphia and
other settlements. After he returned to England he was put in prison
for debt by a rascally fellow he had employed. He did not owe the
money, and proved that the man who said that he did was no better
than a thief. Penn was released from prison; but his long confinement
in jail had broken his health down. When he died, the Indians of
Pennsylvania sent his widow some beautiful furs, in remembrance of
their "Brother Penn," as they called him. They said that the furs
were to make her a cloak, "to protect her while passing through this
thorny wilderness without her guide."
[Illustration: WILLIAM PENN'S GRAVE AT JORDANS'S MEETING-HOUSE,
ENGLAND.]
About twenty-five miles west of London, on a country road within
sight of the towers of Windsor Castle,[9] there stands a Friends'
meeting-house, or Quaker church. In the yard back of the
meeting-house William Penn lies buried. For a hundred years or more
there was no mark of any kind to show where he rests; but now a small
stone bearing his name points out the grave of the founder of the
great state of Pennsylvania.
[Footnote 9: Windsor Castle: see paragraph 77.]
101. Summary.--Charles the Second, king of England, owed William
Penn, a young English Quaker, a large sum of money. In order to settle
the debt, the king gave him a great piece of land in America, and
named it Pennsylvania, or Penn's Woods. Penn wished to make a home
for Quakers in America; and in 1682 he came over, and began building
the city of Philadelphia. When the Revolution broke out, men were
sent from all parts of the country to Philadelphia, to hold a meeting
called the Congress. In 1776, Congress declared the United States
independent.
To whom did King Charles the Second owe a large sum of money? How
did he pay his debt? What did the king name the country? What does
the name mean? What has been found there? What is said about the
Friends or Quakers? What did Penn want the land here for? How were
the Quakers then treated in England? What did Penn do in 1682? Tell
what the king said to Penn and what Penn replied. What city did Penn
begin to build here? What does Philadelphia mean? What did Penn and
the Indians do? What did the English general do about the great elm
in the Revolution? Tell about Penn's dinner with the Indians. Did
the Indians trouble the Quakers? What is said of the growth of
Philadelphia? What was done there in the Revolution? Tell what you
can about Penn's last days. Where is he buried?
GENERAL JAMES OGLETHORPE[1]
(1696-1785).
102. The twelve English colonies in America; General Oglethorpe
makes a settlement in Georgia.--We have seen[2] that the first real
colony or settlement made in America by the English was in Virginia
in 1607. By the beginning of 1733, or in about a hundred and
twenty-five years, eleven more had been made, or twelve in all. They
stretched along the seacoast, from the farthest coast of Maine to
the northern boundary of Florida, which was then owned by the
Spaniards.[3]
The two colonies farthest south were North Carolina and South
Carolina. In 1733 James Oglethorpe, a brave English soldier, who
afterward became General Oglethorpe, came over here to make a new
settlement. This new one, which made just thirteen[4] in all, was
called Georgia in honor of King George the Second, who gave a piece
of land for it, on the seacoast, below South Carolina.
[Illustration: Map of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.]
[Footnote 1: Oglethorpe (O'gel-thorp).]
[Footnote 2: See paragraph 37.]
[Footnote 3: Because the Spaniards had settled it in 1565; see
paragraph 30.]
[Footnote 4: These thirteen colonies or settlements were: First, the
four New England colonies (New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, and Rhode island; Maine was then part of Massachusetts,
and Vermont was claimed by both New Hampshire and New York). Secondly,
four middle colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, with
Delaware). Thirdly, five southern colonies (Maryland, Virginia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia).]
103. What it was that led General Oglethorpe to make this new
settlement.--General Oglethorpe had a friend in England who was cast
into prison for debt. There the unfortunate man was so cruelly
treated that he fell sick and died, leaving his family in great
distress.
The General felt the death of his friend so much that he set to work
to find out how other poor debtors lived in the London prisons. He
soon saw that great numbers of them suffered terribly. The prisons
were crowded and filthy. The men shut up in them were ragged and
dirty; some of them were fastened with heavy chains, and a good many
actually died of starvation.
General Oglethorpe could not bear to see strong men killed off in
this manner. He thought that if the best of them--those who were
honest and willing to work--could have the chance given them of
earning their living, that they would soon do as well as any men.
It was to help them that he persuaded the king to give the land of
Georgia.
104. Building the city of Savannah; what the people of Charleston,
South Carolina, did; a busy settlement; the alligators.--General
Oglethorpe took over thirty-five families to America in 1733. They
settled on a high bank of the Savannah[5] River, about twenty miles
from the sea. The general laid out a town with broad, straight,
handsome streets, and with many small squares or parks. He called
the settlement Savannah from the Indian name of the river on which
it stands.
[Illustration: SAVANNAH, AS GENERAL OGLETHORPE LAID IT OUT IN 1733.]
The people of Charleston, South Carolina, were glad to have some
English neighbors south of them that would help them fight the
Spaniards of Florida, who hated the English, and wanted to drive them
out. They gave the newcomers a hundred head of cattle, a drove of
hogs, and twenty barrels of rice.
The emigrants set to work with a will, cutting down the forest trees,
building houses, and planting gardens. There were no idlers to be
seen at Savannah: even the children found something to do that was
helpful.
Nothing disturbed the people but the alligators. They climbed up the
bank from the river to see what was going on. But the boys soon taught
them not to be too curious. When one monster was found impudently
prowling round the town, they thumped him with sticks till they
fairly beat the life out of him. After that, the alligators paid no
more visits to the settlers.
[Footnote 5: Savannah (Sa-van'ah).]
105. Arrival of some German emigrants; "Ebenezer";[6] "blazing"
trees.--After a time, some German Protestants, who had been cruelly
driven out of their native land on account of their religion, came
to Georgia. General Oglethorpe gave them a hearty welcome. He had
bought land of the Indians, and so there was plenty of room for all.
The Germans went up the river, and then went back a number of miles
into the woods; there they picked out a place for a town. They called
their settlement by the Bible name of Ebenezer,[7] which means "The
Lord hath helped us."
There were no roads through the forests, so the new settlers "blazed"
the trees; that is, they chopped a piece of bark off, so that they
could find their way through the thick woods when they wanted to go
to Savannah. Every tree so marked stood like a guide-post; it showed
the traveller which way to go until he came in sight of the next one.
[Illustration: THE "BLAZED" TREES.]
[Footnote 6: Ebenezer (Eb-e-ne'zer).]
[Footnote 7: See I Sam. vii. 12.]
106. Trying to make silk; the queen's American dress.--The settlers
hoped to be able to get large quantities of silk to send to England,
because the mulberry-tree grows wild in Georgia, and its leaves are
the favorite food of the silkworm.[8] At first it seemed as if the
plan would be successful, and General Oglethorpe took over some
Georgia silk as a present to the queen of England. She had a handsome
dress made of it for her birthday; it was the first American silk
dress ever worn by an English queen. But after a while it was found
that silk could not be produced in Georgia as well as it could in
Italy and France, and so in time cotton came to be raised instead.
[Footnote 8: Silkworm: a kind of caterpillar which spins a fine, soft
thread of which silk is made.]
107. Keeping out the Spaniards; Georgia powder at Bunker Hill;
General Oglethorpe in his old age.--The people of Georgia did a good
work in keeping out the Spaniards, who were trying to get possession
of the part of the country north of Florida. Later, like the settlers
in North Carolina and South Carolina, they did their part in helping
to make America independent of the rule of the king of England. When
the war of the Revolution began, the king had a lot of powder stored
in Savannah. The people broke into the building, rolled out the kegs,
and carried them off. Part of the powder they kept for themselves,
and part they seem to have sent to Massachusetts; so that it is quite
likely that the men who fought at Bunker Hill may have loaded their
guns with some of the powder given them by their friends in Savannah.
In that case the king got it back, but in a somewhat different way
from what he expected.
General Oglethorpe spent the last of his life in England. He lived
to a very great age. Up to the last he had eyes as bright and keen
as a boy's. After the Revolution was over, the king made a treaty
or agreement, by which he promised to let the United States of America
live in peace. General Oglethorpe was able to read that treaty
without spectacles. He had lived to see the colony of Georgia which
he had settled become a free and independent state.
108. Summary.--In 1733 General James Oglethorpe brought over a
number of emigrants from England, and settled Savannah, Georgia.
Georgia was the thirteenth English colony; it was the last one
established in this country. General Oglethorpe lived to see it
become one of the United States of America.
At the beginning of 1733 how many English colonies were there in
America? Who was General Oglethorpe? What did he do? Why was the new
settlement called Georgia? Tell what happened to a friend of General
Oglethorpe's. What did he wish to do for the poor debtors? What is
said about the settlement of Savannah? What about the German
emigrants and Ebenezer? What about raising silk? What good work did
the people of Georgia do? What about Georgia powder in the
Revolution? What is said of General Oglethorpe in old age?
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
(1706-1790).
109. Growth of Philadelphia; what a young printer was doing for
it.--By the year 1733, when the people of Savannah[1] were building
their first log cabins, Philadelphia[2] had grown to be the largest
city in this country,--though it would take more than seventy such
cities to make one as great as Philadelphia now is.
Next to William Penn,[3] the person who did the most for Philadelphia
was a young man who had gone from Boston to make his home among the
Quakers. He lived in a small house near the market. On a board over
the door he had painted his name and business; here it is:
[Illustration: "BENJAMIN FRANKLIN PRINTER" BUSINESS SIGN.]
[Footnote 1: See paragraph 104.]
[Footnote 2: See paragraph 99.]
[Footnote 3: See paragraph 96.]
110. Franklin's newspaper and almanac;[4] how he worked; standing
before kings.--Franklin was then publishing a small newspaper,
called the _Pennsylvania Gazette_.[5] To-day we print newspapers by
steam at the rate of two or three hundred a minute; but Franklin,
standing in his shirtsleeves at a little press, printed his with his
own hands. It was hard work, as you could see by the drops of sweat
that stood on his forehead; and it was slow as well as hard. The young
man not only wrote himself most of what he printed in his paper, but
he often made his own ink; sometimes he even made his own type.[6]
When he got out of paper he would take a wheelbarrow, go out and buy
a load, and wheel it home. To-day there are more than three hundred
newspapers printed in Philadelphia; then there were only two, and
Franklin's was the better of those two.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN AT A PRINTING PRESS.]
[Illustration: A TYPE. (The Letter B.)]
[Illustration: FRANKLIN WHEELING A LOAD OF PAPER.]
Besides this paper he published an almanac, which thousands of people
bought. In it he printed such sayings as these: "_He who would
thrive[7] must rise at five_," and "_If you want a thing well done,
do it yourself._" But Franklin was not contented with simply printing
these sayings, for he practised them as well.
Sometimes his friends would ask him why he began work so early in
the morning, and kept at it so many hours. He would laugh, and tell
them that his father used to repeat to him this saying of Solomon's:
"_Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before
kings; he shall not stand before mean men._"[8]
At that time the young printer never actually expected to stand in
the presence of a king, but years later he met with five; and one
of them, his friend the king of France, gave him his picture set round
with diamonds.
[Footnote 4: Almanac (al'ma-nak).]
[Footnote 5: Gazette (ga-zet'): a newspaper.]
[Footnote 6: Type: the raised metal letters used in printing are made
by melting lead and some other metals together and pouring the
mixture into molds.]
[Footnote 7: Thrive: to get on in business, to prosper.]
[Footnote 8: See Prov. xxii. 29.]
111. Franklin's boyhood; making tallow candles; he is apprenticed[9]
to his brother; how he managed to save money to buy books.--Franklin's
father was a poor man with a large family. He lived in Boston, and made
soap and candles. Benjamin went to school two years; then, when he was
ten years old, his father set him to work in his factory, and he never
went to school again. He was now kept busy filling the candle-molds
with melted grease, cutting off the ends of the wicks, and running
errands. But the boy did not like this kind of work; and, as he was
very fond of books, his father put him in a printing-office. This
office was carried on by James Franklin, one of Benjamin's brothers.
James Franklin paid a small sum of money each week for Benjamin's
board; but the boy told him that if he would let him have half the
money to use as he liked, he would board himself. James was glad to do
this. Benjamin then gave up eating meat, and, while the others went out
to dinner, he would stay in the printing-office and eat a boiled
potato, or perhaps a handful of raisins. In this way, he saved up a
number of coppers every week; and when he got enough laid by, he would
buy a book.
But James Franklin was not only a mean man, but a hot-tempered one;
and when he got angry with his young apprentice,[10] he would beat
and knock him about. At length the lad, who was now seventeen, made
up his mind that he would run away, and go to New York.
[Footnote 9: Apprenticed: bound by a written agreement to learn a
trade of a master, who is bound by the same agreement to teach the
trade.]
[Footnote 10: Apprentice: one who is apprenticed to a master to learn
a trade. See footnote 9.]
112. Young Franklin runs away; he goes to New York, and then to
Philadelphia.--Young Franklin sold some of his books, and with the
money paid his passage to New York by a sailing-vessel--for in those
days there were no steamboats or railroads in America. When he got
to New York, he could not find work, so he decided to go on to
Philadelphia.
He started to walk across New Jersey to Burlington, on the Delaware
River, a distance of about fifty miles; there he hoped to get a
sail-boat going down the river to Philadelphia. Shortly after he set
out, it began to rain hard, and the lad was soon wet to the skin and
splashed all over with red mud; but he kept on until noon, then took
a rest, and on the third day he reached Burlington and got passage
down the river.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN WALKING IN THE RAIN.]
113. Franklin's Sunday walk in Philadelphia; the rolls; Miss Read;
the Quaker meeting-house.--Franklin landed in Philadelphia on
Sunday morning (1723). He was tired and hungry; he had but a single
dollar in the world. As he walked along, he saw a bake-shop open.
He went in and bought three great, puffy rolls for a penny[11] each.
Then he started up Market Street, where he was one day to have his
newspaper office. He had a roll like a small loaf of bread tucked
under each arm, and he was eating the other as though it tasted good
to him. As he passed a house, he noticed a nice-looking young woman
at the door. She seemed to want to laugh; and well she might, for
Franklin appeared like a youthful tramp who had been robbing a
baker's shop. The young woman was Miss Deborah[12] Read. A number
of years later Franklin married her. He always said that he could
not have got a better wife.
[Illustration: Map of Franklin's route from Boston to Philadelphia.]
Franklin kept on in his walk until he came to the Delaware. He took
a hearty drink of river water to settle his breakfast, and then gave
away the two rolls he had under his arm to a poor woman with a child.
On his way back from the river he followed a number of people to a
Quaker meeting-house. At the meeting no one spoke. Franklin was tired
out, and, not having any preacher to keep him awake, he soon fell
asleep, and slept till the meeting was over. He says, "This was the
first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia."
[Footnote 11: Penny: an English coin worth two cents.]
[Footnote 12: Deborah (Deb'o-rah).]
114. Franklin finds work; he goes back to Boston on a visit; he learns
to stoop.--The next day the young man found some work in a
printing-office. Six months afterward he decided to go back to Boston
to see his friends. He started on his journey with a good suit of
clothes, a silver watch, and a well-filled purse.
While in Boston, Franklin went to call on a minister who had written
a little book[13] which he had been very fond of reading. As he was
coming away from the minister's house, he had to go through a low
passage-way under a large beam. "Stoop! Stoop!" cried out the
gentleman; but Franklin did not understand him, and so hit his head
a sharp knock against the beam. "Ah," said his friend, as he saw him
rubbing his head, "you are young, and have the world before you;
_stoop_ as you go through it, and you will miss many hard thumps."
Franklin says that this sensible advice, which was thus beat into
his head, was of great use afterward; in fact, he learned then how
to stoop to conquer.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN LEARNING TO STOOP.]
[Footnote 13: The name of this book, written by the Rev. Cotton Mather,
was _Essays to do Good_.]
115. Franklin returns to Philadelphia; he goes to London; water
against beer.--Franklin soon went back to Philadelphia. The governor
of Pennsylvania then persuaded him to go to London, telling him that
he would help him to get a printing-press and type to start a
newspaper in Philadelphia.
When Franklin reached London, he found that the governor was one of
those men who promise great things, but do nothing. Instead of buying
a press, he had to go to work in a printing-office to earn his bread.
He stayed in London more than a year. At the office where he worked
the men were great beer-drinkers. One of his companions bought six
pints a day. He began with a pint before breakfast, then took another
pint at breakfast, then a pint between breakfast and dinner, then
a pint at dinner, then a pint in the afternoon, and, last of all,
a pint after he had done work. Franklin drank nothing but water. The
others laughed at him, and nicknamed him the "Water-American"; but
after a while they had to confess that he was stronger than they were
who drank so much strong beer.
The fact was that Franklin could beat them both at work and at play.
When they went out for a bath in the Thames,[14] they found that their
"Water-American" could swim like a fish; and he so astonished them
that a rich Londoner tried to persuade him to start a swimming-school
to teach his sons, but Franklin had stayed in England long enough,
and he now decided to go back to Philadelphia.
[Footnote 14: Thames (Tems). London is on the river Thames.]
116. Franklin sets up his newspaper; "sawdust pudding."--After his
return to America, Franklin labored so diligently that he was soon
able to set up a newspaper of his own. He tried to make it a good
one. But some people thought that he spoke his mind too freely. They
complained of this to him, and gave him to understand that if he did
not make his paper to please them, they would stop taking it or
advertising in it.
Franklin heard what they had to say, and then invited them all to
come and have supper with him. They went, expecting a feast, but they
found nothing on the table but two dishes of corn-meal mush and a
big pitcher of cold water. That kind of mush was then eaten only by
very poor people; and because it was yellow and coarse, it was
nicknamed "sawdust pudding."
[Illustration: FRANKLIN EATING "SAWDUST PUDDING."]
Franklin gave everybody a heaping plateful, and then, filling his
own, he made a hearty supper of it. The others tried to eat, but could
not. After Franklin had finished his supper, he looked up, and said
quietly, "My friends, any one who can live on 'sawdust pudding' and
cold water, as I can, does not need much help from others." After
that, no one went to the young printer with complaints about his paper.
Franklin, as we have seen,[15] had learned to stoop; but he certainly
did not mean to go stooping through life.
[Footnote 15: See paragraph 114.]
117. Franklin's plan of life; what he did for Philadelphia.--Not many
young men can see their own faults, but Franklin could. More than
that, he tried hard to get rid of them. He kept a little book in which
he wrote down his faults. If he wasted half an hour of time or a
shilling of money, or said anything that he had better not have said,
he wrote it down in his book. He carried that book in his pocket all
his life, and he studied it as a boy at school studies a hard lesson.
By it he learned three things,--first, to do the right thing; next,
to do it at the right time; last of all, to do it in the right way.
As he was never tired of helping himself to get upward and onward,
so, too, he was never tired of helping others. He started the first
public library in Philadelphia, which was also the first in America.
He set on foot the first fire-engine company and the first military
company in that city. He got the people to pave the muddy streets
with stone; he helped to build the first academy,--now called the
University of Pennsylvania,--and he also helped to build the first
hospital.
118. Franklin's experiments[16] with electricity; the wonderful
bottle; the picture of the king of England.--While doing these things
and publishing his paper besides, Franklin found time to make
experiments with electricity. Very little was then known about this
wonderful power, but a Dutchman, living in the city of Leyden[17]
in Holland, had discovered a way of bottling it up in what is called
a Leyden Jar. Franklin had one of these jars, and he was never tired
of seeing what new and strange thing he could do with it.
He contrived a picture of the king of England with a movable gilt
crown on his head. Then he connected the crown by a long wire with
the Leyden Jar. When he wanted some fun he would dare any one to go
up to the picture and take off the king's crown. Why that's easy
enough, a man would say, and would walk up and seize the crown. But
no sooner had he touched it than he would get an electric shock which
would make his fingers tingle as they never tingled before. With a
loud Oh! Oh! he would let go of the crown, and start back in utter
astonishment, not knowing what had hurt him.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN PLAYING A JOKE WITH THE KING'S CROWN.]
[Footnote 16: Experiments: here an experiment is a trial made to
discover something unknown. Franklin made these experiments or
trials with electricity and with thunder clouds in order to find out
what he could about them.]
[Footnote 17: Leyden: see map in paragraph 62.]
119. The electrical kite.--But Franklin's greatest experiment was
made one day in sober earnest with a kite. He believed that the
electricity in the bottle, or Leyden Jar, was the same thing as the
lightning we see in a thunder-storm. He knew well enough how to get
an electric spark from the jar, for he had once killed a turkey with
it for dinner; but how could he get a spark from a cloud in the sky?
He thought about it for a long time; then he made a kite out of a
silk handkerchief, and fastened a sharp iron point to the upright
stick of the kite. One day, when a thunder-storm was seen coming up,
Franklin and his son went out to the fields. The kite was raised;
then Franklin tied an iron key to the lower end of the string. After
waiting some time, he saw the little hair-like threads of the string
begin to stand up like the bristles of a brush. He felt certain that
the electricity was coming down the string. He put his knuckle close
to the key, and a spark flew out. Next, he took his Leyden Jar and
collected the electricity in that. He had made two great discoveries,
for he had found out that electricity and lightning are the same thing
and he had also found how to fill his bottle directly from the clouds:
that was something that no one had ever done before.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN FLYING A KITE.]
120. Franklin invents the lightning-rod; _Doctor_ Franklin.--But
Franklin did not stop at that. He said, If I can draw down electricity
from the sky with a kite-string, I can draw it still better with a
tall, sharp-pointed iron rod. He put up such a rod on his house in
Philadelphia; it was the first lightning-rod in the world. Soon other
people began to put them up: so this was another gift of his to the
city which he loved. Every good lightning-rod which has since been
erected to protect buildings has been a copy of that invented by
Franklin.
People now began to talk, not only in this country but in Europe,
about his electrical experiments and discoveries. The oldest college
in Scotland[18] gave him a title of honor and called him Doctor--a
word which means a learned man. From this time, Franklin the printer
was no longer plain Mr. Franklin, but Dr. Franklin.
Dr. Franklin did not think that he had found out all that could be
found out about electricity; he believed that he had simply made a
beginning, and that other men would discover still greater things
that could be done with it. Do you think he was mistaken about that?
[Footnote 18: The University of St. Andrews.]
121. Franklin in the Revolutionary War; Franklin and the map of the
United States.--When the war of the Revolution broke out, Dr.
Franklin did a great work for his country. He did not fight battles
like Washington, but he did something just as useful. First, he
helped write the Declaration of Independence, by which we declared
ourselves free from the rule of the king of England; next, he went
to France to get aid for us. We were then too poor to pay our soldiers;
he got the king of France to let us have money to give them.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S CANE AND WASHINGTON'S REVOLUTIONARY SWORD.
(Preserved in the Patent Office, Washington.)]
Franklin lived to see the Revolution ended and America free. When
he died, full of years and of honors, he was buried in Philadelphia.
Twenty thousand people went to his funeral.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN'S GRAVE IN CHRIST CHURCH BURIAL-GROUND,
PHILADELPHIA.]
If you wish to see what the country thinks of him, you have only to
look at a large map of the United States, and count up how many times
you find his name on it. You will find that more than two hundred
counties and towns are called FRANKLIN.
122. Summary.--Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston nearly two
hundred years ago. He went to Philadelphia when he was seventeen.
He started a newspaper there, opened the first public library, and
did many other things to help the city. He discovered that lightning
and electricity are the same thing, and he invented the lightning-rod
to protect buildings. In the Revolution, he got large sums of money
from the king of France to pay our soldiers and to help Washington
fight the battles which ended in making America free.
What had Philadelphia grown to be by 1733? Who did a great deal for
Philadelphia? Tell what you can about Franklin's newspaper. What
else did he publish? What sayings did he print in his almanac? What
saying of Solomon's did Franklin's father use to repeat to him? Did
he ever stand in the presence of any kings? Tell what you can about
Franklin as a boy. Where did he live? What did he do? How did he save
money to buy books? Why did he run away? Where did he go? Tell what
you can about Franklin's landing in Philadelphia? How did Franklin
look to Miss Read? Where did Franklin find work? What happened to
him when he went back to Boston on a visit? Why did Franklin go to
London? What did he do there? What did they nickname him in the
printing-office? What did Franklin do after he returned to
Philadelphia? Tell the story of the "sawdust pudding." Tell about
Franklin's plan of life. What did he do for Philadelphia? What
experiments did Franklin make? What about the picture of the king?
Tell the story of the kite. What two things did he find out by means
of this kite? What did he invent? What title did a college in Scotland
now give him? Did Franklin think that anything more would be
discovered about electricity? What two things did Franklin do in the
Revolution? What is said of his funeral? How many counties and towns
in the United States are now called by his name?
GEORGE WASHINGTON
(1732-1799).
123. A Virginia boy; what he became; what he learned at school; his
writing-books.--In 1732, when Franklin was at work on his newspaper,
a boy was born on a plantation[1] in Virginia who was one day to stand
higher even than the Philadelphia printer.
[Illustration: STONE MARKING WASHINGTON'S BIRTHPLACE; THE HOUSE IS
NO LONGER STANDING.]
That boy when he grew up was to be chosen leader of the armies of
the Revolution; he was to be elected the first president of the United
States; and before he died he was to be known and honored all over
the world. The name of that boy was George Washington.
Washington's father died when George was only eleven years old,
leaving him, with his brothers and sisters, to the care of a most
excellent and sensible mother. It was that mother's influence more
than anything else which made George the man he became.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S SIGNATURE AT THE AGE OF 12.]
George went to a little country school, where he learned to read,
write, and cipher. By the time he was twelve, he could write a clear,
bold hand. In one of his writing-books he copied many good rules or
sayings. Here is one:--
[Illustration: "Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark
of celestial fire called conscience."[2]]
[Footnote 1: Plantation: George Washington was born on a plantation
(or large estate cultivated by slaves) on Bridges Creek, a small
stream emptying into the Potomac. See map in paragraph 127. Not long
after George's birth (February 22, 1732), his father moved to an
estate on the Rappahannock River, opposite Fredericksburg. See map
in paragraph 127 for this place and Mount Vernon.]
[Footnote 2: Celestial: heavenly, divine.]
124. Washington's sports and games; playing at war; "Captain
George."--But young Washington was not always copying good sayings;
for he was a tall, strong boy, fond of all out-door sports and games.
He was a well-meaning boy, but he had a hot temper, and at times his
blue eyes flashed fire. In all trials of strength and in all deeds
of daring, George took the lead; he could run faster, jump further,
and throw a stone higher than any one in the school.
When the boys played "soldier," they liked to have "Captain George"
as commander. When he drew his wooden sword, and shouted Come on!
they would all rush into battle with a wild hurrah. Years afterward,
when the real war came, and George Washington drew his sword in
earnest, some of his school companions may have fought under their
old leader.
125. The great battle with the colt, and what came of it.--Once,
however, Washington had a battle of a different kind. It was with
a high-spirited colt which belonged to his mother. Nobody had ever
been able to do anything with that colt, and most people were afraid
of him. Early one morning, George and some of his brothers were out
in the pasture. George looked at the colt prancing about and kicking
up his heels. Then he said: "Boys, if you'll help me put a bridle
on him, I'll ride him." The boys managed to get the colt into a corner
and to slip on the bridle. With a leap, George seated himself firmly
on his back. Then the fun began. The colt, wild with rage, ran, jumped,
plunged, and reared straight up on his hind legs, hoping to throw
his rider off. It was all useless; he might as well have tried to
throw off his own skin, for the boy stuck to his back as though he
had grown there. Then, making a last desperate bound into the air,
the animal burst a blood-vessel and fell dead. The battle was over,
George was victor, but it had cost the life of Mrs. Washington's
favorite colt.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON'S HOME WHEN A BOY.]
When the boys went in to breakfast, their mother, knowing that they
had just come from the pasture, asked how the colt was getting on.
"He is dead, madam," said George; "I killed him." "Dead!" exclaimed
his mother. "Yes, madam, dead," replied her son. Then he told her
just how it happened. When Mrs. Washington heard the story, her face
flushed with anger. Then, waiting a moment, she looked steadily at
George, and said quietly, "While I regret the loss of my favorite,
I rejoice in my son, who always speaks the truth."
126. Washington goes on a visit to Mount Vernon; he makes the
acquaintance of Lord Fairfax.--George's eldest brother, Lawrence
Washington, had married the daughter of a gentleman named
Fairfax,[3] who lived on the banks of the Potomac. Lawrence had a
fine estate a few miles above, on the same river; he called his place
Mount Vernon. When he was fourteen, George went to Mount Vernon to
visit his brother.
Lawrence Washington took George down the river to call on the
Fairfaxes. There the lad made the acquaintance of Lord Fairfax, an
English nobleman who had come over from London. He owned an immense
piece of land in Virginia. Lord Fairfax and George soon became great
friends. He was a gray-haired man nearly sixty, but he enjoyed having
this boy of fourteen as a companion. They spent weeks together on
horseback in the fields and woods, hunting deer and foxes.
[Footnote 3: Fairfax. This was the Hon. William Fairfax; he was
cousin to Lord Fairfax, and he had the care of Lord Fairfax's land.]
127. Lord Fairfax hires Washington to survey[4] his land; how
Washington lived in the woods; the Indian war-dance.--Lord Fairfax's
land extended westward more than a hundred miles. It had never been
very carefully surveyed; and he was told that settlers were moving
in beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains,[5] and were building log-cabins
on his property without asking leave. By the time Washington was
sixteen, he had learned surveying; and so Lord Fairfax hired him to
measure his land for him. Washington was glad to undertake the work;
for he needed the money, and he could earn in this way from five to
ten dollars a day.
[Illustration: Map illustrating Washington's early life.]
Early in the spring, Washington, in company with another young man,
started off on foot to do this business. They crossed the Blue Ridge
Mountains, and entered the Valley of Virginia, one of the most
beautiful valleys in America.
The two young men would work all day in the woods with a long chain,
measuring the land. When evening came, Washington would make a map
of what they had measured. Then they would wrap themselves up in their
blankets, stretch themselves on the ground at the foot of a tree,
and go to sleep under the stars.
Every day they shot some game--squirrels or wild turkeys, or perhaps
a deer. They kindled a fire with flint and steel,[6] and roasted the
meat on sticks held over the coals. For plates they had clean chips;
and as clean chips could always be got by a few blows with an axe,
they never washed any dishes, but just threw them away, and had a
new set for each meal.
While in the Valley they met a band of Indians, who stopped and danced
a war-dance for them. The music was not remarkable,--for most of it
was made by drumming on a deer-skin stretched across the top of an
old iron pot,--but the dancing itself could not be beat. The savages
leaped into the air, swung their hatchets, gashed the trees, and
yelled till the woods rang.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON SEES AN INDIAN WAR-DANCE.]
When Washington returned from his surveying trip, Lord Fairfax was
greatly pleased with his work; and the governor of Virginia made him
one of the public surveyors. By this means he was able to get work
which paid him handsomely.
[Footnote 4: Survey: to find out the form, size, and position of a
piece of land by measuring it in certain ways.]
[Footnote 5: See map in this paragraph.]
[Footnote 6: Flint and steel: see picture in paragraph 84.]
128. Washington at the age of twenty-one; the French in the west;
the governor of Virginia sends Washington to see the French
commander.--By the time Washington was twenty-one he had grown to
be over six feet in height. He was straight as an arrow and tough
as a whip-lash. He had keen blue eyes that seemed to look into the
very heart of things, and his fist was like a blacksmith's
sledgehammer. He knew all about the woods, all about Indians, and
he could take care of himself anywhere.
At this time the English settlers held the country along the seashore
as far back as the Alleghany Mountains.[7] West of those mountains
the French from Canada were trying to get possession of the land.
They had made friends with many of the Indians, and they hoped, with
their help, to be able to drive out the English and get the whole
country for themselves.
In order to hold this land in the west, the French had built several
forts[8] south of Lake Erie, and they were getting ready to build
some on the Ohio River. The governor of Virginia was determined to
put a stop to this. He had given young Washington the military title
of major;[9] he now sent Major Washington to see the French commander
at one of the forts near Lake Erie. Washington was to tell the
Frenchman that he had built his forts on land belonging to the English,
and that he and his men must either leave or fight.
Major Washington dressed himself like an Indian, and attended by
several friendly Indians and by a white man named Gist,[10] who knew
the country well, he set out on his journey through what was called
the Great Woods.
The entire distance to the farthest fort and back was about a thousand
miles. Washington could go on horseback part of the way, but there
were no regular roads, and he had to climb mountains and swim rivers.
After several weeks' travel he reached the fort, but the French
commander refused to give up the land. He said that he and his men
had come to stay, and that if the English did not like it, they must
fight.
[Footnote 7: Alleghany (Al'le-ga'ni): see map in paragraph 127. (It
is also spelled Allegheny.)]
[Footnote 8: Forts: see map in paragraph 127.]
[Footnote 9: Major (ma'jer): an officer in the army next above a
captain, but below a colonel.]
[Footnote 10: Gist (Jist).]
129. The journey back; the Indian guide; how Washington found his
way through the woods; the adventure with the raft.--On the way back,
Washington had to leave his horses and come on foot with Gist and
an Indian guide sent from the fort. This Indian guide was in the pay
of the French, and he intended to murder Washington in the woods.
One day he shot at him from behind a tree, but luckily did not hit
him. Then Washington and Gist managed to get away from him, and set
out to go back to Virginia by themselves. There were no paths through
the thick forest; but Washington had his compass with him, and with
that he could find his way just as the captain of a ship finds his
at sea. When they reached the Alleghany River they found it full of
floating ice. They worked all day and made a raft of logs. As they
were pushing their way across with poles, Washington's pole was
struck by a big piece of ice which he says jerked him out into water
ten feet deep. At length the two men managed to get to a little island,
but as there was no wood on it, they could not make a fire. The weather
was bitterly cold, and Washington, who was soaked to the skin, had
to take his choice between walking about all night, or trying to sleep
on the frozen ground in his wet clothes.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON AND GIST ON THE RAFT.]
130. Major Washington becomes Colonel Washington; Fort Necessity;
Braddock's defeat.--When Major Washington got back to Virginia, the
governor made him colonel. With a hundred and fifty men, Colonel
Washington was ordered to set out for the west. He was to "make
prisoners, kill or destroy," all Frenchmen who should try to get
possession of land on the Ohio River. He built a small log fort, which
he named Fort Necessity.[11] Here the French attacked him. They had
five men to his one. Colonel Washington fought like a man who liked
to hear the bullets whistle past his ears,--as he said he did,--but
in the end he had to give up the fort.
Then General Braddock, a noted English soldier, was sent over to
Virginia by the king to drive the French out of the country. He
started with a fine army, and Washington went with him.[12] He told
General Braddock that the French and the Indians would hide in the
woods and fire at his men from behind trees. But Braddock paid no
attention to the warning. On his way through the forest, the brave
English general was suddenly struck down by the enemy, half of his
army were killed or wounded, and the rest put to flight. Washington
had two horses shot under him, and four bullets went through his coat.
It was a narrow escape for the young man. One of those who fought
in the battle said, "I expected every moment to see him fall"--but
he was to live for greater work.
[Illustration: FALL OF GENERAL BRADDOCK ON THE BATTLE-FIELD.]
[Footnote 11: Fort Necessity: see map in paragraph 127.]
[Footnote 12: See map of Braddock's march in paragraph 127.]
131. End of the war with the French; what the king of England wanted
to do; how the people here felt toward him.--The war with the French
lasted a number of years. It ended by the English getting possession
of the whole of America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi
River. All this part of America was ruled by George the Third, king
of England. The king now determined to send over more soldiers, and
keep them here to prevent the French in Canada from trying to get
back the country they had lost. He wanted the people here in the
thirteen colonies[13] to pay the cost of keeping these soldiers. But
this the people were not willing to do, because they felt that they
were able to protect themselves without help of any kind. Then the
king said, If the Americans will not give the money, I will take it
from them by force,--for pay it they must and shall. This was more
than the king would have dared say about England; for there, if he
wanted money to spend on his army, he had to ask the people for it,
and they could give it or not as they thought best. The Americans
said, We have the same rights as our brothers in England, and the
king cannot force us to give a single copper against our will. If
he tries to take it from us, we will fight. Some of the greatest men
in England agreed with us, and said that they would fight, too, if
they were in our place.
[Footnote 13: Thirteen colonies: see footnote 4 at the end of
paragraph 102.]
132. The king determines to have the money; the tea-ships, and the
"Boston tea-party."--But George the Third did not know the Americans,
and he did not think that they meant what they said. He tried to make
them pay the money, but they would not. From Maine to Georgia, all
the people were of one mind. Then the king thought that he would try
a different way. Shiploads of tea were sent over to New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, and Charleston, If the tea should be landed and sold,
then every man who bought a pound of it would have to pay six cents
more than the regular price. That six cents was a tax, and it went
into the king's pocket. The people said, We won't pay that six cents.
When the tea reached New York, the citizens sent it back again to
England. They did the same thing at Philadelphia. At Charleston they
let it be landed, but it was stored in damp cellars. People would
not buy any of it any more than they would buy so much poison, so
it all rotted and spoiled. At Boston they had a grand "tea-party."
A number of men dressed themselves up like Indians, went on board
the tea-ships at night, broke open all the chests, and emptied the
tea into the harbor.
[Illustration: THE BOSTON "TEA-PARTY."]
133. The king closes the port of Boston; Congress meets at
Philadelphia; the names American and British; what General Gage
tried to do.--The king was terribly angry; and orders were given that
the port of Boston should be closed, so that no ships, except the
king's war-ships, should come in or go out. Nearly all trade stopped
in Boston. Many of the inhabitants began to suffer for want of food,
but throughout the colonies the people tried their best to help them.
The New England towns sent droves of sheep and cattle, New York sent
wheat, South Carolina gave two hundred barrels of rice; the other
colonies gave liberally in money and provisions. Even in England much
sympathy was felt for the distressed people of Boston, and in London
a large sum of money was raised to help those whom the king was
determined to starve into submission.
The colonies now sent some of their best men to Philadelphia to
consider what should be done. As this meeting was made up of those
who had come from all parts of the country, it took the name of the
General or Continental Congress.[14]
About this time, too, a great change took place; for the people
throughout the country began to call themselves Americans, and to
speak of the English troops that the king sent over here as British
soldiers.
In Boston General Gage had command of these soldiers. He knew that
the Americans were getting ready to fight, and that they had stored
up powder and ball at Concord,[15] about twenty miles from Boston.
One night he secretly sent out a lot of soldiers to march to Concord
and destroy what they found there.
[Footnote 14: Congress: this word means a meeting or assembly of
persons. The General or Continental Congress was an assembly of
certain persons sent usually by all of the thirteen American colonies
to meet at Philadelphia or Baltimore, to decide what should be done
by the whole country. The first Congress met in 1774, or shortly
before the Revolution began, and after that from time to time until
near the close of the Revolution.]
[Footnote 15: Concord (Con'cord).]
134. Paul Revere;[16] the fight at Lexington and Concord; Bunker
Hill.--But Paul Revere, a Boston man, was on the watch; and as soon
as he found out which way the British were going, he set off at a
gallop for Lexington, on the road to Concord. All the way out, he
roused people from their sleep, with the cry, "The British are
coming!"
[Illustration: PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.]
When the king's soldiers reached Lexington, they found the Americans,
under Captain Parker, ready for them. Captain Parker said to his men,
"Don't fire unless you are fired on; but if they want a war, _let
it begin here_." The fighting did begin there, April 19th, 1775; and
when the British left the town on their way to Concord, seven
Americans lay dead on the grass in front of the village church. At
Concord, that same day, there was still harder fighting; and on the
way back to Boston, a large number of the British were killed.
The next month, June 17th, 1775 a battle was fought on Bunker Hill
in Charlestown, just outside of Boston. General Gage thought the
Yankees wouldn't fight, but they did fight, in a way that General
Gage never forgot; and though they had at last to retreat because
their powder gave out, yet the British lost more than a thousand men.
The contest at Bunker Hill was the first great battle of the
Revolution; that is, of that war which overturned the British power
in America, and made us a free people. Many Englishmen thought the
king was wrong. They would not fight against us, and he was obliged
to hire a large number of German soldiers to send to America. These
Germans had to fight us whether they wanted to or not, for their king
forced them to come.
[Footnote 16: Revere (Re-veer').]
135. Colonel Washington at Mount Vernon; Congress makes him General
Washington, and sends him to take command of the American army.--At
the time the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, Colonel George
Washington was living very quietly at Mount Vernon. His brother
Lawrence had died, and Mount Vernon was now his home. Washington was
very well off: he had a fine estate and plenty of slaves to do the
work on it; but when he died, many years later, he took good care
to leave orders that all of his slaves should be set free as soon
as it could be done.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON.]
[Illustration: WASHINGTON TAKING COMMAND OF THE AMERICAN ARMY AT
CAMBRIDGE.]
Congress now made Colonel Washington general, and sent him to
Cambridge, a town just outside of Boston, to take command of the
American army. It was called the Continental Army because it was
raised, not to fight for the people of Massachusetts, but for all
the Americans on the continent, north and south. Washington took
command of the army under a great elm, which is still standing. There,
six months later, he raised the first American flag.[17]
[Illustration: THE NORTHERN STATES IN THE REVOLUTION.]
[Footnote 17: See a picture of this and the other flags of the
Revolution in paragraph 142.]
136. American sharpshooters;[18] Washington's need of cannon and
powder; the attack on Canada; the British driven out of Boston.--Men
now came from all parts of the country to join the Continental Army.
Many of them were sharpshooters. In one case an officer set up a board
with the figure of a man's nose chalked on it, for a mark. A hundred
men fired at it at long distance, and sixty hit the nose. The
newspapers gave them great praise for their skill and said, "Now,
General Gage, look out for _your_ nose."
[Illustration: "NOW, GENERAL GAGE, LOOK OUT FOR _your_ NOSE."]
Washington wanted to drive General Gage and the British soldiers out
of Boston, but for months he could not get either cannon or powder.
Benjamin Franklin said that we should have to fight as the Indians
used to, with bows and arrows.
While Washington was waiting, a number of Americans marched against
the British in Canada; but the cold weather came on, and they nearly
starved to death: our men would sometimes take off their
moccasins[19] and gnaw them, while they danced in the snow to keep
their bare feet from freezing.
At last Washington got both cannon and powder. He dragged the cannon
up to the top of some high land overlooking Boston harbor. He then
sent word to General Howe, for Gage had gone, that if he did not leave
Boston he would knock his ships to pieces. The British saw that they
could not help themselves, so they made haste to get on board their
vessels and sail away. They never came back to Boston again, but went
to New York.
[Footnote 18: Sharpshooters: men who can fire and hit a small mark
with a bullet at a long distance.]
[Footnote 19: Moccasins (mok'ka-sins): Indian shoes made of
deerskin.]
137. The Declaration of Independence; "Down with the king!"
Washington is driven from New York and across the Delaware
River.--Washington got to New York first. While he was there,
Congress,[20] on the 4th of July, 1776, declared the United States
_independent_--that is, entirely free from the rule of the king of
England. There was a gilded lead statue of King George the Third on
horseback in New York. When the news of what Congress had done reached
that city, there was a great cry of "Down with the king!" That night
some of our men pulled down the statue, melted it up, and cast it
into bullets.
[Illustration: "DOWN WITH THE KING!"]
The next month there was a battle on Long Island,[21] just across
from New York City; the British gained the victory. Washington had
to leave New York, and Lord Cornwallis, one of the British generals,
chased him and his little army clear across the state of New Jersey.
It looked at one time as though our men would all be taken prisoners,
but Washington managed to seize a lot of small boats on the Delaware
River[22] and get across into Pennsylvania: as the British had no
boats, they could not follow.
[Footnote 20: Congress: see footnote 14 in paragraph 133.]
[Footnote 21: See map in paragraph 135.]
[Footnote 22: See map in paragraph 135.]
138. Washington's victory at Trenton, New Jersey.--Lord Cornwallis
left fifteen hundred German soldiers at Trenton on the Delaware. He
intended, as soon as the river froze over, to cross on the ice and
attack Washington's army. But Washington did not wait for him. On
Christmas night (1776) he took a large number of boats, filled them
with soldiers, and secretly crossed over to New Jersey.[23] The
weather was intensely cold, the river was full of floating ice, and
a furious snow-storm set in. Many of our men were ragged and had only
old broken shoes. They suffered terribly, and two of them were frozen
to death.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE RIVER.]
The Germans at Trenton had been having a jolly Christmas, and had
gone to bed, suspecting no danger. Suddenly Washington, with his men,
rushed into the little town, and almost before they knew what had
happened, a thousand Germans were made prisoners. The rest escaped
to tell Lord Cornwallis how the Americans had beaten them. When
Washington was driven out of New York, many Americans thought he
would be captured. Now they were filled with joy. The battle of
Trenton was the first battle won by the Continental Army.
[Footnote 23: See map in paragraph 135.]
139. Our victory at Princeton, New Jersey; the British take
Philadelphia; winter at Valley Forge; Burgoyne beaten; the king of
France agrees to help us.--Washington took his thousand prisoners
over into Pennsylvania. A few days later he again crossed the
Delaware into New Jersey. While Cornwallis was fast asleep in his
tent, he slipped round him, got to Princeton,[24] and there beat a
part of the British army. Cornwallis woke up and heard Washington's
cannon. "That's thunder," he said. He was right; it was the thunder
of another American victory.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON ON HORSEBACK.]
But before the next winter set in, the British had taken the city
of Philadelphia, then the capital of the United States. Washington's
army was freezing and starving on the hillsides of Valley Forge,[25]
about twenty miles northwest of Philadelphia.
But good news was coming. The Americans had won a great victory at
Saratoga, New York,[26] over the British general, Burgoyne.[27] Dr.
Franklin was then in Paris. When he heard that Burgoyne was beaten,
he hurried off to the palace of the French king to tell him about
it. The king of France hated the British, and he agreed to send money,
ships, and soldiers to help us. When our men heard that at Valley
Forge, they leaped and hurrahed for joy. Not long after that the
British left Philadelphia, and we entered it in triumph.
[Footnote 24: Princeton: see map in paragraph 135.]
[Footnote 25: Valley Forge: see map in paragraph 135.]
[Footnote 26: Saratoga: see map in paragraph 135.]
[Footnote 27: Burgoyne (Bur'goin).]
140. The war at the South; Jasper; Cowpens; Greene and
Cornwallis.--While these things were happening at the north, the
British sent a fleet of vessels to take Charleston, South Carolina.
They hammered away with their big guns at a little log fort under
command of Colonel Moultrie. In the battle a cannon-ball struck the
flag-pole on the fort, and cut it in two. The South Carolina flag
fell to the ground outside the fort. Sergeant[28] William Jasper
leaped down, and, while the British shot were striking all around
him, seized the flag, climbed back, fastened it to a short staff,
and raised it to its place, to show that the Americans would never
give up the fort. The British, after fighting all day, saw that they
could do nothing against palmetto logs[29] when defended by such men
as Moultrie and Jasper; so they sailed away with such of their ships
as had not been destroyed.
[Illustration: SERGEANT JASPER AND THE FLAG.]
Several years later, Charleston was taken. Lord Cornwallis then took
command of the British army in South Carolina. General Greene, of
Rhode Island, had command of the Americans. He sent Daniel Morgan
with his sharpshooters to meet part of the British army at
Cowpens;[30] they did meet them, and sent them flying. Then
Cornwallis determined to either whip General Greene or drive him out
of the state. But General Greene worried Cornwallis so that at last
he was glad enough to get into Virginia. He had found North and South
Carolina like two hornets' nests, and the further he got away from
those hornets, the better he was pleased.
[Illustration: THE SOUTHERN STATES IN THE REVOLUTION.]
[Footnote 28: Sergeant (sar'jent): a military officer of low rank.]
[Footnote 29: Palmetto logs: the wood of the palmetto tree is very
soft and spongy; the cannon-balls, when they struck, would bury
themselves in the logs, but would neither break them to pieces nor
go through them.]
[Footnote 30: Cowpens: see map in this paragraph.]
141. Cornwallis and Benedict Arnold; Lafayette; Cornwallis shuts
himself up in Yorktown.--When Lord Cornwallis got into Virginia he
found Benedict Arnold waiting to help him. Arnold had been a general
in the American army; Washington gave him the command of the fort
at West Point, on the Hudson River,[31] and trusted him as though
he was his brother. Arnold deceived him, and secretly offered to give
up the fort to the British. We call a man who is false to his friends
and to his country a traitor: it is the most shameful name we can
fasten on him. Arnold was a traitor; and if we could have caught him,
we should have hanged him; but he was cunning enough to run away and
escape to the British. Now he was burning houses and towns in Virginia,
and doing all that he could--as a traitor always will--to destroy
those who had once been his best friends. He wanted to stay in
Virginia and assist Cornwallis; but that general was a brave and
honorable man: he despised Arnold, and did not want to have anything
to do with him.
A young nobleman named Lafayette[32] had come over from France on
purpose to help us against the British. Cornwallis laughed at him
and called him a "boy"; but he found that General Lafayette was a
"boy" who knew how to fight. The British commander moved toward the
seacoast; Lafayette followed him; at length Cornwallis shut himself
up with his army in Yorktown.[33]
[Footnote 31: West Point: see map in paragraph 135.]
[Footnote 32: Lafayette (Lah-fay-et').]
[Footnote 33: Yorktown: see map in paragraph 140.]
142. Washington marches against Yorktown, and takes it and the army
of Cornwallis.--Washington, with his army, was then near New York
City, watching the British there. The French king had done as he
agreed, and had sent over warships and soldiers to help us; but so
far they had never been able to do much. Now was the chance. Before
the British knew what Washington was about, he had sent the French
war-ships down to Yorktown to prevent Cornwallis from getting away
by sea. Then, with his own army and some French soldiers besides,
Washington quickly marched south to attack Yorktown by land.
When he got there he placed his cannon round the town, and began
battering it to pieces. For more than a week he kept firing night
and day. One house had over a thousand balls go through it. Its walls
looked like a sieve. At last Cornwallis could not hold out any longer,
and on October 19th, 1781, his army came out and gave themselves up
as prisoners.
The Americans formed a line more than a mile long on one side of the
road, and the French stood facing them on the other side. The French
had on gay clothes, and looked very handsome; the clothes of
Washington's men were patched and faded, but their eyes shone with
a wonderful light--the light of victory. The British marched out
slowly, between the two lines: somehow they found it pleasanter to
look at the bright uniforms of the French, than to look at the eyes
of the Americans.
[Illustration: THE FLAGS OF THE REVOLUTION.[34]]
[Footnote 34: The flag with the large crosses on it, on the left,
is the English flag at the time of the American Revolution. The flag
on the right is that which Washington raised at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, January 2d, 1776. He simply took the English flag,
and added thirteen stripes to represent the union of the thirteen
English colonies. The flag in the centre, with its thirteen stars
and thirteen stripes representing the thirteen states, is the first
American _national_ flag. It was adopted by Congress June 14th, 1777,
not quite a year after we had declared ourselves independent of Great
Britain. Beneath this flag is Washington's coat of arms with a Latin
motto, meaning "The event justifies the deed." It is possible that
the stars and stripes on our national flag came from the stars and
stripes (or bars) on this ancient coat of arms, which may be seen
on the tombstone of one of the Washington family, buried in 1583,
in the parish church at Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, England.]
143. How the news of the taking of Yorktown was carried to
Philadelphia; Lord Fairfax.--People at a distance noticed that the
cannon had suddenly stopped firing. They looked at each other, and
asked, "What does it mean?" All at once a man appears on horseback.
He is riding with all his might toward Philadelphia, where Congress
is. As he dashes past, he rises in his stirrups, swings his cap, and
shouts with all his might, "Cornwallis is taken! Cornwallis is
taken!" Then it was the people's turn to shout; and they made the
hills ring with, "Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!"
[Illustration: "CORNWALLIS IS TAKEN!"]
Poor Lord Fairfax,[35] Washington's old friend, had always stood by
the king. He was now over ninety. When he heard the cry, "Cornwallis
is taken!" it was too much for the old man. He said to his negro
servant, "Come, Joe; carry me to bed, for I'm sure it's high time
for me to die."
[Footnote 35: See paragraph 126.]
144. Tearing down the British flag at New York; Washington goes back
to Mount Vernon; he is elected President; his death; Lafayette visits
his tomb.--The Revolutionary War had lasted seven years,--terrible
years they were, years of sorrow, suffering, and death,--but now the
end had come, and America was free. When the British left New York
City, they nailed the British flag to a high pole on the wharf; but
a Yankee sailor soon climbed the pole, tore down the flag of England,
and hoisted the stars and stripes in its place. That was more than
a hundred years ago. Now the English and the Americans have become
good friends, and the English people see that the Revolution ended
in the way that was best for both of us.
[Illustration: HOISTING THE STARS AND STRIPES AT NEW YORK.]
When it was clear that there would be no more fighting, Washington
went back to Mount Vernon. He hoped to spend the rest of his life
there. But the country needed him, and a few years later it chose
him the first President of the United States.
[Illustration: PRESIDENT WASHINGTON'S COACH.]
Washington was made President in New York City, which was the capital
of the United States at that time. A French gentleman who was there
tells us how Washington, standing in the presence of thousands of
people, placed his hand on the Bible, and solemnly swore that with
the help of God he would protect and defend the United States of
America.
[Illustration: PRESIDENT WASHINGTON TAKING THE OATH.]
Washington was elected President twice. When he died many of the
people in England and France joined America in mourning for him; for
all men honored his memory.
Lafayette came over to visit us many years afterward. He went to Mount
Vernon, where Washington was buried. There he went down into the
vault, and, kneeling by the side of the coffin, covered his face with
his hands, and shed tears of gratitude to think that he had known
such a man as Washington, and that Washington had been his friend.
[Illustration: LAFAYETTE AT WASHINGTON'S COFFIN.]
145. Summary.--George Washington, the son of a Virginia planter,
became the leader of the armies of the United States in the war of
the Revolution. At the close of the war, after he had made America
free, he was elected our first President. His name stands to-day
among those of the greatest men in the history of the world.
When and where was George Washington born? What did he learn at
school? What did he write in one of his writing-books? Tell about
his sports and games at school. What is said of "Captain George"?
Tell the story about the colt. What did George's mother say? Tell
about George's visit to his brother and to the Fairfaxes. What is
said of Lord Fairfax? What did he hire Washington to do? Tell about
his surveying and his life in the woods. Tell about the Indian
war-dance. What did the governor of Virginia do when Washington
returned? What is said of Washington at the age of twenty-one? Tell
about his journey to the French forts and his return. What is said
about the Indian guide? What about the raft? What did the governor
of Virginia do when Washington returned? What did the governor order
him to do? What about Fort Necessity? Tell about General Braddock,
and about what happened to Washington. What is said about the end
of the war? What did King George the Third determine to do? What did
the king want the Americans to do? How did they feel? What did the
king say? What did the Americans say to that? What did some of the
greatest men in England say? What did the king then try to do? Tell
about the tea-ships. What happened in Boston? What was done to
Boston? What help did the people of Boston get? What did the colonies
now do? What did the people now begin to call themselves? What did
they call the English troops?
Who commanded the British soldiers in Boston? What did he do? What
about Paul Revere? What did Captain Parker of Lexington say to his
men? What happened at Lexington and at Concord? Tell about the battle
of Bunker Hill. What did many Englishmen refuse to do? Where was
Colonel Washington living? What did Congress do? Where did
Washington take command of the army? Tell about the sharpshooters.
Tell about the march to Canada. How did Washington take Boston? Where
did the British go? Where did Washington go? What did Congress do
on July 4th, 1776? What happened in New York? What about the battle
of Long Island? What did Cornwallis do? Tell about the victory at
Trenton. What happened at Princeton? What city did the British take?
Where was Washington's army? What happened at Saratoga? What did the
king of France do? What happened at the south? Tell about Sergeant
Jasper. What is said about General Greene? What did Cornwallis do?
Where did he go? What is said about Benedict Arnold? What about
Lafayette? Where did Cornwallis shut himself up with his army? What
did Washington do? Tell about the surrender of Cornwallis. How was
the news carried to Philadelphia? What is said of Lord Fairfax? How
long had the war lasted? What was done at New York? What is said of
General Washington after the war? Tell how he was made President.
What happened when he died? What is said of Lafayette?
DANIEL BOONE
(1734-1820).
146. Daniel Boone; what the hunters of the west did; Boone's life
in North Carolina.--Before Washington began to fight the battles of
the Revolution in the east, Daniel Boone and other famous hunters
were fighting bears and Indians in what was then called the west.
By that war in the woods, these brave and hardy men helped us to get
possession of that part of the country.
Daniel Boone was born in Pennsylvania.[1] His father moved to North
Carolina,[2] and Daniel helped him cut down the trees round their
log cabin in the forest. He ploughed the land, which was thick with
stumps, hoed the corn that grew up among those stumps, and then,--as
there was no mill near,--he pounded it into meal for "johnny-cake."
He learned how to handle a gun quite as soon as he did a hoe. The
unfortunate deer or coon that saw young Boone coming toward him knew
that he had seen his best days, and that he would soon have the whole
Boone family sitting round him at the dinner-table.
[Illustration: BOONE POUNDING CORN.]
[Footnote 1: He was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.]
[Footnote 2: He settled near Wilkesboro, on the banks of the Yadkin
River. See map in paragraph 150.]
147. Boone's wanderings in the western forests; his bear tree.--When
Daniel had grown to manhood, he wandered off with his gun on his
shoulder, and crossing the mountains, entered what is now the state
of Tennessee. That whole country was then a wilderness, full of
savage beasts and still more savage Indians; and Boone had many a
sharp fight with both.
More than a hundred and thirty years ago, he cut these words on a
beech-tree, still standing in Eastern Tennessee,[3]--"D. Boon
killed a bar on (this) tree in the year 1760." You will see if you
examine the tree, on which the words can still be read, that Boone
could not spell very well; but he could do what the bear minded a
good deal more,--he could shoot to kill.
[Illustration: BOONE'S BEAR TREE.]
[Footnote 3: The tree is still standing on the banks of Boone's Creek,
near Jonesboro, Washington County, Tennessee.]
148. Boone goes hunting in Kentucky; what kind of game he found there;
the Indians; the "Dark and Bloody Ground."--Nine years after he cut
his name on that tree, Boone, with a few companions, went to a new
part of the country. The Indians called it Kentucky. There he saw
buffalo, deer, bears, and wolves enough to satisfy the best hunter
in America.
This region was a kind of No Man's Land, because, though many tribes
of Indians roamed over it, none of them pretended to own it. These
bands of Indians were always fighting and trying to drive each other
out, so Kentucky was often called the "Dark and Bloody Ground." But,
much as the savages hated each other, they hated the white men, or
the "pale-faces," as they called them, still more.
149. Indian tricks; the owls.--The hunters were on the lookout for
these Indians, but the savages practised all kinds of tricks to get
the hunters near enough to shoot them. Sometimes Boone would hear
the gobble of a wild turkey. He would listen a moment, then he would
say, That is not a wild turkey, but an Indian, imitating that bird;
but he won't fool me and get me to come near enough to put a bullet
through my head.
One evening an old hunter, on his way to his cabin, heard what seemed
to be two young owls calling to each other. But his quick ear noticed
that there was something not quite natural in their calls, and what
was stranger still, that the owls seemed to be on the ground instead
of being perched on trees, as all well-behaved owls would be. He crept
cautiously along through the bushes till he saw something ahead which
looked like a stump. He didn't altogether like the looks of the stump.
He aimed his rifle at it, and fired. The stump, or what seemed to
be one, fell over backward with a groan. He had killed an Indian,
who had been waiting to kill him.
150. Boone makes the "Wilderness Road," and builds the fort at
Boonesboro'.--In 1775 Boone, with a party of thirty men, chopped a
path through the forest from the mountains of Eastern Tennessee to
the Kentucky River,[4] a distance of about two hundred miles. This
was the first path in that part of the country leading to the great
west. It was called the "_Wilderness Road_." Over that road, which
thousands of emigrants travelled afterward, Boone took his family,
with other settlers, to the Kentucky River. There they built a fort
called Boonesboro'. That fort was a great protection to all the first
settlers in Kentucky. In fact, it is hard to see how the state could
have grown up without it. So in one way, we can say with truth that
Daniel Boone, the hunter, fighter, and road-maker, was a
state-builder besides.
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING BOONE'S "WILDERNESS ROAD."]
[Footnote 4: See map in this paragraph.]
151. Boone's daughter is stolen by the Indians; how he found
her.--One day Boone's young daughter was out, with two other girls,
in a canoe on the river. Suddenly some Indians pounced on them and
carried them off.
One of the girls, as she went along, broke off twigs from the bushes,
so that her friends might be able to follow her track through the
woods. An Indian caught her doing it, and told her that he would kill
her if she did not instantly stop. Then she slyly tore off small bits
of her dress, and dropped a piece from time to time.
Boone and his men followed the Indians like bloodhounds. They picked
up the bits of dress, and so easily found which way the savages had
gone. They came up with the Indians just as they were sitting down
round a fire to eat their supper. Creeping toward them behind the
trees as softly as a cat creeps up behind a mouse, Boone and his men
aimed their rifles and fired. Two of the Indians fell dead, the rest
ran for their lives, and the girls were carried back in safety to
the fort.
152. Boone is captured by Indians; they adopt him as a son.--Later,
Boone himself was caught and carried off by the Indians. They
respected his courage so much that they would not kill him, but
decided to adopt him; that is, take him into the tribe as one of their
own people, or make an Indian of him.
They pulled out all his hair except one long lock, called the
"scalp-lock," which they left to grow in Indian fashion. The
squaws[5] and girls braided bright feathers in this lock, so that
Boone looked quite gay. Then the Indians took him down to a river.
There they stripped him, and scrubbed him with all their might, to
get his white blood out, as they said. Next, they painted his face
in stripes with red and yellow clay, so that he looked, as they
thought, handsomer than he ever had before in his life. When all had
been done, and they were satisfied with the appearance of their new
Indian, they sat down to a great feast, and made merry.
[Footnote 5: Squaws: Indian women.]
153. Boone escapes, but the Indians find him again; what a handful
of tobacco dust did.--After a time Boone managed to escape, but the
Indians were so fond of him that they could not rest till they found
him again. One day he was at work in a kind of shed drying some tobacco
leaves. He heard a slight noise, and turning round saw four Indians
with their guns pointed at him. "Now, Boone," said they, "we got you.
You no get away this time." "How are you?" said Boone, pleasantly;
"glad to see you; just wait a minute till I get you some of my
tobacco." He gathered two large handfuls of the leaves: they were
as dry as powder and crumbled to dust in his hands. Coming forward,
as if to give the welcome present to the Indians, he suddenly sprang
on them and filled their eyes, mouths, and noses with the stinging
tobacco dust. The savages were half choked and nearly blinded. While
they were dancing about, coughing, sneezing, and rubbing their eyes,
Boone slipped out of the shed and got to a place of safety. The Indians
were mad as they could be, yet they could hardly help laughing at
Boone's trick; for cunning as the red men were, he was more cunning
still.
[Illustration: BOONE'S FORT, AT BOONESBORO', KENTUCKY.]
154. Boone's old age; he moves to Missouri; he begs for a piece of
land; his grave.--Boone lived to be a very old man. He had owned a
good deal of land in the west, but he had lost possession of it. When
Kentucky began to fill up with people and the game was killed off,
Boone moved across the Mississippi into Missouri. He said that he
went because he wanted "more elbow room" and a chance to hunt buffalo
again.
He now begged the state of Kentucky to give him a small piece of land,
where, as he said, he could "lay his bones." The people of that state
generously helped him to get nearly a thousand acres; but he appears
to have soon lost possession of it. If he actually did lose it, then
this brave old hunter, who had opened up the way for such a multitude
of emigrants to get farms at the west, died without owning a piece
of ground big enough for a grave. He is buried in Frankfort, Kentucky,
within sight of the river on which he built his fort at Boonesboro'.
155. Summary.--Daniel Boone, a famous hunter from North Carolina,
opened up a road through the forest, from the mountains of Eastern
Tennessee to the Kentucky River. It was called the "Wilderness Road,"
and over it thousands of emigrants went into Kentucky to settle.
Boone, with others, built the fort at Boonesboro', Kentucky, and went
there to live. That fort protected the settlers against the Indians,
and so helped that part of the country to grow until it became the
state of Kentucky.
Tell about Daniel Boone. How did he help his father? Where did he
go when he became a man? What did he cut on a beech tree? Where did
he go after that? What is said of the Indians in Kentucky? Tell about
Indian tricks. Tell about the two owls. Tell about the Wilderness
Road. What is said of the fort at Boonesboro'? Tell how Boone's
daughter and the other girls were stolen by the Indians. What
happened next? Tell how Boone was captured by the Indians and how
they adopted him. Tell the story of the tobacco dust. What did Boone
do when he became old? What did Kentucky get for him? Where is he
buried?
GENERAL JAMES ROBERTSON AND GOVERNOR JOHN SEVIER[1]
(1742-1814; 1745-1815).
156. Who James Robertson was; Governor Tryon; the battle of
Alamance.[2]--When Daniel Boone first went to Kentucky (1769) he had
a friend named James Robertson, in North Carolina[3] who was, like
himself, a mighty hunter. The British governor of North Carolina at
that time was William Tryon. He lived in a palace built with money
which he had forced the people to give him. They hated him so for
his greed and cruelty that they nicknamed him the "Great Wolf of North
Carolina."
At last many of the settlers vowed that they would not give the
governor another penny. When he sent tax-collectors to get money,
they drove them back, and they flogged one of the governor's friends
with a rawhide till he had to run for his life.
The governor then collected some soldiers and marched against the
people in the west. A battle was fought near the Alamance River. The
governor had the most men and had cannon besides, so he gained the
day. He took seven of the people prisoners and hanged them. They all
died bravely, as men do who die for liberty.
[Footnote 1: Sevier (Se-veer'): he was born in Rockingham County,
Virginia.]
[Footnote 2: Alamance River (Al'a-mance): see map in paragraph 150.]
[Footnote 3: Robertson was born in Brunswick County, Virginia; he
emigrated to North Carolina and settled in the neighborhood of
Raleigh. See map in paragraph 150.]
157. James Robertson leaves North Carolina and goes west.--After the
battle of Alamance James Robertson and his family made up their minds
that they would not live any longer where Governor Tryon ruled. They
resolved to go across the mountains into the western wilderness.
Sixteen other families joined Robertson's and went with them. It was
a long, hard journey; for they had to climb rocks and find their way
through deep, tangled woods. The men went ahead with their axes and
their guns; then the older children followed, driving the cows; last
of all came the women with the little children, with beds, pots, and
kettles packed on the backs of horses.
[Illustration: ROBERTSON WITH HIS PARTY CROSSING THE MOUNTAINS
ON THEIR WAY TO TENNESSEE.]
158. The emigrants settle on the Watauga River[4] in
Tennessee.--When the little party had crossed the mountains into
what is now the state of Tennessee, they found a delightful valley.
Through this valley there ran a stream of clear sparkling water
called the Watauga River; the air of the valley was sweet with the
smell of wild crab-apples.
On the banks of that stream the emigrants built their new homes. Their
houses were simply rough log huts, but they were clean and
comfortable. When the settlers put up these cabins, they chopped down
every tree near them which was big enough for an Indian to hide behind.
They knew that they might have to fight the savages; but they had
rather do that than be robbed by tax-collectors. In the wilderness
Governor Tryon could not reach them--they were free; free as the deer
and the squirrels were: that one thought made them contented and
happy.
[Footnote 4: Watauga River (Wa-taw'ga): see map in paragraph 150.]
159. John Sevier goes to settle at Watauga; what he and Robertson
did.--The year after this little settlement was made John Sevier went
from Virginia to Watauga, as it was called. He and Robertson soon
became fast friends--for one brave man can always see something to
respect and like in another brave man. Robertson and Sevier hunted
together and worked together.
After a while they called a meeting of the settlers and agreed on
some excellent laws, so that everything in the log village might be
done decently and in order; for although these people lived in the
woods, they had no notion of living like savages or wild beasts. In
course of time President Washington made James Robertson General
Robertson, in honor of what he had done for his country.
Out of this settlement on the Watauga River grew the state of
Tennessee. A monument in honor of John Sevier stands in Nashville,
a city founded by his friend Robertson. Sevier became the first
governor of the new state.
[Illustration: THE SEVIER MONUMENT.]
160. Summary.--James Robertson, of North Carolina, and John Sevier,
of Virginia, emigrated across the mountains to the western
wilderness. They settled on the Watauga River, and that settlement,
with others made later, grew into the state of Tennessee, of which
John Sevier became the first governor.
What friend did Boone have in North Carolina? Tell about Governor
Tryon. What happened on the Alamance River? Where did Robertson and
others go? Where did they settle? Why did they like to be there? Tell
about John Sevier. What did he and Robertson do? What did Washington
do for Robertson? What state grew out of the Watauga settlement? What
did Sevier become? Where is his monument?
GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK
(1752-1818).
161. The British in the west; their forts; hiring Indians to fight
the settlers.--While Washington was fighting the battles of the
Revolution in the east, the British in the west were not sitting still.
They had a number of forts in the Wilderness,[1] as that part of the
country was then called. One of these forts was at Detroit,[2] in
what is now Michigan; another was at Vincennes,[3] in what is now
Indiana; a third fort was at Kaskaskia,[4] in what is now Illinois.
[Illustration: Map showing the Forts at Detroit, Kaskaskia, and
Vincennes, with the line of Clark's march.]
Colonel Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, was determined
to drive the American settlers out of the west. In the beginning of
the Revolution the Americans resolved to hire the Indians to fight
for them, but the British found that they could hire them better than
we could, and so they got their help. The savages did their work in
a terribly cruel way. Generally they did not come out and do battle
openly, but they crept up secretly, by night, and attacked the
farmers' homes. They killed and scalped the settlers in the west,
burned their log cabins, and carried off the women and children
prisoners. The greater part of the people in England hated this sort
of war. They begged the king not to hire the Indians to do these
horrible deeds of murder and destruction. George the Third was not
a bad-hearted man; but he was very set in his way, and he had fully
made up his mind to conquer the "American rebels," as he called them,
even if he had to get the savages to help him do it.
[Footnote 1: See map in paragraph 187.]
[Footnote 2: Detroit (De-troit'): for these forts see map in this
paragraph.]
[Footnote 3: Vincennes (Vin-senz').]
[Footnote 4: Kaskaskia (Kas-kas'ki-a).]
162. George Rogers Clark gets help from Virginia and starts to attack
Fort Kaskaskia.--Daniel Boone had a friend in Virginia named George
Rogers Clark,[5] who believed that he could take the British forts
in the west and drive out the British from all that part of the country.
Virginia then owned most of the Wilderness. For this reason Clark
went to Patrick Henry, governor of Virginia, and asked for help. The
governor liked the plan, and let Clark have money to hire men to go
with him and try to take Fort Kaskaskia to begin with.
Clark started in the spring of 1778 with about a hundred and fifty
men. They built boats just above Pittsburg[6] and floated down the
Ohio River, a distance of over nine hundred miles. Then they landed
in what is now Illinois, and set out for Fort Kaskaskia.[7]
[Footnote 5: George Rogers Clark was born near Monticello, Virginia.
See map in paragraph 140.]
[Footnote 6: Pittsburg: see map in paragraph 140.]
[Footnote 7: Fort Kaskaskia: see map in paragraph 161.]
163. The march to Fort Kaskaskia; how a dance ended.--It was a hundred
miles to the fort, and half of the way the men had to find their way
through thick woods, full of underbrush, briers, and vines. The
British, thinking the fort perfectly safe from attack, had left it
in the care of a French officer. Clark and his band reached Kaskaskia
at night. They found no one to stop them. The soldiers in the fort
were having a dance, and the Americans could hear the merry music
of a violin and the laughing voices of girls.
Clark left his men just outside the fort, and, finding a door open,
he walked in. He reached the room where the fun was going on, and
stopping there, he stood leaning against the door-post, looking on.
The room was lighted with torches; the light of one of the torches
happened to fall full on Clark's face; an Indian sitting on the floor
caught sight of him; he sprang to his feet and gave a terrific
war-whoop. The dancers stopped as though they had been shot; the
women screamed; the men ran to the door to get their guns. Clark did
not move, but said quietly, "Go on; only remember you are dancing
now under Virginia, and not under Great Britain." The next moment
the Americans rushed in, and Clark and his "Long Knives," as the
Indians called his men, had full possession of the fort.
[Illustration: CLARK LOOKING ON AT THE DANCE.]
164. How Fort Vincennes was taken; how the British got it back again;
what Francis Vigo[8] did.--Clark wanted next to march against Fort
Vincennes, but he had not men enough. There was a French Catholic
priest[9] at Kaskaskia, and Clark's kindness to him had made him our
friend. He said, I will go to Vincennes for you, and I will tell the
French, who hold the fort for the British, that the Americans are
their real friends, and that in this war they are in the right. He
went; the French listened to him, then hauled down the British flag
and ran up the American flag in its place.
The next year the British, led by Colonel Hamilton of Detroit, got
the fort back again. When Clark heard of it he said, "Either I must
take Hamilton, or Hamilton will take me." Just then Francis Vigo,
a trader at St. Louis, came to see Clark at Kaskaskia. Hamilton had
held Vigo as a prisoner, so he knew all about Fort Vincennes. Vigo
said to Clark, "Hamilton has only about eighty soldiers; you can take
the fort, and I will lend you all the money you need to pay your men
what you owe them."
[Footnote 8: Vigo (Vee-go).]
[Footnote 9: The priest was Father Gibault (Zhe-bo').]
165. Clark's march to Fort Vincennes; the "Drowned Lands."--Clark,
with about two hundred men, started for Vincennes. The distance was
nearly a hundred and fifty miles. The first week everything went on
pretty well. It was in the month of February, the weather was cold,
and it rained a good deal, but the men did not mind that. They would
get wet through during the day; but at night they built roaring log
fires, gathered round them, roasted their buffalo meat or venison,
smoked their pipes, told jolly stories, and sang jolly songs.
But the next week they got to a branch of the Wabash River.[10] Then
they found that the constant rains had raised the streams so that
they had overflowed their banks; the whole country was under water
three or four feet deep. This flooded country was called the "Drowned
Lands": before Clark and his men had crossed them they were nearly
drowned themselves.
[Footnote 10: See map in paragraph 161.]
166. Wading on to victory.--For about a week the Americans had to
wade in ice-cold water, sometimes waist deep, sometimes nearly up
to their chins. While wading, the men were obliged to hold their guns
and powder-horns above their heads to keep them dry. Now and then
a man would stub his toe against a root or a stone and would go
sprawling headfirst into the water. When he came up, puffing and
blowing from such a dive, he was lucky if he still had his gun. For
two days no one could get anything to eat; but hungry, wet, and cold,
they kept moving slowly on.
[Illustration: MEN WADING WITH GUNS OVER THEIR HEADS.]
The last part of the march was the worst of all. They were now near
the fort, but they still had to wade through a sheet of water four
miles across. Clark took the lead and plunged in. The rest, shivering,
followed. A few looked as though their strength and courage had given
out. Clark saw this, and calling to Captain Bowman,--one of the
bravest of his officers,--he ordered him to kill the first man who
refused to go forward.
At last, with numbed hands and chattering teeth, all got across, but
some of them were so weak and blue with cold that they could not take
another step, but fell flat on their faces in the mud. These men were
so nearly dead that no fire seemed to warm them. Clark ordered two
strong men to lift each of these poor fellows up, hold him between
them by the arms, and run him up and down until he began to get warm.
By doing this he saved every one.
167. Clark takes the fort; what we got by his victory; his
grave.--After a long and desperate fight Clark took Fort Vincennes
and hoisted the Stars and Stripes over it in triumph. The British
never got it back again. Most of the Indians were now glad to make
peace, and to promise to behave themselves.
By Clark's victory the Americans got possession of the whole western
wilderness up to Detroit. When the Revolutionary War came to an end,
the British did not want to give us any part of America beyond the
thirteen states on the Atlantic coast. But we said, The whole west,
clear to the Mississippi, is ours; we fought for it; we took it; we
hoisted our flag over its forts, and _we mean to keep it_. We did
keep it.
There is a grass-grown grave in a burial-ground in Louisville,
Kentucky, which has a small headstone marked with the letters G. R.
C., and nothing more; that is the grave of General George Rogers Clark,
the man who did more than any one else to get the west for us--or
what was called the west a hundred years ago.
[Illustration: CLARK'S GRAVE.]
168. Summary.--During the Revolutionary War George Rogers Clark of
Virginia, with a small number of men, captured Fort Kaskaskia in
Illinois, and Fort Vincennes in Indiana. Clark drove out the British
from that part of the country, and when peace was made, we kept the
west--that is, the country as far as the Mississippi River--as part
of the United States. Had it not been for him and his brave men, we
might not have got it.
What did the British have in the west? Where were three of those
forts? Who hired the Indians to fight? How did they fight? What did
most of the people in England think about this? What is said of George
the Third? What friend did Daniel Boone have in Virginia? What did
Clark undertake to do? Tell how he went down the Ohio. Tell how he
marched on Fort Kaskaskia. What happened when he got there? What did
Clark say to the people in the fort? How was Fort Vincennes taken?
What did the British do the next year? Tell about Francis Vigo. What
did Clark and his men start to do? How far off was Fort Vincennes?
Tell about the first part of the march. What lands did they come to?
Tell how the men waded. How did Clark save the lives of some of the
men? Did Clark take the fort? What did the Americans get possession
of by this victory? What happened at the end of the Revolutionary
War? What did we say? What is said of the grave at Louisville,
Kentucky? What did Clark get for us?
GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM
(1738-1824).
169. What General Putnam did for Washington, and what the British
said of Putnam's work.--When the British had possession of Boston
in the time of the Revolution, Washington asked Rufus Putnam,[1] who
was a great builder of forts, to help him drive them out. Putnam set
to work, one dark, stormy night, and built a fort on some high land[2]
overlooking Boston Harbor.
[Illustration: PUTNAM'S FORT. General Washington looking at the
British Ships in Boston Harbor.]
When the British commander woke up the next morning, he saw the
American cannon pointed at his ships. He was so astonished that he
could scarcely believe his eyes. "Why," said he, "the rebels have
done more in one night than my whole army could have done in a week."
Another officer, who had command of the British vessels, said, "If
the Americans hold that fort, I cannot keep a ship in the harbor."
Well, we know what happened. Our men did hold that fort, and the
British had to leave Boston. Next to General Washington, General
Rufus Putnam was the man who made them go; for not many officers in
the American army could build such a fort as he could.
[Footnote 1: Rufus Putnam was born in Sutton, Massachusetts.]
[Footnote 2: Dorchester Heights: now South Boston.]