Full text of "The Century book of famous Americans : the story of a young people's pilgrimage to historic homes"

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THE CENTURY BOOK
FOR YOUNG AMERICANS

The Story of the Government.

Issued under the auspices

of the National Society of

the Sons of the American Revolution.

With introduction by

GENERAL HORACE PORTER,

President-General of the Society.

THE CENTURY BOOK

OF THE
AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The Story of a Young People's
Pilgrimage to Historic Battlefields.

Issued under the auspices

of the Empire State Society of

the Sons of the American Revolution.

With introduction by

HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW,

President of the Society,

Uniform -with this book in size and style. Each
containing 230 pages and nearly as many illus-
trations. Price of each, $1.30.

A
A
A
A

A
^A

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A
A

STATUE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

BY AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS. IN LINCOLN PARK, CHICAGO.

ISSUED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE NATIONAL SOCIETY
OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

THE CENTURY BOOK
OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

THE STORY OF A YOUNG PEOPLE'S
PILGRIMAGE TO HISTORIC HOMES

ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS

AUTHOR OF "THE CENTURY BOOK FOR YOUNG AMERICANS,"
"HISTORIC BOYS," "A BOY OF THE FIRST EMPIRE," ETC.

WITH PORTRAITS AND MANY OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS

.
,

THE CENTURY CO., NEW YORK

14244

OEN

THE DE VINNE PRESS.

INTRODUCTION

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT-GENERAL, NATIONAL SOCIETY
OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

WASHINGTON, D. C, June 18, 1896.

THE organization of the National Society of the Daughters of the American
Revolution was the outgrowth of that notable epoch in American history when from
the Pacific coast the tidal wave of patriotic enthusiasm started, and by its might and
power kindled in the hearts of men and women interest in the Colonial and Revolu-
tionary periods which had so long lain dormant.

The National Sqpiety of the Daughters of the American Revolution was organ-
ized in Washington, D. C., October n, 1890. Its objects are: " (i) To perpetuate
the memory and the spirit of the men and women who achieved American Indepen-
dence, by the acquisition and protection of historic spots and the erection of monu-
ments ; by the encouragement of historical research in relation to the Revolution, and
the publication of its results ; by the preservation of documents and relics, and of
the records of the individual services of Revolutionary soldiers and patriots, and by the
promotion of celebrations of all patriotic anniversaries. (2) To carry out the injunction
of Washington in his farewell address to the American people : ' To promote, as an ob-
ject of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge,' thus
developing an enlightened public opinion, and affording to young and old such advan-
tages as shall develop in them the largest capacity for performing the duties of American
citizens. (3) To cherish, maintain, and extend the institutions of American freedom,
to foster true patriotism and love of country, and to aid in securing for mankind all
the blessings of liberty."

To-day the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution,
numbering fourteen thousand five hundred, supplemented by the organization of the
National Society of the Children of the American Revolution, numbering fourteen

Vlll

INTRODUCTION

hundred and thirty, whose motto is, " For God and country," stand united, to main-
tain the objects of the National Society as presented in the constitution and by-laws
of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

By the authority of the National Board of Managers this brief introduction is
written, and it is a free-will offering. It may be well, further, to state that the
National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution have no other interest
in " The Century Book of Famous Americans " than to wish it all success in its
endeavor to place before the youth of our country an account of the lives of some of
the men who have helped to make America famous.

LETITIA GREEN STEVENSON,

President- General.

THE GARDEN AT MOUNT VERNON.

SOME BOSTON SPIRES. FROM A PRINT (1758> IN THE KING'S COLLECTION IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

.TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

I IN BOSTON TOWN i

77/i? Birthplace of Franklin The Story of James Otis Tories and Traitors
The Webster Buildings The Samuel Adams Tablet The Father of the Revo-
lution A Novel Pilgrimage.

II IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS 17

Qidncy Granite and Qiiincy Men The Little Old Houses " Sink or Swim "

On Penris Hill A Great Father and His Famous Son An Historic
Mansion.

III IN THE OLD COLONY 33

From Plymouth to Duxbury The Puritan Captain The Webster Farm -
Marshfield bv the Sea Daniel Webster's Story The Home of a Great Ameri-
can.

IV IN THE NATION'S FIRST CAPITAL 49

New York's Greatest Man A Tour of the Old Town Famous Men and His-
toric Points The Story of Alexander Hamilton A Remarkable Character.

V THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL . 65

Where Franklin Lived An Extraordinary Man The Story of a Helpful Life

Landmarks and Relics Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.

VI AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST 83

Philadelphia's Place in History A New Plan of Pilgrimage /// the Mouth of
the Chesapeake The Old Dominion Richmond and Patrick Henry.

X TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

VII A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL 103

Richmond on the James A City Set on a Hill Relics and Reminders A
Jeffersonian Atmosphere No Sectionalism in Heroism.

VIII WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO 117

At Charlottesville Up the Little Mountain The House with Two Fronts
The Grave on the Mountain The Story of a Statesman.

IX IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY 137

Over the Hills into Kentucky The Three Giants The Champion of a
Mistake Calhoiin's Story The "Millboy of the Slashes'" Blue- grass Land-
scapes Ashland, the Home of Henry Clay.

X IN AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE 157

Jack's Discomfiture Beautiful Kentucky The Dark and Bloody Ground
Louisville Hospitality Glimpses of Jackson At the Hermitage Old
Alfred's Reminiscences Relics and Stories The Home and Character of Old
Hickory.

XI BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI 173

Uncle Tout's Latest Mammoth Cave Explorers The Birthplace of Lincoln
Across the Prairies By the ''Father of Waters" Where Grant got His
Experience A Leader's Life A Hero's Death.

XII AT LINCOLN'S HOME 193

The Mississippi Valley Pioneers of France /// Lincoln's Land The Sim-
plicity of it All The American A "Rebel's" Tribute.

XIII BY THE POTOMAC 211

/// the Big City of the West Across Ohio /// the Land of Romance The
Great White Dome At Mount Vernon The Greatest of Men.

XIV TALKING IT OVER 233

Famous Americans in Washington Homeward Bound A "Quiz" in Fame-
study Impressions Patriotism Memories Good-by.

INDEX 251

THE CENTURY BOOK
OF FAMOUS AMERICANS.

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MOUNT VERNON IN 1796.

THE CENTURY BOOK
OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

CHAPTER I

IN BOSTON TOWN

The Birthplace of Franklin The Story of James Otis Tories and
Traitors The Webster Buildings The Samuel Adams Tablet

The Father of the Revolution A Novel Pilgrimage.

HEY had left the Old South Meeting-house with its revo-
lutionary relics, and were slowly sauntering down the sunny
side of Milk street when Jack seized his uncle's arm.

" Look over there, Uncle Tom ! " he cried. " See what it
says on that building: 'The Birthplace of Franklin.' Why,
I did n't know that Franklin was born in Boston. I thought he was a
Philadelphian."

" He was an American, Jack," Uncle Tom replied. " I sometimes think
he was the first real American. But he was Boston born and bred. You
ask Roger. I imagine every boy who goes to the Boston Latin School and
tries for the Franklin medal knows of the clause in Franklin's will that tells
the story. 'I was born in Boston, 'it says. 'I owe my first instruction in
literature to the free grammar schools established there.' And so he set
aside five hundred dollars, the interest from which was to provide, forever,
for silver medals for ' the most deserving boys ' of what afterward became
the English High and Latin schools of his native town. But, though born
in Boston, Philadelphia was the home of Franklin for the greater part of
his life."

"Why, yes; of course I know that, Uncle Tom," Marian declared.
" Don't you remember the story, Jack, about Franklin's first day in
Philadelphia ? "

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

"To be sure I do," broke in Jack; "that 's when he saw the girl who
afterward became his wife, with a loaf of bread under each arm, eating
another."

Marian laughed so merrily at this that people in the street turned to see
who could be so very hilarious in the shadow of the Old South.

; "Now, is n't that just like Jack? " she cried. " You 'd think

it was Franklin's wife who was eating the bread. And how
could any one walk the streets with a loaf under each arm
and eating another? Franklin did n't have three hands,
did he ? "

" I guess I put a loaf too many in the story," Jack con-
fessed. " But what of that ? Franklin could have eaten it
that way if any one could. He was smart enough to do
anything. And so that 's where he was born, is it?"

's the spot," said Uncle Tom. Some people
declare his birthplace was down
on Hanover street, but it now
seems pretty certain that the little
Milk street house was the ri^ht

one."

" But not in that tailor's shop,
surely," said Christine. "Why, it
does n't look nearly old enough. 1 '

" Of course not," Marian de-
cided. "Why, Franklin was born
in when was he born, Uncle

THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON.
Franklin's birthplace is opposite the farther end.

Tom ? '

" Seventeenth of January,
1706," promptly replied her uncle,
who, as all the boys and girls de-
clared, was always "great on dates."

" I 'm afraid," he continued,
"your making the birthplace of
Franklin out of that iron buildine

across the way about equals Jack's
three arms, though I must say
that the stories all uphold Jack's
three loaves."

" Aha ! Miss Smarty ; what
did I tell you ? "cried Jack, trium-

IX BOSTON TOWN

" I said Franklin could do it. 1

"m going to try it some

phantly.

day."

" No ; that building over there is, of course, on the site of Franklin's
birthplace," Uncle Tom explained. " It simply marks with its memorial
tablet the spot on which stood, until
the year 1810, the queer little top-
heavy wooden cottage in which Ben-
jamin Franklin was born."

" That was a good deal like
Franklin himself, was n't it, Uncle
Tom ? " Bert commented - - " heavy
in the upper story, you know."

"Good enough, Bert !" laughed
Uncle Tom. " Yes ; you may say it
was typical. I wish we had more
such tablets as that one over the
way. It is one of the best history
teachers for vounor Americans that I

know of and for old ones, too," he
added. " But come ; let's move on.
There 's nothing else about that build-
ine to remind us of Franklin, and

Faneuil Hall is n't far away."

They had arrived in Boston that morning on a sight-seeing tour
Uncle Tom Dunlap and his nephews Jack Dunlap and Albert Upham, his
niece Marian Dunlap, and her "best friend" Christine Bacon. Of course
you remember them that group of wide-awake boys and girls who, under
Uncle Tom's guidance, " did " Washington so thoroughly, from the Consti-
tution to the Capitol, and studied into the making of the American nation.

In the dark doorway of Faneuil Hall Roger was waiting, according to
appointment, to welcome and join them. You remember him too, I hope
Roger Densmore, " the boy from Boston." He was to do the honors of
'the Hub" for the young folks from "Gotham."

They inspected Faneuil Hall with due reverence.

"Who called it the Cradle of Liberty, Uncle Tom?" Christine inquired,
as they descended the stairs and walked across to Ouincy Market.

"James Otis, another famous Bostonian," Uncle Tom replied. "He
delivered the address of dedication when this hall was rebuilt. He was the
man who really started the American Revolution, you know."

"What! James Otis?" cried Jack. "Why, I thought Patrick Henry

FRANKLIN'S BIRTHPLACE.
House formerly on Milk street, Boston.

A BOSTON BOY WHO BECAME FAMOUS.
Benjamin Franklin. Born in Boston in 1706.

IN BOSTON TOWN

did that the ' gentlemen - may - cry - peace - peace - but - there - is - no - peace '
man."

" No ; historians give the credit largely to Otis," Uncle Tom replied.
" He really made the first move toward independence, years before Patrick
Henry's fiery speech. For when, in 1761, four years before the passage
of the Stamp Act, James Otis, in the Superior Court of Massachusetts, in
this very town of Boston, resisted the granting of what were called the Writs
of Assistance, the first scene of the first act of opposition to British tyranny
was opened. 'Then and there,' declared John Adams, fifty years after, 'the
child Independence was born.' So, let us
give to James Otis the credit that is justly
due him."

"All right; let him have it ! ' said Jack,
administering an appreciative and emphatic
slap to a particularly large beef carcass that
hung obtrusively in his path.

" Whereabouts did he live, Uncle
Tom ? " asked Bert.

" Right here in Boston, Bert,"
his uncle replied.

" Oh, can't we see the house ? "
Marian inquired. " Somehow,
it always makes people seem
more real if one can only see
where they once lived ; does
n't it, Christine ? '

"I don't believe his house
is standing now," said Uncle
Tom. " Do you know,
Roger ?"

Roger was obliged to con-
fess his ignorance, though he
said he believed there was something to do with Otis in the Old State
House on Washington street.

"That 's where he made the famous speech, of which I told you,
against the Writs of Assistance," said Uncle Tom. "We '11 go in there
later. And I '11 see if I can find out about the house of James Otis. His
was a brief but brilliant career, boys and girls ; as sad in its ending as it
was promising at the opening. He was a bright young Boston lawyer.
Engaged by the British government to look after its cases in the Boston

THE BIRTHPLACE OF INDEPENDENCE.

Interior view of Old State House, Boston, where James Otis delivered
his famous speech ; chair of Elbridge Gerry ; bust of James Otis.

6 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

courts, he threw up his position and all its advantages, because he would
not argue a case that seemed to threaten the liberties of the people. He
became the people's champion, an eloquent and impassioned orator, a tire-
less worker for liberty, one of the leaders of the early Boston patriots, a
member of the first Continental Congress, and destined, apparently, to play
an important part in the drama of Independence. Then, suddenly, all
changed. In a coffee-house here in Boston he was set upon by a gang
of ruffianly Tories, knocked senseless, made an incurable lunatic, and, the
very year that the Revolution he had started ended in success, he was
killed by a stroke of lightning."

" George ! that was rough, though, was n't it? " said Jack.

"Those horrid Tories!' exclaimed Marian. "Oh I just despise
them ! "

' But those were rough, hard days, Marian," said Uncle Tom; "and both
sides had their evil instruments. The fact that men were Tories did not
make them bad. Every one has a right to his opinion ; it is the way he
handles his opinion that makes him either a public friend or a public foe.
America has yet to learn and acknowledge the real service that the forces
of opposition have done for her development."

" Oh, Uncle Tom, how can that be ? " demanded Bert.

" Do you mean to say that the Tories were a benefit? " cried Marian.

" In what we call the broad sense, most certainly I do," Uncle Tom re-
plied, " much as it inflames your ardent Americanism to hear me proclaim
it. The Tories of the Revolution and the Copperheads of the Civil War,
though detested by patriots, were themselves, as a rule, conscientious, hon-
est, and kind-hearted people, who loved their homes and their families just
as dearly as do your fathers and mothers. They meant well ; they even
loved their native land : but their standards were not as lofty, nor was
their love of country as unselfish as with those whom they opposed."

" Why, Uncle Tom ! " exclaimed Marian, to whom such a doctrine
seemed all wrong.

"So, as I say," went on Uncle Tom, "they were really a benefit to the
nation. The intense hatred they aroused in their opponents only drew the
determined people closer together, and led them to stand shoulder to shoulder
in defense of the cause of liberty. Even those roughs who spoiled the life
of James Otis, when they struck down one patriot, inspired a dozen others
to be still more ardent in the cause he championed, and to carry forward his
work. Think of that, boys and girls, as you study the crises in American
history. Tories and traitors, instead of weakening our cause, helped it by
the spirit and will that they aroused ; and these led straight to victory. That

IN BOSTON TOWN

thought will help you, perhaps, better to understand Thomson's perplex-
ing line :

" From seeming evil still educing good."

" Why, was it Thomson who said that ? " queried Christine. " I thought
it was Pope."

"No, my dear; ^ it was Thomson," Uncle Tom replied. " But Pope
wrote certain lines J, that are even more applicable to all knotty prob-
lems of whys and wherefores.

Who knows them ? '

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IN TORY TIMES.
A patriot woman escaping from the Tories and the British.

as they paused before the historic wharf where the disguised patriots flung
over the offending chests of tea, he repeated the lines he had in mind :

" All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee ;

All Chance, Direction which thou canst not see ;

All Discord, Harmony not understood ;

All partial Evil, universal Good;

And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason's spite,

One truth is clear : Whatever is, is right ! "

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

As they passed along Summer street on their way from the old wharf
of the Tea Party to the enlarged and renovated State House on Beacon
Hill, Uncle Tom stopped short and pointed across the way to a six-story
business block at the corner of High and Summer streets.

THE STATUE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
In front of the Boston City Hall.

" See anything peculiar about that building ? " he asked.
The boys and girls studied it from top to bottom.

'"The Webster Buildings,'" read Marian, looking toward the roof; while
Bert's eye, traveling faster, stopped at the lettering above the second story.

IN BOSTON TOWN 9

"'The Home of Daniel Webster,'" he read. "Is that so? Did Daniel
Webster live there ? " he asked.

" I never noticed that," confessed Roger, " and I 've passed here hundreds
of times."

" Roger, my boy," said Uncle Tom, "you 're not the only American who
has no eyes for his own historic surroundings. Yes ; the city house in which
Webster lived once stood on that spot. Then, as now, it was a rounded
corner ; but to-day, you see, it is the heart of a business center. There he
entertained Lafayette in 1824, and there he lived at the height of his fame."

" He was a great man, too, was n't he, Uncle Tom? "said Marian.

" Great in many ways," her uncle replied. " Come now, what do you
know about Daniel Webster, boys and girls?"

" A great lawyer," suggested Bert.

"A great statesman," said Marian.

"A great debater," hazarded Roger.

"A great fisherman," put in Jack.

"A great American," said Christine.

" He was all of those," Uncle Tom nodded.

" He was twice Secretary of State," said Roger.

" But never President," commented Jack.

" He made a famous speech against Hayne," said Bert.

" But went back on the people who elected him," asserted Jack.

" No ; did he, Uncle Tom ? " demanded Marian.

"Why, yes; don't you know, that 's what Whittier's poem ' Ichabod' was
all about," Christine announced. " Our history teacher told us that."

" Say, rather," said Uncle Tom, with a smile at the criticisms of his youth-
ful convoy, " that the people progressed faster than their leader. Daniel Web-
ster was a great man, a wise man, a noble man ; but the one great question
of his day, slavery, was dividing- the country North and South. And when
a man, however ardently he loves peace and union, tries to please two peo-
ple at once, he has a hard time of it, and ends by pleasing neither. That was
Daniel Webster's case ; and Whittier's fiery verses, to which Christine refers,
were but the expression of the advancing thought of the people of the North
too deeply roused to be calm, too strong of purpose to be discriminating.
They had forged far ahead of Webster, though he had been the idol and
champion of the very people who now called him recreant."

" But if he thought he was doing right," said Jack, " I call it pretty hard
lines to be pitched into like that."

"My dear Jack," replied Uncle Tom, "if you are ever a leader, look
ahead. Lead on to the end. Those who follow often push to the front,

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

and the leader who lags behind is like the fellow who loses his rank in
school or ' goes down foot' he simply ' is n't in it,' as you boys say."

They crossed Washington street and in Indian file threaded the nar-
row and crowded sidewalk that borders the upper side of Winter street.

At a "canon," as Jack
called it, which cleft the

L___ . ! i .

blocks of tall stores on
Winter street and which,
they saw, was called Winter
Place, Uncle Tom halted
his five followers, and bade
them read the bronze tablet
set in the dead wall of a
great dry-goods store.

They did so. The tab-
let advised them that, on
this corner, once stood the
house in which lived Sam-
uel Adams, " the Father of
the Revolution."

"How many 'fathers'
did the Revolution have,
anyway ?" demanded Jack.
" I thought you told us, Uncle Tom, that James Otis was its ' respected
parient.'

" I merely quoted John Adams's words to the effect that Otis was the
'father of Independence,'" Uncle Tom explained; "and, in this land of ours,
the desire for independence was the forerunner of revolution."

"Then Otis was a sort of grandfather to it, was n't he?" Jack com-
mented.

" Samuel Adams ! " said Christine, still reading the tablet on the wall.
" Did n't we see his statue somewhere down near Faneuil Hall? '

"Yes, in Dock Square, now known as Adams Square," replied Roger.
"I thought so. 'A statesman incorruptible and fearless.' That was
what it called him on the statue," said Christine.

"That was the man," Uncle Tom assented. " And that was the truth.
Here he lived, and in a green plot beyond us, just below the head of Winter
street, the Old Granary Burying-Ground it is called, he lies buried."

"Close to his old home," remarked Christine; " and we can see both
places. Isn't it interesting?'

THE SITE OF THE HOME OF SAMUEL ADAMS.
On Winter Place, Boston.

IN BOSTON TOWN

I I

"What relation was he to John Adams, Uncle Tom?" Bert inquired.
"A brother?"

"No; John Adams was his second cousin, I believe," Uncle Tom re-
plied. "This Samuel Adams was a great man, boys and girls, though
without the calmness, the coolness, or the judgment of his greater cousin.
Historians tell us that Samuel Adams was the architect of ruin, and John
Adams the organizer of law."

"That means, I suppose," said Roger, "that Samuel just tore things
down and John built things up, doesn't it ? "

"That 's about it," Uncle Tom answered. "But an old building must
be pulled down before you can build a grand new one in its place. Samuel

OLD DOCK SQUARE (NOW ADAMS SQUARE).
A famous old Boston site. Faneuil Hall in the distance, the Adams statue in the foreground.

Adams was a rebel against the English crown from boyhood, although his
father was a tax-collector for the government, and Adams himself filled
such a position for a time. When he graduated from Harvard in 1740, his
commencement oration was a plea for resistance to tyranny. He held to
that belief all through life. He was the leader and chosen representative
of the people 'the tribune of the yeomanry/ some one has called him.
He urged on the 'embattled farmers' of Lexington and Concord to fire

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

ITS

'the shot heard round the world,' of which
you possibly know something -

Emerson wrote that," said Roger
in earnest undertone.
"Tell me something new, Roger,
my son," said Jack. " Do you
think we never went to school? "
" Samuel Adams was fear-
less, sincere, unyielding, and
absolutely incorruptible," Un-
cle Tom continued. " He pro-
posed the Revolution ; he pro-
posed the Continental Congress;
he signed the Declaration of In-
dependence, and was so sharp a
thorn in the side of the British gov-
ernment and its crenerals that they

& j

tried first to bribe and then to kill him.
But they could neither bribe nor kill
him. He lived to see the troops of King
George driven from Boston and finally from
America, and the principles for which he
labored and suffered everywhere triumphant.
Free America owes much to Samuel Adams.
On this very corner stood his home. Un-
cover to it, boys, for it was the home of a patriot."

The enthusiastic five honored the prosaic dead wall with a Chautauqua
salute, much to the astonishment of the passers-by, few of whom, probably,
ever knew of the existence of the tablet or the historic associations of that
busy corner. Familiarity rarely inspires investigation.

They " did " the old town thoroughly during their week's visit. They
inspected its "show places," from Copp's Hill to Dorchester Heights, and
from Cambridge Common to Bunker Hill. They studied the old grave-
yards, eloquent with the names of famous ones dead and gone ; they went
back into the past as far as the one remaining wall of the Old Province
House which Hawthorne has immortalized, and forward in the present to
the, splendid new Public Library and the unfinished Subway that burrows
beneath the Autocrat's dear " Long Walk."

But Uncle Tom discovered that the homes of famous men, or the spots
upon which such houses had stood, seemed to possess special interest.

THE GRAVE OF SAMUEL ADAMS.
In the southern end of Old Granary Burying-Ground.

THE MAIN STAIRCASE IN THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY.
One of Louis St. Gaudens's "lions," in commemoration of the Massachusetts troops.

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

"It brings you so near to them," Christine declared; and even the in-
tensely modern and practical Jack affirmed that it was as great fun "hunt-
ing up the stamping-grounds of all those old Boston fellows " as shooting up
to the twelfth story of the Ames Building, or seeing a ball game on Soldiers'
Field and you may be sure that Jack did both these things.

PARK STREET GATE, BOSTON COMMON.
The State House in the distance.

Under Roger's guidance, and with Uncle Tom as showman, they visited
the sites of Franklin's boyhood home and John Hancock's vanished man-
sion ; they found the place in Court street where the house of James Otis
had stood ; they looked up the sites of Warren's, Everett's, Sumner's,
Wendell Phillips's, and Prescott's homes; of the birthplaces of Paul Revere,

IN BOSTON TOWN 15

who roused the country-side for Lexington fight, and of Morse, who in-
vented the telegraph the plain wooden house almost in the shadow of
Bunker Hill.

"And all these are in Boston!" exclaimed Bert.

" Good for the Hub ! " cried Jack. " Is there any other town that can
show so many, Uncle Tom ? "

Whereupon Uncle Tom had an idea.

" He 's full of 'em," Jack declared ; "but this just tops them all."

It did seem to. For it was nothing more or less than a pilgrimage to
the homes of famous Americans.

^T&JMF"'- ;u *;,

\ t \ -,\\

A BOSTON HOME IN GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER'S DAY.

" I think we can do it leisurely and as we have the chance," said Uncle
Tom; "and I don't believe your fathers and mothers will object. We '11
see about it, anyhow. So, while we are here, we may as well finish off Massa-
chusetts by hunting up the homes of John Adams at Quincy, and of Daniel

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

Webster at Marshfield. I 'd like to see them myself. We can do it easily.
What do you say, boys and girls ? "

What could they say but "Good for you, Uncle Tom"?

They said it so emphatically and delightedly that Uncle Tom believed
his idea to be both wise and practical, and the fifth day of their stay in
Boston saw them all at the Old Colony depot, en route for Ouincy, the old
town made famous by the two Adamses father and son.

A DISTANT GLIMPSE OF BOSTON.
As seen across country from the Arnold Arboretum.

CHAPTER II
IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS

Quincy Granite and Quincy Men The Little Old Houses "Sink or
Swim " On Penris Hill A Great Father and His Famous Son
An Historic Mansion.

H ROUGH the lengthening line of suburban towns, now
beside blue water, now in sight of the misty Milton hills,
the tourists rode for a brief half hour ; then, above the trees,
they caught the glitter of a graceful dome, and Uncle Tom
told them they were in Quincy.

"Famous alike for its granite and for its men," he said, as he helped
the girls to the station platform, and together they walked up the
street to the open square before the temple-like church with its gilded
dome.

"Out of those quarries on the hills yonder," he continued, "has come
the gray rock that has gone into many a noble public building ; and from
this old town have come men who have built themselves into the history
of the nation. And I think, boys and girls," he added, "that we shall find
the Quincy men even more enduring than the Quincy granite. Especially
the Adamses."

" Did they all come from here ? " inquired Roger.

"Those did whom we know best," replied Uncle Tom.

" I thought you said Sam Adams was a Boston boy," remarked Bert.

"So he was," his uncle answered. " But his 'forebears,' as they call
them, came from here ; for the Quincy of to-day was all Braintree in Old
Colony days. The John Adams branch of the family, however, is especially
remarkable. Just think ! It gave to the republic two Presidents, a Vice-
President, a Secretary of State, one senator, three members of Congress,
and three ministers to England."

"That 's a good record for one family," declared Bert.

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

"Anything left for anybody else?" queried Jack.

" I ought to explain, however," continued Uncle Tom, "that these dozen
offices represent really but three persons father, son, and grandson in
this celebrated family."

THE JOHN ADAMS AND THE JOHN QUINCY ADAMS HOUSES, QUINCY.

" But that makes it all the more remarkable, Uncle Tom," Christine
declared.

"Besides these three," went on Uncle Tom, "the Adamses of Ouincy
have contributed soldiers, lawyers, legislators, educators, and writers, all of
whom have* done splendid work for America. It is a remarkable record,
indeed."

"Who were the three special Adamses, Uncle Tom?" queried Marian.
"John Adams, of course -

"John Adams, the 'first Adams,' he is called, though eight genera-
tions preceded him here, John Ouincy Adams, his son, and Charles
Francis Adams, his son," Uncle Tom replied. " I call this illustrious three
an inheritance by talent. Think of it ! John Adams, the father, was Presi-
dent of the United States, and had been minister to England at the close
of the American Revolution ; John Ouincy Adams, the son, was President

PAINTED BY GILBERT STUART.

JOHN ADAMS.
Second President of the United States.

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

of the United States, and had been minister to England during the War of
1812; Charles Francis Adams, the grandson, just missed nomination for
President of the United States, and had been minister to England during
the Great Rebellion of 1861. Is n't that an honorable record for three
generations ? Come ! there 's our car. You have seen the spot in Bos-
ton upon which stood the home of 'Cousin Sam Adams'; now we can

look upon the
real houses in
which were born
and bred these
famous Adamses
of Ouincy."

Thereupon they
all boarded the
Braintree "elec-
tric," and were
soon skimming
along Franklin
street to where,
a mile beyond, at
the foot of Penn's
Hill, stand what
are known as the
"Adams houses."
" Nothing very
grand or impos-
ing about either
of those old
houses," was Bert's
critical comment.
" Little and
shabby, eh?' re-
marked Roger.

" I should say

exclaimed out-spoken Jack. "Why, I supposed the Adamses were
very high and mighty people with big estates and grand houses."

" Far from it," said Uncle Tom. " John Adams's father, who built the old
house on our left, was a thrifty Braintree farmer, worth about seven or eight
thousand dollars in lands and goods. But he managed to send his son to
Harvard, from which the boy graduated in 1755, and from there went to

IN PRESIDENT JOHN ADAMS'S DAY.
A taste of war with France the " Boston " raking " Le Berceau."

IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS

teaching school in Worcester. John Adams was born in 1735, in the right-
hand front room in that little old house ; John Ouincy Adams was born in

HOW JOHN ADAMS HELPED MAKE THE FOURTH OF JULY.
Reporting the Declaration of Independence.

1767, in the red house on the right. I don't know that, in all the world, I
can show you another scene like this the birthplaces of two Presidents
elbowing each other, and standing all these years unhonored. Now, I believe,
the design is to place both these historic houses in charge of societies for
their preservation."

The children stood silent awhile regarding these two unpretentious
houses, from which came two men so famous in American history and these
two father and son ! Then Marian exclaimed :

" Oh, Uncle Tom ! Was n't it John Adams who was the 'sink-or-swim '
man ? "

"There never was any such man," declared Bert. " Our history teacher
told us that was just a ' fake ' speech."

" Did he say ' fake,' Bert? " queried Roger.

Uncle Tom was a bit puzzled at this irruption ; but he was accustomed
to the unconventional speech of his earnest young people, and it speedily
dawned upon him what the ' sink-or-swim man ' meant.

" Ah, I see ! " he said ; " You mean that supposed speech put into the

22 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

mouth of John Adams by Daniel Webster in his famous eulogy on Adams
and Jefferson ' Sink or swim

"Oh, I know that!" broke in Jack, who was not to be repressed when
such an opportunity offered. " ' Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish,
I give my hand and my heart to this vote.' Say, that was not a fake speech,
though, really, was it, Uncle Tom? It is too good not to be true."

" If by ' fake,' laughed Uncle Tom, " you boys mean rigged up to suit
the occasion, I 'm afraid it was. If my memory is correct, however, Webster
had authority for introducing the words into his splendid eulogy. John
Adams never did make just such a speech ; but he did say, in a letter to his
friend Sewall, in 1774, \vhenthecolonieswerefeelingtheirwaytoward inde-
pendence, that the die was cast and he had ' passed the Rubicon.' Then he
added, 'sink or swim, survive or perish with my country, is my unalterable
determination.' '

" Give that to your history teacher, Master Bert, when you see him
again," cried Jack. " Daniel Webster knew what he was about. But, anyhow,
Uncle Tom, John Adams was the original fire-cracker man, was n't he?"

" Your descriptive adjectives, boys and girls, are certainly expressive,
even if they are a trifle baffling," Uncle Tom rejoined, laughing. " Yes; John
Adams was, I suppose, the father of the Fourth of July or, at least, its
prophet. Only, with him, it happened to be the second of July. That was
the day not the Fourth- -on which the Congress passed Richard Henry
Lee's famous resolution, which declared the United Colonies to be ' free and
independent States.' That was the day of which John Adams, in writing
home to his patriotic w r ife, here in Quincy, made his famous prophecy."

" What was it ? " inquired Christine.

"As nearly as I can recall it," said Uncle Tom, "John Adams wrote:
' This second of July, i 776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history
of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding
generations as the great Anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemo-
rated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God.
It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports,
guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of the continent to the
other from this time forward, forevermore ! '

As the children applauded the sentiment, Uncle Tom added slyly,
" nothing about fire-crackers in all that, Jack."

But Jack replied: "Well, all the rest of it has come true. I guess we
can squeeze in the fire-crackers between the guns and the bells, can't we ? "
And he gave a nod of satisfaction as the memories of all his Fourth of July
fun in summers past flashed through his mind.

IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS

RINGING IN THE FOURTH.

They had left the "birthplace houses" behind and were climbing Penn's
Hill, from which little eight-year old John Ouincy Adams and his mother
watched the smoke of Bunker Hill fight, on a certain famous seventeenth
of June, and a year later watched the British fleeing from Boston.

Then Uncle Tom said :

" That mother was a remarkable woman, too. You girls must some day

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

get acquainted with Abigail Adams, the clever wife of John. But let
me tell you, boys, John Adams was something of a prophet. When he
was but a young fellow, the French and Indian war was being fought in
America. Its purpose was, you know, to drive the French from Canada and
make this continent English. That was the war that brought George
Washington to the front. Well, in the very year of Braddock's defeat
young John Adams declared that, if the English soldiers and colonists
could only succeed in driving out the French, the colonists would increase
until, in another century, they would exceed the British, and then, 'all Eng-
land will be unable to subdue us.' A good, clear-sighted bit of prophecy
for a young college graduate, was n't it ? "

" He 's not the only Harvard man that has had brains," said Roger.
" Hear the boy ! " cried Jack. " I guess Yale has had quite as many."
" Yes, and Columbia, too," said Bert. " But, there ! that 's the trouble
with you Boston fellows. You just think Harvard

"Here, here!" cried Uncle
Tom, "we are not in Ouincy to
fight over college supremacy.
When it comes to making men
and patriots, no school or col-
lege has the monopoly. Of the
twenty-three Presidents of the
United States fifteen were college
graduates ; but among the remain -
ing eight are the names of Wash-
ington and Lincoln so, I think,
we' 11 leave the college standard
out of the reckoning. For, after
all, boys and girls, success de-
pends upon the man. Immortality
comes because of deeds, not di-
plomas."

" But surely, Uncle Tom," said
Christine, "education is necessary."
" Think how much better even Washington and Lincoln might have
been if they had been college men," said Bert.

" 'T is education forms the common mind :
Just as the twig is bent the tree 's inclined,"

ABIGAIL ADAMS.
Mrs. John Adams at the age of 22.

quoted Roger, who knew his " Moral Essays."

IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS

A DIXXER PARTY IX JOHX QUIXCY ADAMS'S DAY.

"But there you 're out, Roger, my boy," cried Jack. "Washington
and Lincoln were not 'common minds.'

" Oh, well ! the exception proves the rule," was Roger's comment.

" I think Roger has the best of the argument, after all," laughed Uncle
Tom; "especially when we remember that Washington founded a university
and that Lincoln was forever studying. And, speaking of Lincoln, do you
know that his greatest act was based upon a doctrine first propounded by
John Quincy Adams the man who was born in that old farmhouse
yonder? "

"His greatest act! W 7 hat do you mean, Uncle Tom?' queried Bert.
"The Emancipation Proclamation?"

"That's it," his uncle replied. "It was upon a declaration made in
Congress by John Quincy Adams in 1836 that Abraham Lincoln rested
his great proclamation."

" What was it ? " asked Marian.

" It was in the course of a speech that Adams pronounced this opinion :
' From the instant that your slave-holding States become the theater of war,

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

civil, servile, or foreign, --from that instant the war powers of the Consti-
tution extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way
in which it can be interfered with.' And, in a later speech, he repeated this

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Sixth President of the United States.

bold doctrine, and declared that, in the event of such a war, the President
of the United States had power to order the universal emancipation of the
slaves."

"Why, did they say much about slavery in Adams's clay?' inquired
Christine. "I thought all that came later."

"Most certainly they did, my dear," Uncle Tom replied. "John
Ouincy Adams was the earliest and stoutest champion of antislavery in the
American Congress. In fact, it was his burning words in behalf of freedom,
and what was called 'the right of petition,' that gave him his popular title
of ' the Old Man Eloquent.' "

IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS

" And was he so old ? " Christine asked.

" At that time, yes," Uncle Tom answered. "John Ouincy Adams, you
know, was elected to Congress long after he had served as President. His
was the only instance in our history of an ex-President of the republic
serving in Congress ; and he gained a new and enduring reputation by his
courage and ability there. Don't you remember, when we were in Wash-
ington, that we saw the place in the
Capitol where John Ouincy Adams was
stricken down with paralysis while in his
seat in the House of Representatives ?
He was then over eighty years old,
and, as you see, he literally 'died in
harness."

" I thought he died on the Fourth
of July," said Jack.

"That only shows how apt we are to
mix up this remarkable father and son,"
Uncle Tom declared. " It was John
Adams 'grandsire John,' as they called
him here in Ouincy who died on the
fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration
of Independence that mighty paper,
which he was so largely instrumental in

having adopted that men called him the ' Colossus of Independence.' And
on that same Fourth of July, 1826, died also Thomas Jefferson, his
political rival and successor in the Presidency, the real author of -the
great Declaration."

"Well, do please set them straight for us, Uncle Tom," Marian re-
quested. " I know they were both Presidents, and that John Ouincy
Adams was John Adams's son. But just what did they do ? "

"That should be easy to set right," Uncle Tom said. And as they
turned once more from the by-path that led from Penn's Hill into Franklin
street, Uncle Tom sketched the careers of the two Adamses while the
party walked leisurely back to the center of the town.

"John Adams," he said, "was born in that little gray house to the left in
the year 1735. His son, John Ouincy Adams was born in 1767, in the old
red house to the right. John Adams was elected President by the Feder-
alists in 1796. John Ouincy Adams was made President in 1824 by the
% coalition ' which, later, became first the Whigs, and then the Republicans.
John Adams died in the old mansion I shall soon show you at the other

SILHOUETTE OF JOHN Q. ADAMS.
Cut in the White House.

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

end of town, on the Fourth of July, 1826; John Ouincy Adams died in
the Capitol at Washington, on the 23d of February, 1848. John Adams was
bold, outspoken, upright, and true. He always had what is called the cour-
age of his convictions ; but he was sometimes conceited, long-winded, and
brusque. He was a great reader, a vigorous writer, and always a patriot.
The acts of his life that most entitle him to fame were his defense of the
British soldiers, unwisely tried for murder, after the so-called 'Boston mas-
sacre ' of 1 7/0 ; "

"That's what that 'slate-pencil' monument on Boston Common is for,
you know," whispered Roger to Jack.

-the proposing of Washington as commander-in-chief of the Amer-
ican Army in 17/5," went on Uncle Tom; "the speech on the first of July,
1776, which resulted in the adoption of the Declaration of Independence;
the recognition by Holland of the new nation of the United States of Amer-
ica, and the Dutch loan, which put money in the pocket of the young re-

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, QUIXCY, MASS.

public both of these being secured by him in 1782 ; the great treaty with
England, which he 'achieved' in 1783; his patriotic keeping the peace
with France, as President, in 1800, when every one was shouting for war;
and lastly, his struggle for religious liberty in Massachusetts in 1820, when
he was an old man of eighty-five. Few men, boys and girls, can show
a better credit side on the ledger of fame than this honest, stanch, stout,
fussy, hot-tempered, but always fine old patriot, John Adams of Ouincy,
second President of the United States."

IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS

2 9

"That is a pretty good record, I tell you," commented Bert, enthusiasti-
cally, while Jack doffed his hat, in sight of the gilded dome, and exclaimed,
"Three cheers for the Father of the Fourth of July ! "

That gilded dome, which had so frequently attracted their notice in Ouincy
town, topped the square, old-fashioned, and well-preserved " Stone Temple,"
otherwise the First Congrega-
tional (Unitarian) Church of
Quincy, in which are the tombs
of the tw^o Presidents, father
and son.

The tourists looked at the
space beneath the portico in
which rest the remains of these
two illustrious men ; they read
the commemorative tablets set
within the church to the right
and left of the pulpit, one
surmounted by a bust of John
Adams, by Greenough, the
other by a bust of John Quincy
Adams, by Powers.

It was both interesting and

o
impreSSlVe "the \VeStmm-

ster Abbey of Ouincy," Uncle
Tom called it, and the young people left the quaint old church with re-
newed respect for the memories of the two famous Americans who lie buried
there, within k the church in which they worshiped, midway between the
homes of their infancy and their old age. Somehow, even though the
Adamses of Ouincy were not soldiers, Christine said that she could not help
repeating the lines :

" How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blessed ! "

Leaving the "temple," they walked up Hancock street, and just at the
turn of Adams street looked at the neat stone building surmounted by an
obelisk-like tower. This, Uncle Tom told them, was Adams Academy, founded
by President John Adams, built on the site of John Hancock's birthplace,
and presided over for many years by the son of Edward Everett.

" How 's that for a combination ? " asked Roger.

" I don't believe it makes lessons go any easier," declared Jack.

STATUARY HALL IN THK CAPITOL AT
WASHINGTON.

The old House of Representatives, and the place where
John Quincy Adams died.

30 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

"As for John Ouincy Adams," said Uncle Tom, continuing the "setting
right" process, which Marian had requested, "we can say quite as much
as for his father, although his career had not so historic a background.
As a boy he went to school in France and Holland, while his father
was abroad on foreign service for the new republic. But he came back

THE HOUSE IN WHICH JOHN ADAMS DIED.
The "Old Charles Francis Adams" house, Quincy.

here of his own accord to enter Harvard because he thought that, for an
American career, an American education was best."

" Good for him ! " exclaimed the boys.

" Oh, he was quite a remarkable boy, was John Ouincy Adams," Uncle
Tom assured them. "When only seven years old he drilled with a musket
among the Continental soldiers, and I have told you how, from the top of
Penn's Hill yonder, he stood beside his mother and watched the battle-
smoke of Bunker Hill, the storming of Dorchester Heights, and the evacu-
ation of Boston. The good people of Ouincy have just erected a cairn to
mark the spot --that memorial pile of stones which I showed you on top
of the hill, you know. At ten he sailed with his father, the American 'com-
missioner,' to France, and all through his boyhood John Ouincy Adams
kept a diary that would be a surprise to some girls and boys I know."

IN THE HOME OF TWO PRESIDENTS

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS.
United States Minister to England during the Civil War.

" He was private secretary to the American minister to Russia at four-
teen," continued Uncle Tom. " He was minister to Holland at twenty-
seven ; minister to Prussia at thirty ; United States senator at thirty-five ;
professor in Harvard at thirty-nine ; minister to Russia at forty-two ; min-
ister to England at forty-eight ; Secretary of State at fifty, and again at
fifty-four ; President of the United States at fifty-seven ; member of Con-
gress at sixty-four, continuing as such until his death at eighty the cham-
pion of liberty, and a valiant fighter for the rights of free speech, whom no
antagonist could daunt and no threats could down. A remarkable man, as

3 2

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

well as a remarkable boy, was John Quincy Adams and that 's where he
lived, in that long brown mansion across the bridge, where lived also his
famous old father and his illustrious son."

"Oh, what a lovely old place!" exclaimed Marian. "Is n't it quaint
and old-fashioned. Who lives there now ? '

"No one, I believe," replied Uncle Tom. "The place seems to be
closed. But it has been the scene of many interesting happenings. Here
old ' Grandsire John/ the 'first Adams,' lived and died; here John Quincy
Adams made his home, and delighted to work on his farm in ' overalls ' and
.a straw hat, like any other farmer, just as ready to receive a distinguished
visitor in his working clothes as if he were in the White House itself."

They crossed "the President's Bridge," which spans the railroad, and
ntered the grounds now known as " the old Charles Francis Adams place " ;
they stood beneath the great trees, rested on the narrow piazza., visited the
modern stables and the long greenhouses, and walked about the wide fields
that stretched in the rear of the quaint gambrel-roofed house.

Then they slowly sauntered back to the center of the town, and as they
took the train for Boston, tired, but full of a new regard for these old
"fathers of the republic," Bert echoed Uncle Tom's sentiment and said:

" I guess you were right, Uncle Tom. Quincy granite may be endur-
ing, but these Quincy men will outlast it both in name and fame."

ADAMS ACADEMY, QUINCY.
Founded by John Adams, and built on the site of John Hancock's birthplace.

CHAPTER III

IN THE OLD COLONY

From Plymouth to Dux bury The Puritan Captain The Webster Farm
Marshfield By the Sea Daniel Webster s Story The Home, of
a Great American.

HEY had spent two delightful days in historic Plymouth, and
Uncle Tom declared himself to be fairly "pumped dry" on
Colonial history.

" Dry ! " exclaimed Jack, in his enthusiastic way. " That 's
not possible, Uncle Tom. You 're like the fellow Mark Twain
tells about: you just 'leak facts.' Only think of all we 've seen and heard
about during these last two days ! ' :

"I should say so," said Bert. "We 've done Plymouth from Leyden street
to Billington Sea, and from the Rock and the Faith Monument to Lora Stan-
dish's sampler in Pilgrim
Hall. And for everything
Ave 've seen, Uncle Tom,
you had a story."

"Yes; only I told the
story about Lora Stan-
dish's sampler, did n't I,
Uncle Tom?" said Marian.
" You did, indeed, my
dear," replied Uncle Tom.
" Credit to whom credit is
due, Master Bert. I see

, . . , T

that you ve read your Mrs.

Austin to good effect, girls. Now, I suppose, you will go home and read

* Standish of Standish ' with a new interest. "

" That 's more than I can do for Mrs. Hemans," declared Jack. " ' Stern

PLYMOUTH ROCK AS IT LOOKS TO-DAY.

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

and rock-bound coast, ' eh ? Why, the only rock they can show here is //ft.
Rock and that you say was a pilgrim from Labrador, Uncle Tom. People
ought to know what they write about."

"Well, Mrs. Hemans's intention was excellent, even if her facts were at
fault," saicl Uncle Tom; "and 'the breaking waves ' will continue to ' dash
high ' so long as spirited and noble verse strikes deep into the hearts of
men. We Ve about finished Plymouth. Now, I 'm going- to take vou
back to Boston by a new way."

PLYMOUTH AND PLYMOUTH HARBOR FROM BURIAL HILL.

Uncle Tom always had a new way.

" He 's better than Columbus for discovering things," the boys and girls
declared, and they were not surprised, therefore when, leaving famous old
Plymouth behind, he said, " all out for Duxbury ! " as the train slowed up at
a neat little station ten miles nearer Boston.

They found a barge awaiting them not a boat, you understand, like
Cleopatra's famous float, but a long and roomy two-horse wagon, open at
the sides just the thing for a jolly party of sight-seers.

They drove in sight of the sea, with the Gurnet light gleaming white in the
foreground, and the storied course of the Mayflower lying before them,
sparkling in the sun. They looked with proper pride upon the old Standish
house, on the site of the one in which the valiant captain of Plymouth made
his home; then they panted their way up the steep slope to the crest of

IN THE OLD COLONY

STANDISH HOUSE, DUXBURY, MASS.
Built by the son of Miles Standish, 1666.

Captain's Hill, where rises the tall, gray column topped by a statue of the
doughty leader of the Pilgrims' little army.

They drank in that splendid view of sea and shore ; then, descending,
they boarded their barge again, and rode through Duxbury town, past the
home of John Alden and Priscilla- -dear
to all the boys and girls of America who
delight in a charming love-story, and
at last came to Marshfield and modern
history. For Marshfield, so Uncle Tom
told them, was the dearly loved home of
Daniel Webster, foremost of American

statesmen.

The places they had visited, and the

scenes amid which they had spent two
memorable days in that famous " Old
Colony " region, had made a lasting
impression on their young and recep-
tive minds. So, as their barge rolled along the new State Highway that,
in time, will stretch all the way from Boston to Plymouth, the young people
were still talking of the historic scenes they had left behind.

Jack and the girls, indeed, were holding an animated discussion as to
the place of the Pilgrim Fathers in American history, to which Uncle Tom
listened in amused silence. But when Jack, in his enthusiasm, placed gallant
Miles Standish, " the Puritan captain," alongside Grant and Sherman in mili-
tary supremacy, Uncle Tom felt it time to put in a word.

" Easy, easy, old fellow," he said, with a pat of caution on the boy's
shoulder; "I 'm afraid your hero-worship of the moment is leading you
into a bit of exaggeration. Miles Standish was a picturesque figure in

early American
history ; but even
he, I think, would
smile in his quiet
fashion if he could
hear your estimate
SWORD OF MILES STANDISH. of his military

Of ancient Persian manufacture. In Pilgrim Hall. ability."

" I don't see

why, Uncle Tom," persisted Jack. "You said yourself that it was fortunate
for America that one trained soldier came over in the Mayflower ; and
from what you told me of his story "

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" And what Longfellow says about him in the ' Courtship of Miles Stan-
dish,' " put in Marian.

" But Uncle Tom says that is more poetry than fact, you know," re-
marked Bert.

I thought we had left the Pilgrim days and folks behind us, and had

o & *

clone with them for a while," said Uncle Tom, laughing. "The truth of the
matter is here: Miles Standish was a notable figure in what the world now
regards as a notable time. Hasty in temper, but never a coward "

" Oh, I don't know about that, Uncle Tom," broke in Marian. " He
was afraid of Priscilla."

"Afraid!" cried Jack, disdainfully.

" But Priscilla was n't afraid of him," Marian declared. " Don't you
remember what she said about him ?

" He is a little chimney and heated hot in a moment."

" I call that mighty mean of Priscilla, too," Jack spluttered. "Just like
a o-irl ! Lot she knew about a soldier ! '

NO PLACE FOR A COWARD.

" No ; she was right, was n't she, Uncle Tom ? " returned Marian. " No
girl likes to be treated as Miles Standish treated her. Lot he knew about
a woman, I say ! "

"See here, see here," protested Uncle Tom, laughing; "are we settling
the facts of American history, or reopening the old Standish-Alden case ?

IN THE OLD COLONY

Kindly restrain your impetuous partizanship, and let me finish summing up
Miles Standish's character. Where was I ? '

"You said he was never a coward, you know," prompted Bert.

" Oh, yes. Hasty in temper, but never a coward," again began Uncle
Tom ; " wise in counsel, but never foolhardy ; trained to war, but never
seeking a quarrel, he was especially fitted to teach the struggling and dis-
pirited colonists of Plymouth
the prudence of courage, the
wisdom of discipline, and the
excellence of vigilance. These,
you see, are all qualities neces-
sary in a military leader. They
are what made Grant and
Sherman successful generals.
In fact, it may be said that in
the single heroic person of
Miles Standish was to be found
the true soldierly idea skilled
military force in loyal subordi-
nation to the civil authority.

Miles Standish never sought
to thrust himself forward ; but
when put in command by those
in control, he did his duty faith-

fully and well. He is indeed a
typical Colonial soldier. As
such, America should remem-
ber and honor him ; and it has been well for us to recall him, here, in the
neighborhood where he grew into history."

They turned from the macadamized highway and into a sanely road, the
note of the sea falling upon their ears in an unbroken monotone. They
rode past the old house in which once had lived two famous governors of
the Plymouth colony Edward Winslow ("a greater than Standish," Uncle
Tom declared) and Josiah, his son ; past the home of a once famous Ameri-
can songstress, rebuilt from the humble cottage of her poor farmer father,
and then entered the grounds known to all the world as Marshfield the
two-thousand acre farm of America's statesman and orator, Daniel Webster.

There was not very much to see that could recall that remarkable man.
The long avenue of trees that skirted the drive were of Webster's planting;
the great apple orchard was of his devising; the trout-pond was of his plan-

EDWARU \V1NSLOW.
By permission of the Massachusetts Histoncal Society.

DANIEL WEBSTER.
From a daguerreotype made in Philadelphia about 1849.

IN THE OLD COLONY 39

ning; and here and there on the grounds- - the farm, rather, for Webster
never called his place anything but a "farm" -were numerous localities
that were associated with the mighty man \vho delighted to be known as
" the farmer of Marshfield," and whose heart, even in the most engrossing-
political moves and successes, ever turned toward his dearly loved seaside
farm, with its broad fields and sturdy trees, and the flocks and live stock in
which he specially delighted.

But the house which had been his home was not there.

The children were greatly disappointed when they learned this fact.

" Burned down, did you say, Uncle Tom?" inquired Roger.

"Yes; burned utte-rly and swiftly on a February night in 1878," Uncle
Tom replied. "This building is a modern villa, built by the new owners
of Marshfield to replace the old mansion. And with the old house went
many memories that would be of interest and value to-day. That little
yellow building, just across the drive to the left, is the sole survivor of the
old 'Webster place,' as they call it about here. In it Webster kept his
fishing and hunting traps, and called it his 'office.' That little 'office' and
the old carriage you can see in the barn yonder are about the only memorials
of Daniel Webster now to be seen at Marshfield. But the place the setting
that framed his chosen home still remains untouched by time here are
the same blue sky, the same strong, health-giving air, the same landscape of
field and forest, the same ceaseless note of the sea across the marshes. All
these Webster loved ; from these he dre\v vigor and inspiration, and toward
them he turned with an intense longing from crowded court-room and
senate chamber in which his fame was made."

Although scarcely the Marshfield of Webster's day, the children found
themselves impressed by the presence that once had filled this breezy
seaside farm. Seated upon the steps which, in the modern mansion, have
replaced the long, low vine-covered piazza, of the rambling old homestead
destroyed by fire, the tourists fell to talking of the great man to whom
these broad acres had once belonged. In response to their inquiries Uncle
Tom briefly told his boys and girls the story of Daniel Webster's useful and
busy life.

He told them of the pale and puny baby born, on a January day in 1782,
into the home of a hard-working New Hampshire farmer; of the father,
Washington's trusted sentry at West Point in the dark days of Arnold's trea-
son ; of the boy's early struggles for an education, tempered by his resistless
love of fun ; of his insatiable thirst for knowledge ; of his school life at Exe-
ter Academy, where he was so shy that he found it impossible to speak "pieces"
before his schoolmates ; of his wonderful eyes and yet more wonderful memory ;

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

THE WEBSTER HOUSE AT MARSHFIELD.
Burned in February, 1878, and now replaced by a modern villa.

of his voice, so rich and full that the teamsters and farmers would stop the
boy in the road to hear him recite poetry or verses from the Bible. He told
them how Webster's father sacrificed everything to send his boy to Dart-
mouth College, and was rewarded by seeing his son the "prize student"; how
his marvelous intellectual and oratorical powers gradually developed, until
the boy orator of sixteen grew into the man whose matchless reply to Hayne
has been called "the greatest speech since Demosthenes." He told them
of Webster's election to Congress in 1822, and how, for twenty-eight years,
he was Massachusetts's foremost representative in the councils of the nation,
broken only by two seasons of service as Secretary of State, under Harrison,
the fourteenth President, and Fillmore, the sixteenth. He told them of the
great statesman's services to the nation, of his unfaltering love of country,
of his absorbing belief in the greatness of the republic and its magnificent
possibilities, and how valiantly he fought in argument and State paper and
oration for the Union above everything else--for the integrity of the republic
and the permanence of American nationality. It was this, even more than
personal ambition, that worked Webster's downfall, so Uncle Tom declared,
as he told his young auditors of the terrible shock with which Webster's fa-
mous speech of the /th of March, 1850, supporting the wicked Fugitive
Slave Law, fell upon his steadfast supporters. It was "the Union, now and
forever, one and inseparable," so Uncle Tom assured them, that lay beneath
even this unfortunate speech. But the statesman was misunderstood. That
speech lost Webster the Presidency, which he so dearly desired ; it turned

IN THE OLD COLONY 4!

against him the men of the North, to whom he looked for approval and sup-
port; it so affected him, because of the results, that, two years later, on
the 24th of October, 1852, the great statesman died here, in quiet Marsh-
field, the victim of his own mistaken judgment and the equally mistaken
judgment of his fellow-citizens.

BHBH

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
The Poet of Freedom.

" But why do you call it mistaken, Uncle Tom ? " asked Bert, who had
followed the narrative with close attention. " Do you call Whittier's ' Icha-
bod ' poem mistaken the one you told us about in Boston, you know?"

" Let Whittier answer himself, Bert," replied Uncle Tom. " He wrote the
' Ichabod ' poem in 1850, when the antislavery indignation at Webster's sup-

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

posed backsliding was at white heat. Beneath the regret and grief you can

read his fiery denunciation. But, after twenty-five years had passed, with

all their marvelous changes,
and yet more marvelous ad-
vancement, Whittier, looking
back, could say that Web-
ster had died too soon, and
that, had he lived, he would
have been the boldest de-
fender of the liberty he had
mistakenly imperiled. Let
me see if I can remember
Whittier' s lines. They make
a grand poem on Webster
'The Lost Occasion ' was
what the poet called it"; and
Uncle Tom, leaning his head

against the piazza, post, closed his eyes and recited the noble lines by

Whittier to which he referred :

EVENING ON THE MARSHES.

Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved

Of old friends, by the new deceived,

Too soon for us, too soon for thee,

Beside thy lonely Northern sea,

Where long and low the marsh-lands spread,

Laid wearily down thy august head.

Thou shouldst have lived to feel below

Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow,

The late-sprung mine that underlaid

Thy sad concessions, vainly made.

Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's wall

The star-flag of the Union fall,

And armed rebellion pressing on

The broken lines of Washington !

No* stronger voice than thine had then

Called out the utmost might of men,

To make the Union's charter free

And strengthen law by liberty.

How had that stern arbitrament
To thy gray age youth's vigor lent,
Shaming ambition's paltry prize
Before thy disillusioned eyes ;

IN THE OLD COLONY 43

Breaking the spell about thee wound
Like the green withes that Samson bound ;
Redeeming in one effort grand,
Thyself and thy imperiled land.

Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee,
O sleeper by the Northern sea,
The gates of opportunity !
God fills the gaps of human need,
Each crisis brings its word and deed.
Wise men and strong we did not lack,
But still, with memory turning back,
In the dark hours we thought of thee,
And thy lone grave beside the sea."

Uncle Tom rose to his feet.

" Come, let us go and see that 'lone grave','' he said.

He led the way past the great barn, with its double line of just such
noble stock as Webster loved, and on, across the farm, to where, half a mile
away, upon the crest of Burial Hill, stood the old Colonial burying-ground.
There were buried the Winslows of Colonial days ; there was the grave of
Peregrine White, first child of the Mayflower pilgrims ; and there, within

*,.

THE GRAVE OF WEBSTER.
"Just 'Daniel IVcbster' that 's all."

the Webster plot, the children looked upon the modest marble slab which

marks the statesman's grave.

"Simple enough, is n't it?' said Roger. "Just 'Daniel Webster'
that 's all."

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

OX THE ROAD TO MARSHFIELU.
The oldest meeting-house in New England (Hingham, Mass.).

" Seems to me so great a man as Webster ought to have more of a
monument," was Jack's critical comment.

" I don't know," mused Bert. " Somehow you get nearer to a man just
as he was by such a simple thing as that; don't you think so, Uncle Tom?
That name tells it all. You know who Daniel Webster was. What more
do you need ? Really, don't you know, to me it seems grander than all
those long-winded inscriptions on the Adams tablets at Ouincy."

Jack was still unconvinced.

" If you 're big enough to be remembered, you 're worth saying something
about," he insisted.

And Uncle Tom said: "I like to have you see and study these me-
morials of departed greatness, boys and girls. I think I 'm on Bert's side
of the argument, however. For, after all, a man's life-work is his best
monument. What he does for the world and his fellow -men will last longer
than granite or bronze. Some of the biggest monuments have been built
above the smallest memories. To my thinking, Daniel Webster, as Bert
says, needs no other memorial than this modest stone. He has built him-

IN THE OLD COLONY

self into the hearts and life of the people. How many of you know his
famous reply to Hayne?"

At once every boy and girl of the five began that famous peroration :
" When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in
heaven '

" That 's it," said Uncle Tom, cutting them short. " Do you suppose you
can ever forget who spoke those electric words ? As Bert says, we all know
who Daniel Webster was. His country has honored him. His statue, in mar-
ble or in bronze., stands in our greatest cities ; his name is inwrought with
the daily life of our land counties, townships, institutions, parks, streets,
lakes, mountains, and men alike bear his honored name ; but more than this,
the eloquent words he spoke for liberty and union, for American nationality
and American supremacy, will live as long as the English language exists and
school-boys live to speak it. There was nothing sectional, nothing small in
his patriotism ; above all else, Daniel Webster was an American."

" Did n't he say so in one of his speeches ? " asked Christine.

" ' I was born an American; I live an American ; I shall die an American,"
quoted Roger.

"That was in a speech soon after the famous /th of March oration that
so clouded his fame," explained Uncle Tom, "and it explains much in his
career. For that was his creed, and
to advance the interests of America
was his chief desire. Indeed, he was
in his way a type of American great-
ness. He was great himself, physi-
cally and intellectually. He loved
great things: this view, over marsh
and sea, and farm and forest, especi-
ally appealed to him "

" It is great," exclaimed Jack, ap-
preciatively.

" He loved bigness in every-
thing big farms, big trees, big
cattle, mountains, Niagara, the ocean;
and for that reason, as I have said,
he could stand nothing small or sec-

tional or local in American life. He WEBSTER . S CHAIR AND WALK ING-STICK.
loved the Union as a whole; he be- NOW at Marshfkid.

lieved in and labored for its immense possibility; and in trying to preserve
it unbroken, he made what at the time appeared to be the great mistake

4 6

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

of his life. But the lapse of years creates a new standpoint, you know, and
as we look back on Webster's life and Webster's work, we can see that all,
even what men counted as his error, worked to a good end."

i- ,- . -J^BS^<,- ^**~/:^

DANIEL WEBSTER'S BIRTHPLACE IN SALISBURY (NOW FRANKLIN), N. H.
He was born in the extension, or ell, on the eighteenth of January, 1782.

"There 's your Pope again, Uncle Tom," said Bert

" From seeming evil still educing good."

" Right you are, Bert," returned Uncle Tom; " only, as I told you once be-
fore, my Pope was Thomson."

"That 's what you call a word in season, eh, Uncle Tom?" said Jack,
slyly.

But Uncle Tom caught him by the arm. "If you will make puns, old
fellow, make correct ones," he replied. " I should call it a word out of season
-for it happens to be not from Thomson's ' Seasons,' but from one of his
hymns." Whereat the others, who were a bit puzzled by this literary spar-
ring, saw the fun at last, and declared that the joke was on Master Jack.

As they walked back to the house and to their waiting barge, Bert, always
alert for estimates and judgments, asked Uncle Tom what he considered
Webster's greatest triumphs. To which Uncle Tom replied that, in the es-
timation of historians, the treaty with England in 1842, when Webster was
Secretary of State, and the reply to Hayne, in 1830, were Webster's strong-
est claims to remembrance and immortality. The first was a triumph of di-
plomacy, the second a triumph of oratory.

IX THE OLD COLONY

" Because of the treaty," declared Uncle Tom, " England never again at-
tempted the right of search, which had twice imperiled the republic ; because
of the speech, came the new United States the real Union of to-day. I do
not think it too much to say, "he added, "that because Webster's ' Liberty
and Union' oration became the favorite declamation of American school-boys,
in the fifties, it inspired a devoted and passionate love for the Union, which,
when the hour of danger came to the republic, emphasized the sentiment of
nationality, and nerved the arm, as it sustained the courage, of the united
North. In that, as Senator
Lodge says, lies the debt which
the American people owe to
Daniel Webster, and in that is
Webster's meaning and im-
portance to us of to-day.

" And it may interest and
please you to know, boys and
girls," he continued, as once
again they stood near the site
of Webster's Marshfield home,
"that from the window of the
house which formerly stood
upon this spot, Webster, when
he lay a-dy ing, looked out each
morning to catch the flutter of
the stars and stripes which he
so dearly loved, and which, ac-
cording to his orders, were kept
floating from the flagstaff until
his last breath passed. Does
that recall anything to you
in the way of a coincidence?"

They hesitated a moment; then Jack, quick to see and appreciate such
dramatic things, cried :

"Oh, yes, Uncle Tom; don't you know " and then, before Webster's
home, on the very spot where so many of the happy moments of his life were
passed, close beside the place where, with eyes wet with tears, the great
orator penned his splendid eulogy on Adams and Jefferson in the still hours
of a summer morning, Jack recited, as Jack knew so well how to recite, the
words that will live as long as the name and fame of their author shall
survive :

JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.

One of Webster's foreign appointments when he was Secretary of State.
Consul at Tunis in 1841. Author of " Home, Sweet Home."

4 8

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see
him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States dis-
severed, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fra-
ternal blood. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the
republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and
trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased nor polluted, not a single star ob-
scured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as ' What is all this. worth ? ' nor
those other words of delusion and folly, ' Liberty first and Union afterwards ! ' ; but everywhere,
spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the
sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment dear to
every American heart : ' Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable ! '

"And it happened just as he wished, did n't it?' said Christine,
stirred by the magnificent words and the associations of the place where she
stood.

"It happened just as he wished," replied Uncle Tom. " He saw the flag-
floating undimmed to the last. And on yonder lawn, before his house, be-
neath the great silver poplar which he loved, now standing no longer, thou-
sands came on a beautiful October day in 1852, to look their last upon the
face of the ereat statesman whom Theodore Parker described as the grandest

figure in Christendom since Charlemagne. He lay there, banked in flowers,

o * * J

dead, beneath the autumn sky. But, from that sad hour to these happier
days of the republic's real liberty and real union, the fame of Daniel Webster
has steadily increased until the world looks upon him not only as a great
man, but as in the best sense an American, a real son of the republic, a cit-
izen of the United States, in the most complete and most enduring meaning
of that noble word. Forget his faults, remember his virtues, boys and girls,
and be, as long as life shall last, as true an American and as loyal a child
of the republic as was Daniel Webster, to whose great heart, mighty brain,
and magnetic voice you young Americans of this day owe so much."

CHAPTER IV

IN THE NATION'S FIRST CAPITAL

New York's Greatest Man A Tour of the Old Town Famous Men
and Historic Points The Story of Alexander Hamilton A Remark-
, able Character.

EW YORK'S greatest man?" said Uncle Tom, reflectively, in
answer to a question from Roger. "Why, I should say, with-
out hesitation, Alexander Hamilton even if we count
General Grant."

" General Grant ! " cried the Boston boy. " Why, how do
you make that out, Uncle Tom ? Grant was an Illinois man, I thought."

"Primarily, yes,"- Uncle Tom replied; "though he was Ohio-born, you
know. But we are regarding America's famous men after they had become,
as we might say, the property of the nation. Grant was practically a cipher
until developed into greatness by the inspiration of war. After the war and
the Presidency, New York was his chosen home ; so, for our purpose,
we can, I think, claim him as a New York man. At any rate, I prefer so to
consider him at this stage of the inquiry ; for, except for Grant and Hamil-
ton, another adopted citizen, New York can lay claim to few really historic
characters, and to still less really great ones. Men drift here from one
reason or another, and thus become identified with the metropolis ; but the
native has never been exceptional for greatness."

They were in New York. Roger had come on for a visit, and Uncle
Tom, finding his tourists all together and eager for investigation, had pro-
posed a continuation of their study of famous Americans, suggesting a trip
to Philadelphia after they had paid their respects to New York.

From this had sprung Roger's query and Uncle Tom's reply. Jack,
however, objected with true Knickerbocker loyalty.

" Oh, see here, Uncle Tom," he cried, "you must be wrong. I '11 bet I
-can name a dozen great men who were New Yorkers."

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" Name them, Jack, and I '11 forgive the bet,"
returned Uncle Tom. " I 'm listening with avidity."
Jack hesitated. "Well," he said slowly, "if I
were as well posted as you are, I could clo so.
I know I could ; but you know, Uncle Tom, I 've
got an awfully good forgettery."

The other boys were inclined to charge jack
with something technically known in boy language
as a " crawl," and Uncle Tom laughed heartily.

" Well, let me help you, Jack," he said.
" Recollect that our particular line of research
is great Americans ; and by greatness I mean popular adoption the
people's stamp of greatness. When you attempt that test you can

great Americans on your
others -
Tom," laughed Jack,

JOHN JAY.

count all the really
ten fingers. There are

" Here, here, Uncle
"you are dropping into
to take you in hand,

"Why, what did I
innocently. "It 's all
communications corrupt
Among historic Ameri-
clairn many : John Jay,
United States, a patriot
Clintons, George and
governors ; the two Liv-

slang, too.

sir.

Ve '11 have

GOV. GEORGE CLINTON.

say?" asked Uncle Tom,
your fault, Jack. ' Evil
good manners,' you know,
cans, New York city can
first Chief Justice of the
and a statesman ; the two
DeWitt, kinsmen and
ingstons, Robert and Ed-
ward, brothers, jurists and statesmen. These are names high on New York's
roll of fame, but I fear they must all yield precedence in greatness to the
two historic names I have given you as heading
the list Hamilton and Grant. Anyhow, we '11
go out and investigate."

They did so, next day. Wise Uncle Tom se-
lected a Sunday morning before church time, and
after a particularly early breakfast, for his first
walk. Then he knew lower Broadway would
virtually be deserted, and they could wander
through the old streets at their will without being
pushed or jostled by the hurrying and unhistoric
crowds of a busy week day. ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON

So, with Uncle Tom as guide, the five investigators walked the ancient
vSection of the old town which Dutch traders had founded, and English

IN THE NATIONS FIRST CAPITAL

"HERE PETER STUYVESANT PLAYED THE DESPOT."

traders had developed, and American traders had made great. Up and down
those very streets, years and years before, men whose names are familiar, or
whose lives are notable, had walked and talked and labored. Here Wouter
Van Twiller had played the fool, and Peter Stuyvesant the despot ; here
Kidd the pirate had lived like a gentleman, and Andros the dragoon had
ruled as governor ; here Jacob Leisler, earliest of American patriots, had died
for popular liberty, and Zenger, New York's first " newspaper man," had
fought for the right of free speech, and obtained it.

They threaded the crooked streets of the old town, and tried to imagine
what it looked like in the days of beginnings when Wall street was really
" the street along the wall," and Pearl street was " the Strand," or river beach.
In fancy, they pulled down the towering modern building at 39 Broadway,
and put in its place the two little huts built by Block's shipwrecked sailors
first homes of the white man in New York. They stood on the breezy
Battery, reminder of the vigorous Leisler, who gave it its name; they located
the circle of the ancient fort which had witnessed so manv momentous

scenes, but none more notable than the bold adoption of the colonists'
"charter of liberties" in 1683.

Here, at the corner of Pearl and Whitehall streets, they located the
house in which had lived Leisler, the people's governor, and recalled his

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

VIEW OF FEDERAL HALL, 1797.
Where Washington was inaugurated.

dramatic story; there, near at hand, had stood the queer old " Stadt Huys," or
City Hall, where aristocracy and democracy had waged their earliest battles.

It was all very interesting, because, as Christine said, it was making
over the past, and if you could only unthink, as she expressed it, all the
real brick and granite and iron, you could imagine the quaint old houses
and odd surroundings of the place as they looked in Washington's day.

Uncle Tom helped them to " unthink" the modern dress.

" Call it Washington's day," he said. <l New York is the capital of the
new republic, and many of the great ones of that storied time live here-
abouts. Yonder, on Pearl street, near Wall, are the houses of Livine-

ston and Clinton ; not far away Chief-Justice Jay keeps open house ; on
Maiden Lane lives Jefferson, while Hamilton, his great rival, is on Wall
street ; and here, in front of No. i Broadway, which is President Washing-
ton's residence, you may perhaps catch a glimpse of these two great states-
men walking up and down for a full half hour, talking earnestly together
as, between themselves, they arrange for the selection of the site of the new
capital of the United States the city of Washington that is to be."

" I declare, Uncle Tom, I can almost see them now," Marian announced.

Then, by a wide loop in their walk, Uncle Tom showed his young peo-
ple the spot where, at the close of the Revolution, plucky Jack Van Arsdale,
the sailor boy, climbed the greased pole on the battery and flung out the
stars and stripes in the face of the departing British. He paused with them

IX THE NATIONS FIRST CAPITAL

before Ward's splendid statue of Washington on the sub-Treasury steps -

the very spot on which he took the oath of office as President ; he showed

them the region of " Golden

Hill" on John street, near Cliff.

where the first blood of the

Revolution was spilled, while

not far away, in the sparkling

harbor, he pointed out the place

w^here New r York's "tea party'

had been held ; he took them to

City Hall Park, and pointed out

where Jacob Leisler had been

martyred for independence and

Nathan Hale for liberty ; he

crossed the street and pointed

out the tomb of Montgomery, the hero of Quebec, set in the brow^n front

of St. Paul's, and let them stand for an instant within the old church,

in the very pew which had been Washington's. Then, passing down

the street, they came to Trinity churchyard. There, with minds now

OLD CITY HALL, WALL STREET, 1776.

"A PROSPECTIVE VIE\V OF THE CITY HALL IN NEW YORK,
TAKEN FROM WALL STREET."

From a print in possesbion of the New York Historical Society.

thoroughly in what Uncle Tom called " an historic mood," they surveyed
the brown sarcophagus that shrines the remains of " Don't-give-up-the-
ship" Lawrence, as Jack designated him; they found the sunken slab

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

that covers the grave of poor Charlotte Temple ; they stood before the
towering obelisk that stands as a memorial "to those great and good men
who died while imprisoned in this city for their devotion to the cause of
American Independence"; and so came at last to the modest .gray monu-
ment on the south side
of Trinity churchyard be-
neath which rest the bones
of one of the greatest of
historic Americans and of
famous men Alexander
Hamilton.

Bert read the inscription
on the base: "'To the
memory of Alexander
Hamilton, the corporation
of Trinity Church has
erected this monument in
testimony of their respect
for the Patriot of incom-
parable integrity, the Sol-
dier of approved valour,
the Statesman of consum-
mate wisdom, whose tal-
ents and virtues will be
admitted by grateful pos-
terity, long after this mar-
ble shall have mouldered
into dust. He died July
12, 1804, aged 47.'
The boys and girls regarded the inscription with interest. It seemed a
fitting culmination to all they had seen that morning.

" Only forty-seven ! '" was Christine's comment. " He was n't so very
old, was he? And he did so much."

" Somehow I always think of those Revolutionary fellows as old men,"
said Jack. " Don't you know how the song goes:

" In their ragged regimentals

Stood the old Continentals

Yielding not.

But this does n't seem so, does it? Hamilton was an 'old Continental,'
was n't he, Uncle Tom ? "

WARD'S STATUE OF WASHINGTON.
On the steps of the sub-Treasury, Wall street. Trinity church in the distance.

IN THE NATION S FIRST CAPITAL

''One of the earliest and youngest," replied Uncle Tom. "Hut then
you must remember, Jack, that it is the young men who make history, and
govern yourself accordingly ! Why, the average age of the fifty-six signers
of the Declaration of Independence was only forty-four; twenty of them
were under forty, and one was but twenty-four. Twenty of the signers of
the Constitution were under forty Madison and Hamilton, its authors and
'fathers,' were but thirty-six and thirty respectively. Age, you see, is not
a requirement to statesmanship, and the remarkable story of Alexander
Hamilton, before whose early grave we are standing, is proof of this."

" Did n't we hear something about him in Washington ? " inquired Marian.

"To be sure we did in the State Department, was n't it?" rejoined
Christine.

"Why, yes," said Roger; "don't you remember when the custodian in
the library showed us the real simon-pure original Constitution of the
United States he told us
about Hamilton and said that
his story was one to make
young men proud of their
youth ? "

"What do you recollect
of his story, boys ? " asked
Uncle Tom.

" Let 's see," hesitated
Bert, " the man in the State
Department told us that
Hamilton was an orator and
patriot at seventeen, a hero
at twenty, a statesman at
twenty-three."

"Sort of 'historic boy,'
eh, Uncle Tom ? " suggested
Jack.

" But was he all that so
young ? " Marian demanded.

"All that and more,"
Uncle Tom replied. "Alex-
ander Hamilton was really,
Jack, one of the world's his-
toric one of its remarkable boys. Let me see if I can recall his record :
At twelve, a confidential clerk in a mercantile house ; at thirteen, man-

THE TOMB OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
In Trinity churchyard.

THE STATUE OF NATHAN HALE.
By Frederick McMonnies, recently erected in City Hall Park, New York.

IN THE NATIONS FIRST CAPITAL ^7

v-> /

ager ; at fourteen, a descriptive writer; at sixteen, a regular student in
college and at the same time taking a medical course ; at seventeen, a
popular orator; at nineteen, a captain of artillery in the Continental army;
at twenty, a lieutenant-colonel and Washington's aide-de-camp ; at twenty-
three, a battalion commander ; at twenty-four, a member of Congress ;
at thirty, framer and signer of the Constitution of the United States; at
thirty-two, the first Secretary of the Treasury ; at thirty-five, a great lawyer ;
at forty, a major-general ; at forty-two, commander-in-chief of the armies
of the United States ; at forty-five, America's leading statesman ; and at
forty-seven here, murdered by his relentless rival, Aaron Burr."

" Really murdered, Uncle Tom ? How dreadful ! " exclaimed Christine.

" I thought he was killed in a duel," said Jack. " Duelling was n't called
murder then."

" He must have been murdered," said Roger, solemnly. " I know a
verse my grandmother used to tell me. She got it from her father, she said.
How did it go? something like this:

" O Aaron Burr, what have you done ?
You 've shot poor General Hamilton.
You got behind a bunch of thistles
And shot him dead with two horse-pistols."

"Oh, see here, that is n't history, is it?" exclaimed Bert.

Uncle Tom laughed.

"Current tradition done into doggerel," he said. " It was n't just like
that, Roger, although, as I said, duelling is murder, and in this instance it
was deliberate murder, even without the thistles and horse-pistols of your
great-grandfather's rhyme. Burr was determined to kill Hamilton, while
Hamilton fired his pistol in the air, simply wanting to follow out the form of
a duel without its tragic ending. But if it killed Hamilton, physically, it
killed Burr, morally and politically, for it proved to be the greatest mistake
of his mistaken and wrono-ly balanced life. It rounded out Hamilton's

O / .

fame, and drove Burr into treason and ignominy."

As they turned from the grave of one of America's most brilliant states-
men, and took the cable car up Broadway for home, Uncle Tom rehearsed
briefly Hamilton's remarkable story:

"Hamilton was born in 1757 on the island of Nevis, one of- -who
knows where Nevis is ? " he asked.

They were good geography scholars and not to be caught napping.

" One of the Leeward Islands, down Venezuela way," said Bert.

" Yes, and an English possession," added Uncle Tom. " Well, there

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

WASHINGTON'S PEW IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH AS IT IS TO-DAY.

Alexander Hamilton was born in 1757, and before he was ten years old
had to look out for himself. He was a remarkably bright boy even then ;
he had ambitions and aspirations, and told his boy friends he meant to be
somebody in the world when he grew up. Before he was in his teens he
became the confidential clerk of his employer, a merchant in the distant
island of Santa Cruz ; there, too, he wrote and read a great deal and showed
so much talent that friends sent him to the northern colonies for an educa-
tion. He went to school in New Jersey and then to King's College (now
Columbia). In 1774 he made a visit to Boston, and heard so much talk
about liberty that he came back to New York a full-fledged patriot "

" Boston air," asserted Roger in an aside to Jack ; " that 's the effect it has
on New Yorkers."

"Is that so?' drawled Jack. "Why, my son, Golden Hill came two
months before the Boston massacre; Uncle Tom said so."

But Uncle Tom had not caught this side sparring and was going on
with his story.

IN THE NATION S FIRST CAPITAL

" Soon after his return, in an open-air mass meeting where he thought the
speakers were not convincing enough, Hamilton, then a boy of seventeen,
sprang to his feet and made a ' spur-of-the-moment ' speech that set all his
hearers on fire and brought him at once into favor as a popular orator.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
From the painting by Trumbull, 1792 ; now owned by the New York Chamber of Commerce.

When war really came, Hamilton enlisted at once. He led an artillery com-
pany at the battle of Long Island, and soon attracted the attention of Wash-
ington, who added him to his staff as an aide-de-camp. He fought through
the Revolution, led the last charge at Yorktown, where Cornwallis surren-
dered, and came out of it all as Colonel Hamilton, aged twenty-five."

" My, though ! he was a smart one, was n't he ? " said M.arian.

" Yes ; he mio-ht have been a great soldier and a famous one,'' said Uncle

> O

THE. CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

Tom, " it he had not made a
still higher record as a states-
man. He had a remarkable
mind, you understand, and saw,
even before older and more ex-
perienced men recognized it,
the need of something reliable
and binding if the Colonies

were to be a real nation. When
he was twenty-four, . in a letter
to a friend, he outlined many
ot the provisions that, seven
years later, found place in the
Constitution."

" I remember the man in the
State Department told us that,"
said Bert. "Great, was n't
it?

I tell you, Alexander was
quite a boy," Jack declared
impressively.

ONE RESULT OF HAMILTON'S IMPROMPTU SPEECH.
Tearing down the King's arms.

IN THE NATION'S FIRST CAPITAL 61

"After the Revolution," continued Uncle Tom, ''Hamilton began busi-
ness as a lawyer here in New York, but gave up his practice to go to
Congress, and, later, to become a member of the convention that drafted and
adopted the new Constitution of the United States, of which, as I have said,
he was largely the father and framer. When the new nation was fairly on
its feet, President Washington made Hamilton Secretary of the Treasury,

o j j '

and it was this wonderful financier of thirty- two who saved the young repub-
lic from bankruptcy and failure. Did any of you ever hear what Daniel
Webster said of Hamilton and his services to the republic as Secretary of
the Treasury ? "

No one seemed to remember, and Uncle Tom quoted W T ebster's famous
words, from his eulogy on Hamilton in 1831 :

" He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed
forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet."

"That 's fine, is n't it ! " exclaimed Jack. " Say, boys, D. W. knew how
to put things, did n't he?"

"A great man always makes strong enemies, just as he creates faithful
followers," continued Uncle Tom. " Hamilton was the object alike of the
deepest admiration and the most bitter hatred. Chief among his enemies
was Aaron Burr, a bold, shrewd, vindictive, and unscrupulous political
'boss' of that time. He knew that Hamilton saw through his schemes,
fathomed his ambitions, and intended to thwart his designs. He set delib-
erately to work to fasten a quarrel upon Hamilton and kill him. He suc-
ceeded, and the famous and tragic duel across the river yonder, on the
Weehawken shore, ended the earthly career of Hamilton, but raised him,
as I have told you, to a pinnacle of fame which stands out all the bolder
and more gloriously as the years go by. The man who thought out the
Constitution of the United States, and the way in which the new nation
should be firmly established and successfully ' run,' is not likely to fade
from the grateful memories of the citizens of the great republic he prophe-
sied and prepared for. That ends my lecture, boys and girls. Here 's our
corner. Now for home and morning church."

A day or two after this journey in patriotic paths, Uncle Tom took his
young people far up-town on the west side of Manhattan Island. He
pointed out to them the crest of the hill where was fought the battle of
Harlem Heights, in which the young artillery captain Hamilton first at-
tracted the attention of Washington, and where now rise the walls of the
magnificent successor to that young patriot's modest college then King's,
now the new Columbia.

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

Soon they crested another hill, and stood at last amid the continually
rising city mansions of this sightly part of upper New York Convent
Avenue between I42d and i43d streets.

Midway in this block, on the western side of Convent Avenue, Uncle
Tom came to a standstill, and pointing to a clump of rather scraggy and
slanting trees closely bunched together, said :
" Count them ! "

"Thirteen," announced Roger. "What are they?"

"These thirteen trees," said Uncle Tom, impressively, " w^ere planted
by Alexander Hamilton to commemorate the union of the thirteen Amer-
ican colonies into a nation, after the
adoption of the Constitution, in
which he had so important a share.
They have lasted thus long. They
are now the property of the city.
Let us hope the advance of popula-
tion will not smother or overthrow
these last memorials of the home
of Alexander Hamilton."

"Why, was this his home?" in-
quired Marian.

"The Grange, Hamilton's country
house, stood just to the left of that
clump of trees," said Uncle Tom.
" Now it has been removed. There
it stands across the way, next to
that Episcopal church."

With much interest the boys and
girls looked across the avenue where,
on the eastern side, stood the re-
moved and renovated homestead of Hamilton, which he so clearly loved,
and from which he had gone direct to his death that fatal i ithof July, 1804.
Jack shook his head meditatively, as if he too were recalling Hamilton's
tragic story.

" It was a great shame," he said emphatically. " What a pity ! I
suppose there always are two sides to a story, and there may have been
lots of outs about Hamilton- -but I don't care ; he was a great man, and I
say three cheers for him."

"We are none of us perfect, Jack," said Uncle Tom; "but I am trying
to show you young folks, in our great Americans, the things to remember,

TREES PLANTED BY HAMILTON.
Convent Avenue, New York.

IN THE NATION S FIRST CAPITAL

not the things to forget. Alexander Hamilton was born to be great.
Marshall, our foremost Chief Justice, ranked him next to Washington. No
man has made a deeper mark on American history, or is entitled to a more
exalted station in the remembrance of the republic. He was a great orator,,

THE HAMILTON GRANGE.

On Convent Avenue, New York; now a school.

a great lawyer, the ablest politician and statesman of his day, a fine soldier,
an organizer without a rival. Whatever he touched he mastered, and if
ever he made a mistake he was not afraid to say so. But though some-
times mistaken, he never failed. Hamilton's name stands for success, and
his story should be an inspiration to the boys and girls of America, for it
shows them that worthy ambition rightly pursued brings to men merited
success and enduring fame."

"Albert, my son," said Jack, patting his cousin on the head, ''be a
Hamilton."

THE DUEL.

JOHN NIXON READING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN
THE STATE HOUSE YARD, PHILADELPHIA, JULY 8, 1776.

CHAPTER V

THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL

Where Franklin lived An Extraordinary Man The Story of a Help-
ful Life Landmarks and Relics Independence Hall and the Liberty
Bell.

NCLE Tom stopped short and glanced about him.

" It must have been somewhere near this very spot," he
said, "that a certain runaway Boston boy once did that dif-
ficult act, referred to in Boston by my friend Jack, of walk-
ing along with a roll under each arm, eating a third, and at
the same time ' casting sheep's eyes ' at a girl on the front stoop."

At once Jack thrust, first, a guide-book, and then a newspaper under
Roger's arms, and forced a banana into his hand.

"Try it on, Roger," he said. "You '11 answer for the runaway Boston
boy. Christine, you go stand in that doorway. We '11 make the whole
Franklin story realistic."

But neither Roger nor Christine appeared to enter heartily into the
spirit of what Jack styled his "realistic reproduction of an historic event,"
and Uncle Tom hurried the laughing group up Market street ; for they
were abroad, investigating old-time Philadelphia.

Suddenly he stopped again. Midway in the block between Third and
Fourth streets, on the southern side of Market, he spied a queer, arched
passage, and at once dived into it, followed by his wondering companions.

The alleyway widened as they advanced. Half way toward Chestnut
street Uncle Tom stopped a third time.

" Here, boys and girls," he said, "once stood the house of the most ex-
traordinary of Americans Benjamin Franklin."

" Most extraordinary place to have a house," declared Bert.

" Here, in the middle of this block of the back doors of buildings,
Uncle Tom?" cried Marian. "How funny!"

5 65

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

"THE GIRL AT WHOM HE 'CAST SHEEP'S EYES."

" As if they were here then, goosey ! " exclaimed Jack.

Warehouses and blank walls hedged in the narrow court. It was nei-
ther attractive nor suggestive; but in Uncle Tom's eyes it was a shrine
before which all patriotic Americans could stand with feelings of reverence.

The queer, narrow cut ran through the block from Market to Chestnut
streets, and midway, so Uncle Tom assured them, had stood the house
where Franklin lived with his dearly loved wife Deborah.

" The girl at whom he cast sheep's eyes while doing the three-loaves act,
was n't she?" inquired Jack.

" The same," said Uncle Tom " Miss Deborah Read. Nothing remains
of that house now. But from here went out truths that instructed the
world; from here went the philosopher with his kite and his son into the
fields beyond the town to experiment with the lightning the pioneer of
electrical science."

"That makes me think of that statue of him in front of the Electricity
Building at the World's Fair," said Marian, " with his kite and all, you know."

-*- 'V--***Tlffl* - ^'-1- "^V rfT3 -^y Y-.& 1 A; "

- l^^^^Sk^ss^iKK^^.

S'^^^^^L^^^

t***^ ^^^-^l \"i)i Vfc 1 r'-^ z .' if 'Vr 1 ' ,'",t I kMiilSt**-*

33,0^0^ -^-

STATUE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.

Made for the Electricity Building, World's Fair Grounds, Chicago, 1893, and
now on the grounds of the University of Pennsylvania.

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

"He was a pioneer in many other things too, was he not?" inquired
Bert.

"Indeed he was," Uncle Tom replied. "I know of no case in history
of a man with equal genius for 'starting things.' Let me see if I can give
you a list of the things which Benjamin Franklin set afloat."

Uncle Tom stood in the shade of a warehouse doorway, and ran over
the list:

" He improved the printing-press, and introduced stereotyping and mani-
fold letter-writers ; he cured chimneys of smoking ; bettered the shape and
rig of ships ; showed sailors the practical use of the Gulf Stream, and told
them how to keep provisions fresh at sea. He improved soup-plates for
men and water-troughs for beasts ; he drained swamp-lands, and made
them fertile and fruitful ; he improved fireplaces, and invented stoves ; he
showed how to heat public buildings, and invented automatic fans to cool
hot rooms and to keep off flies ; he made double spectacles for far- and near-
sighted folks ; he invented a musical instrument, and improved an electrical
machine ; he taught men that lightning was electricity, relieved it of its ter-
rors, and harnessed it to do the will of man ; he invented lightning-rods,

and was the first advocate of electrocu-
tion for killing animals instantly and
without pain ; he thought out phonog-
raphy and shorthand ; improved car-
riage wheels, wind-mills, and water-
wheels ; he revolutionized the covering
of roofs ; he invented sidewalks and
crossing-stones, at least for Philadel-
phia, and showed that streets could be
swept and kept clean. He founded the
first philosophical society in America,
the first improvement club, the first free
schools outside of New England, the
first public library, the first fire com-
pany, and the first periodical magazine.
He started the Philadelphia police force
and the first volunteer militia. He in-
troduced the idea of humanity in war ;
protected the Indians; founded the first
anti-slavery society ; and introduced into America, from Europe, seeds, vines,
and vegetables new to the Western world. That 's a pretty good record of first
things, is n't it ? I don't believe you can match it in the history of the world."

FROM A FRENCH MEMORIAL TO FRANKLIN

" He snatched the thunderbolt from heaven and the
scepter from tyrants."

THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL

6 9

" Whew ! what a head he must have had ! " said Jack. " Did he ever eat
and sleep ? "

"Well, I guess ! " exclaimed Bert. " He 's the fellow you Ve had to go
to bed by, many a time. Don't
you know that Franklin was the
man who said :

Poor Richard, 1733,

AN "~~~

Almanack

For the Year of Ch.rift

Being the- Fir ft after LEAP YEAR:

arS

724!

5494:

" Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Is n't that so, Uncle Tom ? '

" Certainly it is," his uncle
replied. " Benjamin Franklin
was the author and maker of
4 Poor Richard's Almanack,'
from which that rhyme comes,
and which did more to influence
public opinion in America than
all the speeches of all the ora-
tors. It was full of just such
thrifty maxims and wise coun-
sels as Bert has just quoted
simple verses telling a great
truth that parents would repeat
and children would always re-
member. Franklin published
his almanac annually for twenty-
five years, and one student of
history has declared that the
battles of the American Revolu-
tion could not have been fought
between i 775 and i 783 if ' Poor
Richard's Almanack ' had not
been published from 1732 to
i 758. There were hundreds and
hundreds of homes in the Amer-
ican colonies in which the fam-
ilies knew and possessed only two books the Bible for Sunday reading,
and ' Poor Richard's Almanack ' for the other six days of the week. As
you can see from Master Bert here, people are quoting from it yet, though
it stopped publication almost a hundred and fifty years ago."

makes fsvre tie Creation
Account of the .ftem (jfttks
the Latin CKuvch, v-lun Q em. 1
( Sy rhe Computation of tf^'.ift^,
' By the R&ns-u Chronology

'J 1 f IT, I I "'

fly toe y&ytp Kabbjes

js contaived

s, Eclipfcs, judgment, of
the Weather, Spring Tides,, r Planff^ Motions &
inuruai Afpeb, Sun and Moon's RifJng;'and St-
ring, Length of Days, Time of Hih Water,
Fairs, Gmrrs, and obTervabte D-iys.

y Degrees, -

e Hours Weft from /

j Hut may without fenfible Error, feryeaii the >d-'
'.jacent Places, even from Newfoundland to South-: ,*

Canlnta.

PHILADELPHIA:

Fumed and fold by B. FRJNKL/-V> at the New
Printing Office near the Market.

Tbc Third Jrnpjrcjfiion,

"POOR RICHARD'S ALMANACK."

Title-page of the only existing copy of the first number, now in the
possession of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia.

PAINTED BY CHARLES WILLSOK PEALE.

THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL Jl

Interested, thus, in the remarkable man who for many years was so
closely identified with American history and the progress of the world, the
man who, as his French admirers affirmed, "snatched the thunderbolt from
heaven and the scepter from tyrants," the young people followed Uncle
Tom from the narrow confines of Franklin alley along what Jack afterward
referred to as "the trail of B. Franklin."

They found signs of it in many quarters. They saw the great and
beneficent Pennsylvania Hospital founded by him. Tucked away behind mo-
dern and obtrusive buildings they found, on Fourth street, between Market
and Arch, the first school building of the University of Pennsylvania, started
by Franklin in 1751. They visited the Philadelphia Library, organized by
him in i 731 ; they saw the place where he helped Jefferson draft the Declara-
tion of Independence, the place where he argued for it, the table on which
he sio-ned it, and the room in which he advocated and signed the Consti-

o o

tution of the United States. In the rooms of the American Philosophical
Association, a scientific society founded by him, they were privileged to see
certain cherished memorials of this great man - - twenty or more volumes of
his autograph letters, personal, public, political, and private ; and the girls,
with a touch of sentiment mingled with awe, hung over a priceless volume of
Franklin's European letters to his wife in America. They were creased and
time-stained, but the handwriting was strong and clear, and every letter be-
gan " My dear child."

From that hour, as Marian declared, she "just loved Franklin."

There, too, they saw the chair in which Franklin presided at the meet-
ings of his beloved Philosophical Association, when, during his last days, it
assembled' in his sick-room. Especially did this interest the boys, because of
the ingenuity of the wise old man. For the seat of the great chair was re-
versible : the upper side was a cushioned seat ; the under side, when tipped
up, was a ladder by which the sick and aged Franklin could climb into his
high four-post bed when the philosophical sessions were over. Uncle Tom
declared that this ingenious contrivance impressed the boys mightily, even
more than lightning-rods and wise sayings and sidewalks.

At last they sought the final resting-place of this wonderful American,
who from a Boston street ballad-seller rose to be the best-known man of his
day in the two hemispheres.

Where the high brick fence enclosing the old Christ Church burying-
grouncl has been torn away, at the corner of Arch and Fifth streets, so that
all who pass may see the spot from the street, they gathered before the iron
railing that separated them from the grave of Franklin.

It was a flat slab lying at their feet, and the girls, still under the influ-
ence of the dear home letters they had seen, found a special significance

7 2

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

and a peculiar beauty in the simple but joint memorial, inscribed only with

the names of Benjamin Franklin and Deborah, his wife.

" His life was just as simple as that slab," said Uncle Tom, as, resting- from

their wanderings, they sat together beneath the beautiful trees of Indepen-
dence Square, " and just as eloquent
by its very simplicity. And what a life
it was ! I know of none into which
was crowded more of good to the na-
tion and the world, with less of per-
sonal ambition or the vanity of glory."
"Tell us his story, Uncle Tom,"
Christine requested. " I sort of
know it, but I don't really."

"Briefly, it is this, "said Uncle Tom :
"A rather harum-scarum boy in the
streets of old Boston, he beo-an work-

ing on his own hook when twelve
years old, selling his own songs through
the town, because he did not take kindly

- . ?x^^'i^*^2P^Pi^sgs
iM- :-- 5 ; ^-S^jW^^^^

FRANKLIN'S GRAVE.
Fifth and Arch streets, Philadelphia.

to his father's business of candle-mak-
ing. Then he became a printer, ran
away from home to escape the tyranny
of a brother, turned up on a Sunday morning here in Philadelphia, and found
employment in a printing-office ; and here, at twenty years of age, he was pa-
tronized by a governor, who sent him to England on false promises. Having
a trade, however, he did not starve when failure met him. He returned,
after two years in London, to Philadelphia, and set up a printing-office of
his own on Market street ; he started a newspaper ; he became a bookseller,
and next an almanac publisher ; then he was made clerk of the assembly,
postmaster of Philadelphia, and finally postmaster general of the American
colonies. A pretty good rise for the candle-maker's son, was it not? '

" I should say it was," said Bert. How old was he when he was made
postmaster-general, Uncle Tom ? "

" About forty-six," his uncle replied. " But he had accomplished much
else. The poor Boston boy, who had scarcely a year's schooling, was now
master of six languages. He had tamed the lightning, had made his name
known in Europe, received degrees, medals, and diplomas from the leading
colleges in Europe and America, and had become, for all time, ' Doctor '
Franklin, philosopher and scientist."

" When did he fly the kite that brought him all that fame, Uncle Tom ? '
asked Marian.

THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL

,. vi

mb XL.

PRINTING PRESS.

IMPOSING STONE.

ELECTRICAL MACHINE.

FIRE BUCKETS.

DRESS SWORD.

BUST' BY HOUDON.

COPY OF HEADING OF THE FIRST
NUMBER OF THE PENNSYL-
VANIA GAZETTE PUBLISHED
BY FRANKLIN.

SUGGESTION OF THE OLD PHILA-
DELPHIA LIBRARY IN THE
BACKGROUND.

_^_: . ^

Coaming .<

.-<-.

; a GH

, r

way

MEMORIALS OF FRANKLIN.

" On a June day in 1752," Uncle Tom replied, "out here in the fields
just beyond the town. Now, of course, that little hill is all built over. I
wish I could locate it for you, for it is one of America's historic spots.
Well, in 1/57 he was sent to England as agent for Pennsylvania, and soon
after was made agent, or representative, in England for all the colonies. He
stayed there eighteen years, returning in time to be sent to Congress and
sign the Declaration of Independence."

"That 's the time he made the funny answer to Hancock, was n't it?"
said Roger.

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" I don't know ; what was that, Roger? " Uncle Tom inquired.
"Why, don't you remember? Hancock said, 'We must all be unanimous
now ; there must be no pulling apart ; we must all hang together.' And

A MEETING OF AN OLD-TIME SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY.

Franklin replied, ' That 's true, John ; for if we don't, we shall all hang
separately.' '

" Cheerful old fellow, was n't he?" said Jack. " I do like a man who
can make a joke just when you don't expect it."

"Franklin was always bubbling over with fun," Uncle Tom declared.
''The man who was quick to see the deep and serious side of life could also
see its sunny and humorous side. That is what helped make him so well
rounded. That same year he was sent as minister to the Court of France,
and secured the help of that nation for the struggling colonies. He lived
there ten years. Then he came home, was made president that is, governor
-of Pennsylvania ; went to Congress, and worked for and signed the new
Constitution of the United States, when he w r as eighty-one years old, and,
as you know, the oldest signer of that great document. Three years later,
on the i /th of April, 1.790, he died, aged eighty-four, and now lies buried
beside his beloved Deborah, 'his w r ife,' beneath that simple slab in Christ
Church burying-ground."

THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL

CHRIST CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.
Where Franklin and Washington went to church.

" What a busy life ! " exclaimed Christine. " And think of the things
he did that you could n't get into the story, Uncle Tom ! I think he must
have been a delightful old man.'

"He was indeed, Christine," Uncle Tom replied, "and as remarkable
as he was charming. Self-taught, self- reared, self-made, the candle -maker's
boy gave light to all the world ; the street ballad-seller set all men to sing-
ing of liberty ; the runaway printer brought the nations to praise and honor

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

him. And he was so well balanced ! Witty, but never malicious ; inflexible,
but never obstinate ; strong-willed, but never tyrannical ; the wisest of men,
but never conceited ; a statesman, but never a politician ; an office-holder, but
never an office-seeker : he had all the attributes and none of the vices of
greatness ; all the simplicity and none of the sorcliclness of success. With
great understanding, he had still greater common sense, and, while asking
few favors for himself, no man in the world ever set on foot so many good
works of practical benevolence. Yes, yes ; he was a great man, my friends ;
America's most remarkable production, I contend. Come, let 's go into
Independence Hall, and have a look at the Liberty Bell."

yibsSStL ,,.-

it'I

WHERE FRANKLIN LIVED IN FRANCE.
Chateau de Chaumont.

In the center of the very room in which was presented, adopted, and
signed the immortal Declaration of Independence, within its protecting case
of oak and glass, hung the historic bell which rang out in announcement of
the great act of July 4, 1776. The children gathered about it with feelings
of the deepest reverence. There, in the side, they saw the crack that burst
in it as it tolled for the death of the great Chief-Justice Marshall. About
the rim they could read its prophetic inscription : " Proclaim liberty through-
out the land unto all the inhabitants thereof" ; and Uncle Tom told them
that it had been mute and tongueless ever since the one hundred and thir-
teenth birthday of Washington, when it had struck its last note. But he
assured them that, by its silent presence in that memorial hall, and by its
carefully guarded journeys north and south to expositions and national jubi-

THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL

SET

v . l

THE LIBERTY BELL ON A SOUTHERN TRIP.
" Eloquent for loyalty, liberty's most efficient orator."

lees, it had become eloquent for loyalty, liberty's most efficient orator.
Even more than the table on which the Declaration had been signed and
the chairs in which had sat the members of the Congress, did this voiceless
old bell hold and fascinate the boys and girls.

Uncle Tom shared their interest.

" It certainly is one of the most impressive relics in the world," he de-
clared, as they passed from the Congress room to the National Museum
across the hall. " I always feel as though I were looking on a real par-
ticipator in the historic event which it proclaimed so vigorously a hundred
years or more ago."

"As you are," Bert declared; while Christine, looking at the winding
hall stair, exclaimed :

" Oh, was it up those stairs that the boy ran to tell his grandfather to

i
ring?

" You remember the old story, do you ? " laughed Uncle Tom. " Those
should be the stairs, if they have not been renewed or rebuilt. As to the
truth of that story, I am not prepared to decide."

" It 's good enough to be true, anyhow," said Roger.

" It 's all just like the poem," said Christine. " Let 's see, how did it
go?" and she repeated the opening verse of the bell-ringer story as she
had spoken it in school :

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

^~ '' '^

: j ^^M^MSRJ

J ; fp ( 'JSKJg fer Tffy. ' /', -4,^^^ '^^" "'' f

JULY 4, I77 6 -

Squarely prim and stoutly built,
Free from glitter and from gilt,
Plain, from lintel up to roof-tree and to belfry

bare and brown,
Stands the Hall that hot July,
While the folk throng anxious by,
Where the Continental Congress meets within
the Quaker town.

" Hark ! a stir, a sudden shout,
And a boy comes springing out,
Signalling to where his grandsire in the

belfry waiting-stands:
' Ring ! ' he cries : ' the deed is done !
Ring ! they 've signed, and freedom 's

won ! '

And the ringer grasps the bell-rope with his
strong and sturdy hands;

While the Bell, with joyous note,

Clanging from its brazen throat,

_. Rings the tidings, all-exultant peals the

news from shore to sea :
' Man is man a slave no longer.
Truth and Right than Might are stronger.
Praise to God ! we 're free ; we 're free .' '

THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL

They lingered long over the extensive collection of revolutionary relics
in the museum room ; they visited the Congress Hall, where Washington
and Adams had both been inaugurated ; they hunted up the Supreme Court
room in which had presided John Jay and Oliver Ellsworth, earliest of chief-
justices. They studied or recalled all the associations that make Independ-
ence Hall so notable an object lesson in American history, and Marian
stood before the ancient fireplace in the Philosophical rooms on the exact
spot where Washington posed for the celebrated Gilbert Stuart portrait.

"Gilbert Stuart!' said Bert, " O, don't you remember? we found his
grave in Boston."

" Yes, in the old burying ground, inside of Boston Common," replied
Roger.

TABLE AND CHAIRS USED AT THE SIGNING OF
THE DECLARATION.

They visited Carpenters' Hall, farther down Chestnut street a quaint
reminder of colonial times, hedged about by great modern buildings, but with
tiny courtyard and grass-plots. They read the inscription above the doors
of the audience room : " Within these walls, Henry, Hancock, and Adams
inspired the delegates of the colonies with nerve and sinew for the toils of
war," and then were quite ready to hunt up that historic corner of Seventh
and Market streets where, so the tablet in the new bank buildincr announced

t_>

to them, had stood the house in which Jefferson wrote the Declaration.

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM PENN, IN HIS TWENTY-SECOND YEAR.

They dipped still deeper into the past, and hunted up the site of the old
houses which William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, had built for him-
self and his daughter on Letitia street, and so, at last, worked round again to
dinner and the contemplation of Franklin Philadelphia's most notable
figure, as Uncle Tom declared,

" I told you in Boston," he remarked, as the hungry tourists paused awhile
between the roast and the dessert, "that, looking upon the spot where
Franklin was born, I was inclined to put him down as the first real Ameri-
can. The study of his life here in this city, for which he did so much, only
strengthens me in that opinion. Benjamin FYanklin was the product of his
own age and the child of his own country."

" How could he have been anything else," remarked practical Jack.

" It does sound a bit like a self-evident truth. Jack, I admit," laughed
Uncle Tom. " But I hope you know what I mean. He was preeminently
what is called the ' child of his age ' because he did more than any other

THE HOME OF THE LIBERTY BELL

American to glorify his age and shape the destinies of his country. The
ballad-peddler of Boston, the runaway printer's apprentice, made his name
famous in two continents, and, for his native land, joined liberty and law to
progress and common sense. Here, in this fine old city, he organized educa-
tion, benevolence, and industry ; here he conquered the lightning, estab-
lished independence, and cemented union. With Franklin as a model, our
boys can aspire to anything and accomplish much. With his life as a guide
and his integrity as a text, the American of to-day can shape himself into
a better patriot, a broader-minded American, a more devoted citizen of
the republic. Now for Fairmount Park and the charming Wissahickon ! "

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PHILADELPHIA FROM CAMDEN, N. J.

Delaware River in foreground.

CHAPTER VI

AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST

Philadelphia's Place in History A New Plan of Pilgrimage In the
MontJi of the Chesapeake The Old Dominion Richmond and Pat-
rick Henry.

ENI, Vidi, Vici ! " exclaimed Bert, as, their three days' stay
in Philadelphia over, the boys and girls were on their way
back to New York.

" Modest, even for a classical crank ! ' retorted Jack.
"How have you conquered, Mr. Julius Caesar Albert
Upham?"

" Why, I mean we 've seen about everything there is to see in our line
in Philadelphia," exclaimed Bert. "Is n't that so?"

"Right you are," replied Jack, "and I'm bound to confess, Roger my
boy," he added, turning to his Boston friend, " that, historically at least, the
Quaker City pushes the Hub pretty close. I had n't any idea, Uncle Tom,
that Philadelphia was such a treasure chest of relics."

" Live and learn, Jack," said Uncle Tom. " The fact is, scarcely any city
in the United States possesses so many historic buildings and sites as Phila-
delphia. It is one of the oldest municipalities, and has kept steadily ad-
vancing since Penn's day. For years it was the national capital, and it has
been its good fortune to have carefully and watchfully preserved many of
the buildings that have a place in American history."

They had scoured the old city thoroughly, from Penn's landing-place and
Franklin's "cake walk," as Jack insisted on calling lower Market street, to
the new City Hall and Grant's "headquarters" cottage in Fairmount Park.
They saw a game of ball at Girard College ; went through the splendid
new bourse, the "home of the money-changers," Uncle Tom called it;
visited the Zoo and the Memorial Art Building, reminders of the nation's
one hundredth birthday ; saw Decatur's grave in the old burying-ground

84 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

THE INVESTIGATORS SOUTHWARD BOUND.

on Third street ; and even extended their investigations to Germantown
and Valley Forge.

Now they were homeward bound; but Uncle Tom had not yet reached
the end. He had a new plan to propose; and when, after a few days at
home, he brought it to the attention of what Marian called his " pilgrim
band," it was, naturally, greeted with shouts of approval.

This new plan was nothing more than a trip by water to Fort Monroe,
and then, striking inland, a spring excursion to the homes of certain great
and famous Americans.

Uncle Tom's plan was warmly assented to by Mr. Dunlap, the lather of
Jack and Marian. For, as you may remember, when he first sent them to
Washin o-ton to study the Government under Uncle Tom's direction, Mr.

o *

Dunlap had insisted that young Americans should see and know their own
land first before attempting Europe.

It so happened that the homes of the great men " slated " by Uncle Tom
all lay on or near a direct route to the West. It did not "happen," how-
ever, Uncle Tom assured them. "Nothing happens," he said. "There is a
reason for all things." And it was with reason, he declared, that nearly all
America's famous ones were "border" men, and, hence, that western lay
their line of travel. Once decided upon, the energetic " personal conductor"
soon had the trip planned, the excursion tickets procured, all minor details
arranged, and within four clays after decision the five tourists and their men-
tor were at sea, southward bound.

It was early in the morning when the steamer passed the lonely light-
ship off Cape Charles and entered Chesapeake Bay. Even there the broad
gateway to the West looked like the open sea ; but Uncle Tom reminded the
boys and girls of the historic events that wide waterway had witnessed since
first Spaniard and Frenchman tacked cautiously in, searching for the "West-
ern Passage " to Cathay in the early days of American discovery.

" Here, sailing into fame," said Uncle Tom, sweeping with his compre-

AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST

hensive gesture the water-line that stretched from cape to cape, " came Cap-
tain John Smith, most adventurous of Englishmen ; over this course came
the early Virginia colonists, and, later, Lord Delaware and the founder of
Maryland. Out from here, bound for their English home, sailed Pocahontas
and John Rolfe ; and in between these sandy shores came the famous Dutch
ship with its cargo of negro slaves and the seeds of future discord. Pioneers
and pirates, traders and travelers, Roundheads and Cavaliers, supply ships
and prison ships, troop ships and tobacco ships, royal governors, arrogant
and assuming, royal governors, disgusted or disgraced all these, in the
early days, sailed in or out through this broad water-gate, to the help or the

hindrance of the Old Dominion and
the future republic."
' Why was it called the Old Do-
minion, Uncle Tom?" Bert in-
quired.

"Virginia so styled herself be-
cause of her steadfast loyalty
to the good-for-nothing Stu-
arts all through the days of
the English Commonwealth
and the mighty Cromwell,"
Uncle Tom replied, with
the emphasis to be
expected of so
\ sturdy an ad-

"HERE THEY SAILED INTO FAME."

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

mirer of Cromwell, so firm a hater of the Stuarts. Indeed, Uncle Tom im-
pressed it upon his tourists that America would never sufficiently honor
herself until in the capital of the republic should rise a statue of the man
to whom America owes so much Oliver Cromwell, greatest of Englishmen.
"The Stuarts have their trade-marks all about this region," Uncle Tom
declared. " These two capes between which we are passing were named
for the two Stuart boys- - Henry and Charles, sons of that crowned block-
head of a James who so scandalously put to death the father of Virginia
and one of the beginners of American history and progress, Sir Walter
Raleigh, soldier and statesman."

"Oh, he was the cloak-man, was n't he?" cried Marian. "I mean
the young courtier who spread his velvet mantle in the mud for Queen
Elizabeth to walk over."

" That was Raleigh," assented Uncle Tom ; " and though
he never sailed these waters himself, he sent expeditions
here, and did much toward the establishment of Virginia
and the development of America. A noble historic figure
is Raleigh, boys and girls. You should know his story,
both for its dramatic outlines and for the bearing it has

on American history."

The steamer plowed its steady course through this gleam-
ing water-gate to the West, while Uncle Tom, still intent on
cfivinor a real atmosphere to facts, continued his catalogue

O O O

of happenings that had made their surroundings historic.
" Over these shining waters and past these low-lying
shores," he said, "sped the messenger bearing to the
worthless Charles Stuart, known as Charles the Second,
and then a fugitive in Flanders, the colony's invitation to
come to the Old Dominion and be crowned King of Virginia. Here sailed
the Virginia vessels that were a part of that ill-fated expedition against
Carthao-ena in South America, led bv the English admiral Vernon, who

O *

gave his name to the dearly loved Potomac home of Washington Mount
Vernon. Here sailed George Washington himself on the only foreign 'tour'
he ever attempted, when, as a boy of eighteen, he accompanied his sick
brother Lawrence to Barbadoes. Here, years after, came the ships of the
Frenchman De Grasse, sailing to the final victory of the Revolution at
Yorktown- -that way, to the north ; and here, eighty years later, Northern
and Southern seamen met in fight on that momentous March clay in 1862,
when a certain little 'cheese-box on a raft' the plucky Monitor came
steaming along right where we are now, and, just in the nick of time, put an

RALEIGH AND ELIZABETH.

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THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

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end to destruction, and revolutionized the naval war-
fare of the world. See, before us lies Hampton
Roads ! "

The great sheet of water stretched on before them,
shining in the bright spring sun. To the right rose
the green sloping battlements of Fort Monroe, backed
by the great hotels of Old Point Comfort ; to the left
lay the wooded Virginia shores ; far ahead, the broad
channel showed the way to Norfolk city, broken only
by the odd little island of the Rip Raps, with its dis-
mantled fort, between which and the yellow beach of
Old Point Comfort they saw swinging at anchor the
great white water-birds of the new American navy.

"The heirs, executors, and assigns of the little
Monitor, eh, Uncle Tom ? " said Bert.

"And right here was where the fight came off,
was it ? " cried Jack, while the girls capped his query
with the verdict, " How interesting!"

"Yes; there, before us, lies the scene of that now
famous encounter," Uncle Tom replied "the only
incident of the Civil War, by the way," he continued,
"that Congress allows a place on the walls of the
Capitol. There you saw, when you were in Wash-
ington, you remember, the picture of the fight be-
tween the Merrimac and the Monitor ; not because
it was a Northern victory, for, indeed, it was really
but a drawn battle, but because that memorable
sea-fight marked a new era in naval history, and
made a new starting-point for the navies of the
world. Just now, gentlemen and ladies, you are
sailing over an historic point. For here was the
beo-innino" of the formidable modern navy, in which

O O J

yonder great White Squadron has so prominent a
place."

" Mighty interesting piece of water this, is n't it? '
said Jack, voicing the general opinion of the " crowd."

But Roger, with thoughts of Plymouth Rock and
Fort Warren in mind, was inclined to enter a quali-
fication.

"' That 's only because Uncle Tom makes it so,"

3 "

AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST

8 9

* s- A **&.&. *&"?

MAP OF HAMPTON ROADS.
Showing the battleground of the " Monitor" and "Merrimac."

he declared. "Is it any more his-
toric than any other big harbor,
Uncle Tom ? "

" Not any more so, but fully as historic, Roger," Uncle Tom replied.
"In fact, the great bays on our Atlantic coast-line have all been, since discov-
ery, gateways to the West, and through their open portals have ceaselessly-
come the makers of America peculiar people all. Into Massachusetts
Bay sailed Pilgrim and Puritan ; into New York Bay, Dutchman and Wal-
loon ; into Delaware Bay, Swede and Quaker ; into Chesapeake Bay, Cava-
lier, Churchman, and Catholic ; and into the Carolina sounds, Scotchman and
German. All of these, in their way, made each great water-gate historic, as
through privation and pluck they became colonists, Englishmen, Americans.
But at first the elements were all singularly diverse. We need to remem-
ber, when we grumble about foreign immigration, that we were all foreign-
ers once; that the red Indian is the only native American, and that we at-
tained our birthright gradually and by slow development."

9 o

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

THE "MONITOR" AND THE " MERRIMAC."

" But surely, Uncle Tom," exclaimed dainty Marian, "you would n't put
our ancestors alongside the riffraff that comes in the steerage to-day, would
you ? "

But for answer Uncle Tom, too wise to be led into argument, merely
turned to his niece with a smile, and dropped into poetry.

' 'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue,"

he said. "Come! all off for Old Point! To-day we are the immigrants."

A delightful day was spent on that sandy spot where, of old, the storm-
tossed Virginia colonists first found relief and solid ground, and gratefully
called the land Point Comfort.

The young people critically examined the two great hotels, they visited
the White Squadron, they roamed about the green embrasured-fortress that
fronts the sea and gives a martial air to the little town that has grown up
about it. The boys studied the preparations for mounting the queer new
"disappearing gun," the girls walked the whole circuit of the wide, water-
filled moat, and felt almost like medieval maidens in some moated castle of
the days of Ivanhoe or Ouentin Durward, while all the young people gazed
with equal interest upon the room that had been Jefferson Davis's prison,

THE NATIVE AND THE IMMIGRANT.

A struggle for possession in the early days of America.

9 2

THH CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

and the grove of live oaks on the great parade-
ground, beneath which the boys and girls who have
the delightful experience of living inside a fortress
were bicycling or playing ball.

After a most interesting trolley-trip to Hampton
and its famous school, fit monument to the vigor,
patience, and self-sacrifice of that true American,
General Armstrong, the whole party boarded the

"THE GREEX EMBRASURED
FORTRESS THAT FRONTS THE SEA.'

train, backed all the way down
to Newport News, and then
steamed " on to Richmond,"
eighty miles away. The road
lay through a region rich in
the associations of two stirring
epochs in American history
the Revolution and the Civil
War.

"Over that way, a few miles to the east," Uncle Tom said, "lies York-
town, where the Revolution came to an end, while here to the right, at our
very next stopping-place, was sounded one of the first bugle-blasts of the
Revolution."

"What place is that?" queried Marian.
But Bert was already studying his time-table.

" Williamsburg,'' he announced. "Let 's see; is n't there an old, old
college there ? "

"Yes," Uncle Tom replied; "William and Mary College, the oldest
college in the United States, excepting Harvard. Washington was its chan-
cellor ; Presidents Jefferson, Monroe, and Tyler, Chief-Justice Marshall, and
General Winfield Scott were once students there. In that old town were
the headquarters of Nathaniel Bacon, earliest of American rebels against

AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST

kingly authority. There stood the old Capitol building in which Washing-
ton sat as a burgess, and in which young Thomas Jefferson heard Patrick
Henry's first famous and fiery speech against the crown."

" That was n't the ' liberty-or-death' speech, was it, Uncle Tom ? " asked
Roger.

" No; it was earlier than that," Uncle Tom replied. " It was the speech
he made in connection with his resolutions against the Stamp Act, and in it

THE PRINCIPAL STREET OF YORKTOWN.

he thundered out : ' Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell,
and George the Third ' 'Treason, treason!' came the cry from the
scandalized loyalists, ' may profit by their example/ said Henry; and then
added, ' If this be treason, make the most of it ! '

" That was great ! " cried Jack. " I tell you, he had sand, had n't he ! "
" How that must have rattled those old Tories ! " said Ro^er.

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

w<f <^> ISV^-fP
WM 31 Ma

NATHANIEL BACON.
'Earliest of American rebels against kingly authority."

"It did n't rattle Mr. P. Henry, though, did it?' said Jack. "A great
orator, was n't he. Uncle Tom ? "

" Did he ever do anything more than that speech and the ' liberty-or-
death ' one ? " inquired Marian.

AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST

"Who? Henry? Why," said Uncle Tom, "he was for years one of the
foremost figures in Virginia history. We remember him to-day only for
those two famous speeches, but he filled many offices, declined many, and
just escaped election as Vice-President."

" Then he must have had a story, the same as the other men you have
told us about," said Christine. " Did n't he, Uncle Tom ?"

"Yes, my dear; he had a story," Uncle Tom replied. "He began
with the same unpromising youth so many great men have shown. He
was a careless country boy, loving hunting and fishing more than study,
loafing more than books "

"Who doesn't?" said Jack, sotto voce. But Uncle Tom heard him.

" Not you, Jack, I 'm sure," he said.

"What! think I had n't rather go fishing than peg away at problems
in geometry ? " cried Jack. " Well, I guess ! '

" Now, Jack, I 'm not going to think
as poorly of you as that," protested
Uncle Tom. " Of course I '11 admit
that a shady bank, a hook and line, and
plenty of bites are more interesting than
a proposition in Euclid ; but as between
the two for a real mind developer and
intellectual spur, I don't think so prac-
tical and wicle-awake a fellow as you

would hesitate in choice. Greatness
comes because of persistence quite as
much as because of o-enius, and it was

persistence even more than genius that
made our dozen or more famous Ameri-
cans great and immortal."

" But about Patrick Henry," prompted Bert, who always liked to stick
to the subject.

" Did n't he have genius? " asked Jack.

" I should not call it genius," said Uncle Tom. "With him it was more
the inspiration of the moment or the spur of necessity that turned his tongue
to fire. He was what we might call an instigator to liberty, as was Otis in
Boston, and the boy Hamilton in New York."

" How soon was it before he became an orator? " Marian inquired.

" Not until he was twenty-seven years old," was Uncle Tom's reply.
" His youth, as I have told you, was a careless, happy-go-lucky existence;
he never succeeded at anything and stuck to nothing long. But when at

PATRICK. HENRY.

96 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

last he blundered into eloquence, under a terrible pressure, in what is
known in history as 'the Parsons' cause,' a matter of church taxes which
the people resisted, he sprang at once into popularity as ' the people's
champion.'

" That, I suppose, set him up in business," suggested Jack.

" It certainly did," said Uncle Tom. " From that day he became a
prominent figure in Virginia history. It brought him practice as a lawyer,
advancement as a public man, power as a politician. He became a member
of the House of Burgesses, what we call the legislature, you know, a
political leader in Virginia, a delegate to the first and second Continental
Congresses, first commander of Virginia's Revolutionary army, first governor
of the State of Virginia, being twice reflected. After that, he declined to
serve as member of the Constitutional Convention, as United States senator,
as secretary of State, as governor of Virginia for the fourth time, as Chief-
Justice of the United States, as ambassador to France, and as Vice-President
of the United States. One or all of these high honors might have been
Patrick Henry's had he but said yes."

"Well, I don't see but he had a fine record as a decliner," said Roger.

" Must have gone into a decline early," suggested Jack the incorrigible.

" Many a true word is spoken in jest, boy Jack," Uncle Tom said with a
smile. "That really was a leading reason for those continued refusals to
hold office. For the last twenty-five years of his life Henry was a confirmed
invalid, and, as you grow older, boys and girls, you will learn that ill health
dulls the edge of energy."

"I suppose it does take the starch, out of a fellow," said Jack. " But
seems to me our ' liberty-or-cleath ' friend might have braced up and stuck
to thin 0-5."

<!j>

"Well, I suppose he would have done so had he been better satisfied
with the way things were going," Uncle Tom replied. "But, you see, there
was a lot of criticism afloat in those early clays of the republic, and that was
one thino- that Parick Henry could not stand. He hated to have his mo-

o J

tives questioned, and he chafed under restraint. That, in fact, was one cause
of his eloquence. As an orator he had remarkable powers ; but as a leader
he was uncertain and a bit headstrong, so that he often found his boat in
troubled waters."

" But Washington trusted him," asserted Bert.

"Yes; Washington saw his good points and appreciated his sincer-
ity, devotion, and loyalty," Uncle Tom replied. " Washington could handle
him, and it is certainly to the credit of Patrick Henry that two such wise
and well-balanced men as Washington and Adams stood his friends and
defenders."

AT THE GATEWAY OF THE WEST

WASHINGTON, PATRICK HENRY, AND EDMUND PENDLETON.
On their way to Philadelphia as delegates to the First Continental Congress.

Their study of Patrick Henry's character was resumed when, next day.
they, as Jack expressed it, "crossed his tracks again " in Richmond.

It was in the old church of St. John, a plain but picturesque old bit of
pre- Revolutionary architecture, standing on Church Hill, on the corner of
Broadway and Twenty-fourth streets. A trolley car left them at the gate.
Christine declared she never could gfet used to the strange mixture of the old

o o

and the new " trolley cars and Patrick Henry ! " she exclaimed.

The sexton came from his little office building and unlocked the side
door of the old church, which, he explained, had been considerably enlarged
since Revolutionary days.

" It must have been a bandbox then," was Marian's comment, " for it is n't
very big now."

But larg;e or small, it was bio- with interest for them all. For when the

o o

sexton, pointing to the third pew in the little block of seats on the right of

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

the entrance, informed them that " in that pew Patrick Henry made his
great speech that every boy and girl of you knows by heart, I reckon,"
there was an immediate scramble by the five to stand on the identical spot

where the familiar words were
uttered.

Jack, indeed, with his irrepress-
ible spirits, faced the chancel
where the chairman of the con-
vention sat on that memorable
March day in 17/5, and would
at once have branched out into
the famous speech.

But when he had gone as far
as " Mr. President, it is natural to
man to indulge in the illusions
of hope," Uncle Tom interfered,
and reminded him that oratory
was not included in the permis-
sion to enter.

The pleas of the other boys
and girls, however, who always

liked to hear Jack "orate," and
the good nature of the interested
sexton, led Uncle Tom to compromise on the closing paragraph of the
oration, which Jack rendered with appreciation and effect, standing in the
precise spot from which those wonderful words were uttered by Patrick
Henry a hundred and twenty years and more ago:

" It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace, peace,
but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that
sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms.
Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle ? What
is it that gentlemen wish ? What would they have ? Is life so dear or peace
so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it,
Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take, but as for me,
give me liberty, or give me death ! '

" That was a great speech, was n't it, though ! ' Roger remarked, as,
leaving the church, they stood in the shade of one of the spreading trees,
trying to decipher the inscription on an ancient stone. " I don't wonder it
has never been forgotten."

" It was never forgotten by those who heard it, friend or foe," Uncle

THE OLD CHURCH OF ST. JOHN, RICHMOND.

tf
K
3
5

1
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2 O

1 C

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914244

IOO

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

Tom declared. " No report
was made of it at the time,
but, until old age, men who
had listened to it in breath-
less excitement could recall
its burning sentences and
the method of delivery.
Jack gave the close very
well. I have heard boys in
school tear it into tatters
when they came to the ' lib-
erty or death.' But that
was not Patrick Henry's
style of oratory. There is
to-day in the library of Cor-
nell University a manu-
script account of the speech,
written by one who heard
and never forgot it. This

is the way, according to the
writer, that Patrick Henry
gave the closing sentence:
' Is life so dear or peace so
s\veet as to be purchased at
the price of chains and slav-
ery ? ' he uttered in the atti-
tude of one condemned to
slavery, bowed under the
weight of fetters. With that he paused, and raising hand and eyes
to heaven, prayed, ( Forbid it, Almighty God ! ' Dropping his hand, he
turned toward the Tories and Loyalists, who sat spell-bound and terrified
at his audacious speech, and with form bent low he said hopelessly, ' I know
not what course others may take,' and then, straightening himself as if strain-
ing against his fetters, he hissed through clenched teeth, ' but as for me,'
changing into the triumphant trumpet call, ' give me liberty ; ' thus he stood,
as the manuscript says, 'a magnificent incarnation of Freedom,' until, finally,
after an impressive pause, his left hand dropped to his side powerless ; his
right hand was clenched, as if holding a dagger to his breast ; then it struck
the imaginary weapon into his heart as the closing words came out, fear-
lessly, victoriously, like a heroic dirge 'or give me death!' There you

"I HAVE HEARD BOYS IX SCHOOL
TEAR IT IXTO TATTERS."

AT THE GATEWAY' OF THE \\KSJ

101

have the methods of a born orator, boys and girls. I 'm afraid if you tried
it that way, however, you might overdo the thing ; for it is but a step, you
know, from the sublime to the ridiculous. But Patrick Henry was an orator
above everything else ; and it is as the orator of resistance, of liberty, of
patriotism that America will remember him forever and ever."

" Where did he live, Uncle Tom ? Here in Richmond ? " Christine in-
quired, still interested in the search for "local color."

" No, not in Richmond," Uncle Tom replied. " Henry lived quite a way
to the southwest of Richmond, in what is now Charlotte County, just a few
miles south of historic Appomattox. His fine plantation was called Red
Hill, and to-day it is the country residence of the great orator's descen-
dants, to one of whom I hope to introduce you all to-day."

This was interesting, and, in fact, Uncle Tom did keep his promise.
For, later in the day, each one of the five was presented to a courteous and
delightful " gentleman of the old school " whom they afterward referred to
as " the real grandson of the real Patrick Henry."

The incident impressed them strongly, for they felt as if, somehow, they
had been brought by that introduction into direct contact with that great
and glorious past which had proclaimed liberty to the nations and given a
new and splendid republic to the world.

AFTER A CRAYON DRAWING BY SAINT MEMIN. COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY THOMAS MARSHALL SMITH.

A FAMOUS RICHMOiND MAN.
John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States.

CHAPTER VII

A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL

Richmond on the James A City Set <r*n a Hill- -Relics and Reminders
A Jeffersonian Atmosphere No Sectionalism in Heroism.

HE young people were delighted with Richmond. As, early
in the morning, the best time to see any place to advan-
tage, they rode about the famous old capital from one his-
toric point to another, they were quite ready to echo Daniel
Webster's verdict, "Truly, the city hath a pleasant seat."
" Daniel Webster?" exclaimed Bert. " Why, I thought that was Shak-
spere in ' Macbeth.' '

" Quite right, Mr. Scholar," replied Uncle Tom, who had made the quo-
tation ; " only Shakspere says ' castle,' you know, and Daniel Webster had a
way of making pat applications of familiar quotations. And it applied here,
don't you think ? "

" I should say it did," returned Bert, who seemed specially impressed with
the commanding position of the city. "Why," he continued, "I had no
idea Richmond was so high up. No wonder it took our soldiers four years
to get it. I '11 bet if the South had been as well fixed as we were in men
and supplies it would have taken us four times four years to get in here."
Jack was inclined to dissent from this opinion.

" Not with Grant to lead," he exclaimed. " He 'd have hammered it
down in no time, no matter how many forts it had ; would n't he, Uncle
Tom ? "

But Uncle Tom was not to be drawn into any such argument.
"Well, you see it was n't a question of 'if,' boys," he replied. " It was
a hard enough job to take Richmond just as it was. And the war 's over !
But, as Bert says, the position of the city makes Richmond, when well pro-
tected, almost impregnable. Its situation is certainly a commanding one.

104

THE CENTURY BOOK OE FAMOUS AMERICANS

Set on these hills like a coronet, it looks abroad over the land and, indeed,
like the city in the Bible, ' cannot be hid.' '

"And just see the James winding down there among the woods and
fields ! " cried Marian. " Is n't it perfectly charming? Was n't it near here
somewhere, Uncle Tom, that Pocahontas lived?'

" Yes ;. ten or twelve miles down the river," her uncle replied, "in the
great loop of lowland about which the river winds, and which has the queer
name of Dutch Gap. Look down there, girls, and romance to your hearts'
content ; for in that valley of the James our most famous love-story came

true."

Christine, looking down toward the home of Pocahontas, recalled

her Thackeray, and said half
aloud :

Who will shield the fearless heart?
Who avert the murd'rous blade ?
From the throng, with sudden start,
See ! there springs an Indian maid.
Quick she stands before the knight,
' Loose the chain, unbind the ring;

I am daughter of the king
And I claim the Indian right ! '

" Dauntlessly aside she flings
Lifted ax and thirsty knife;

Fondly to his heart she clings,
And her bosom guards his life !

In the woods of Powhattan,
Still 'tis told by Indian fires
How a daughter of their sires

Saved the captive Englishman."

" Pocahontas did save
Smith, did n't she, Uncle
Tom? I just won't believe
what the books say now,"
Marian declared.

" Why was n't it Rolfe she
saved ? ' queried Christine.
"Then the romance would
have been completed."
But the boys, alive to the life of to-day rather than the romance of a
misty past, were looking down upon the city at their feet.

The carriages had halted on the crest of Libby Hill, at the eastern end

(A/latoaJ(&_ aS J\.e.t>etxa,

tfie.

tlic <

<mnty
a& vi

POCAHONTAS.

From the engraving in the first edition of John Smith's General History.

A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL

105

of the town, and, close beside the tall shaft of the soldiers' monument, the
sight-seers were "drinking in the view."

" It 's a much bigger and busier place than I expected to see," Roger
declared.

" It is New Richmond you 're looking at, Roger," Uncle Tom replied.
" Many things, you see, have happened since Daniel \Yebster's Shaksperian
verdict. Richmond has made great strides even
since I saw it last. Broad streets, fine resi-
dences, electric lights, trolley cars, that splendid
new hotel, big business blocks --all these indi-
cate a prosperity in which every American will
rejoice. For, you see, Richmond is one of our
show towns, with a past that is historic."

" Let 's hunt it down, then, Uncle Tom, "said
Jack. " Drive on, please. I want to see Holly-
wood."

They saw Hollywood that beautiful city
of the dead, with its ruined portal masked in
living green. They stood beside the scarcely
picturesque " iron summer-house sort of can-
opy," as Roger styled it, that marks the rest-
ing-place Of President Monroe; they StOOd From the engraving on Smith's Map of Virginia.

above the unmarked grave of President Tyler ; they saw the ivy-covered
pyramid of stone that rises as a memorial to thousands of Confederate
dead ; they saw the graves of Pickett, Hill, and Stuart, famous rebel fighters
in the stirring days of '61 ; they heard the story of other notable names,
and then they rode back to town and the things of to-clay.

But in Richmond the things of to-day touch elbows with the things of
yesterday and the day before.

" Richmond is the Boston of the South for historic associations," Uncle
Tom declared, searching for a comparison that his young people would
appreciate. " Its story reaches back to 1609 and John Smith. It knew
Pocahontas and Powhatan. Here gallant Nat Bacon flung out his standard
of rebellion against the king's governor ; from here went the first shipments
of tobacco and the first sentiments of revolution. Here Patrick Henry
spoke for liberty, and Arnold, the traitor, brought fire and sword ; here the
rebellious South set up its banner and established its capital, and here was
the central stage on which ' the Lost Cause ' played its brief but bloody
part. A city of relics and reminders is this, with a story stretching from Na-
thaniel Bacon to Jefferson Davis, and from Thomas Jefferson to-

JOHX SMITH.

io6

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" The hotel ! " put in Bert. \Yhe\v ! There 's democratic simplicity for
you, eh, Uncle Tom ? What do you suppose Jefferson would say, if his
statue should come to life in those gorgeous surroundings ? "

"That 's so; what would he? He was the man who tied his horse to the
fence rail and just went in to be inaugurated, was n't he?" said Jack.
" Seems to me, Uncle Tom, we run up against the Father of the Declara-
tion wherever we go."

"That 's natural, Jack," said Uncle Tom. "Jefferson is in the air here."

" Is that so? Smells to me like tobacco," said Jack, with a critical sniff.

They all laughed, and Uncle Tom accepted Jack's amendment. " So
far as tangible smells are concerned, you are right," he said. " That build-

"WHAT NEWS? WHAT NEWS?"
In "gallant Nat Bacon's" day.

ing to the left is one of the largest tobacco factories in the world, and the
fragrant weed -

"Fragrant? Oh, Uncle Tom!" cried Marian.

"I speak in a general sense, my dear," said her uncle, "and as a preva-
lent, unconfmed perfume, I must say it is--well a bit fragrant. And here
in Richmond it is a chief staple, for it gives steady employment to thousands
of workers, and does a yearly business of millions of dollars."

"And all to go up in smoke," persisted Marian, who, you see, had her
opinions. "What a waste!"

" Nothing is a waste that is productive, my dear," said Uncle Tom.
"And really, you know, tobacco has played an important part in the history
of this country."

"To be sure," said Bert. " It gave Washington his fortune, so that he
would n't take a cent for what he did in the Revolution.'

A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL

107

AN IMPORTANT PERSONAGE OF COLONIAL DAYS.
The captain of a train-band.

"And Grant \\on his victories on it," said Jack.

But still Marian was not convinced, and the talk might have drifted into
a discussion of the tobacco habit if Uncle Tom had not drawn it back to
the original topic.

"The personal atmosphere," he declared, "is Jefferson. He, as I said,
is in the air. You feel his presence growing upon you gradually all the
way up from Williamsburg. There he went to college ; there he made his
first entry into public life ; here he won position and fame. The fine old
Capitol yonder was designed by him ; here he served three terms as gov-
ernor of his State in a rough and stormy time, and, all about, you find traces
or reminders of this remarkable man. For fifty years Thomas Jefferson was
Virginia's representative man."

"Jefferson!' exclaimed Roger. "What 's the matter with Washing-
ton ? "

" He 's all right! " Jack vociferated, and Uncle Tom added:

"Washington, Roger, was America's representative man."

" Well, that 's so, of course," Roger admitted. " But was n't Jefferson,
too ? "

"Assuredly, to a certain extent," Uncle Tom replied. " But this section
of the Old Dominion was especially his. Washington was never here very
much. We do not 'cross his tracks,' as Jack puts it, so often here as we

io8

THE CENTURY BOOK OE FAMOUS AMERICANS

shall in the Potomac region, where he lived as boy and man. But Jefferson
was three times governor of Virginia ; he framed Virginia's constitution, and
built himself into the State in many ways. No wonder, then, that he and
Patrick Henry stand on the base of that splendid Washington monument

yonder in Capitol Park, and that his heroic
figure graces the grand new hotel that
has been honored with his name. So,
you see, in this section lefferson is the
man for us to study rather than Wash-
ington, who will claim our attention later
in our tour."

They dismissed their carriage at the
hotel, and spent the rest of that day and a
good part of the next, in cars or on foot,
visiting the points of interest 'to which
they wished to devote time for careful in-
spection.

The list of such places was a long
one.

They visited the notable monuments in
the city, from Crawford's Washington in
Capitol Park to Lee on horseback at the
farther end of Franklin Street. They saw
the famous Washington, by Houdon, the
Frenchman esteemed the best of all
statues of Washington, because modeled
from life; they viewed the Stonewall Jack-
son monument, near the governor's house;
they inspected the old Capitol, designed
by Jefferson, and in which the Confederate congress held its sessions during
that stirring time of war, from 1861 to 1865.

This old capitol building was especially productive of explanation and
discussion ; but the things in it by which the boys and girls were most im-
pressed were the rusty old picture depicting the storming a redoubt at York-
town "Perhaps the very charge," suggested Roger, "in which Alexander
Hamilton ended the Revolution," -and those two Colonial antiques, the
Speaker's chair of the old House of Burgesses, and the funny three-storied
stove in the Rotunda Gallery.

In that very chair, Christine, who, the boys declared, "never weakened
on Washington," was positive, the Speaker must have sat when he said to

HOUDON'S STATUE OF WASHINGTON
In the State Capitol, Richmond.

A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL

-,,;

Washington, who had " stage fright " when he tried to reply to the Colony's
vote of thanks for driving the French out of Fort Duquesne: "Sit down,
Mr. Washington. Your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses the
power of any language I possess."

"Oh, what a pretty compliment!" cried Marian. "Who said it, Chris-

i "
tine r

" The Speaker of the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg," replied
Christine. " I don't know his name; do you, Uncle Tom?"

"He was Mr. Robinson," Uncle Tom answered; "and, as Christine
says, it is very probable that he was sitting in this very chair when he made
Washington blush."

"Well, I think this old stove is simply cute," Marian declared. "I
can just imagine Jefferson warming his hands before it."

" Or Patrick Henry turning from it to say, 'We must fight,' and so warm-
ing up the whole country to action," declared Bert.

"Very neatly put, Bert," Uncle Tom declared, with a nod of approval,
" even if it is a question whether those hardy Virginia farmers would have a
fire going in this elegant affair in the spring.
Come, let us go across to the State Library and
see the portraits."

They spent an hour in that treasure-house
of Colonial, Revolutionary and Civil War times,
the State Library ; then, passing around Capitol
Square, they located the various State offices of
the defunct Confederacy, had a look at the gov-
ernor's mansion in the park, and visited the
" White House of the Confederacy " the house
in which Jefferson Davis had lived during the
war. They saw the house of Chief-Justice Mar-
shall, now old and time-worn. They saw on
Main street the roomy old Allan mansion, in
which Edgar Allan Poe lived as a boy. They
stood, as you already know, in the very pew in

i i c^ T 1_ > /-I \ c 1 U t> 1 LJ- OLD STOVE IX STATE CAPITOL.

old St. John s Church trom which ratnck Henry

declared for liberty or death ; they saw that later church, with the needle-
like spire, where Davis received word from Lee that the cause was lost and
Richmond must be evacuated ; they visited the " Monumental Church,"
erected on the site of the dreadful Richmond theater fire of 1811 ; they
admired Richmond College standing in its attractive grounds near to the
Lee monument ; they located, as far as possible, the notable battle spots

I IO THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

RICHMOND IN l86l.

within range of Richmond, the site of Libby Prison, the old Slave Market,
Belle Isle, the prison home of so many valiant "boys in blue" during the
Civil War, the very spot in the lower town where President Lincoln landed
on his memorable visit to captured Richmond, when, with loud cries, the
race he had enfranchised hailed him as a deliverer ; they saw the quaint old
Bell House, from which in Colony days had rung- the call to debate or to
arms; the jail where Aaron Burr was imprisoned for treason--" And served
him right," interrupted Jack, who did not admire the brilliant New Yorker
since he had heard Hamilton's story- -all these they saw, and so many other
historic, notable, or modern landmarks that, when all was over, Marian de
clared her eyes "just ached, seeing things," and Christine dropped into a
chair with a sigh of tired content.

But at last, refreshed and rested, they sat after dinner beneath the palms
in the Pompeian court of their hotel, and, beside Valentine's marble statue
of Jefferson, they listened to the strains of the band-concert in the gallery,
beyond the great interior court. There they fell to talking over the day's
sights and impressions as was their wont ; and Roger said :

" It seems strange, does n't it, to see so many monuments to rebels?"

"It should never seem strange, my boy," Uncle Tom replied, "to see
monuments to brave and honest men. We are not here as Northerners, but
as Americans, and with us it should be as it was with the old Roman who
said- -what did he say, Bert? Homo sum you know the rest."

And Bert, who, they all declared, welcomed a chance to air his Latin,
gave the quotation: " Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto."

"Which being translated, my beloved hearers," said Jack, " meaneth,
' I 'm with you through thick and through thin.'

"Oh, Jack! Is n't he just dreadful!" cried Marian. "What does it
mean, Bert ? "

? K
3-' ^

^
VI

3
C_

I 12

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

RICHMOND AT THE CLOSE OF THE CIVIL WAR.

" ' I am a man. I think nothing- human alien to me,' ' translated Bert.

" My, my ! hear the boy," cried Jack ; " does n't he roll that out finely,
though ? ' I am a man.' Well, you will be some day, my son."

" Let us hope that you will too, Master Jack," said Uncle Tom. " Now,
I would like you all to localize that declaration by Terence, so that it
may read : ' I am an American, and to nothing American can I be indif-
ferent.'

"Well, how does that differ from my free translation?" Jack demanded.
" I had the same idea."

"Whatever concerns America should interest us," went on Uncle Tom.
"The time has passed for sectionalism. We can all have our opinions as
to the right or justice of the Civil War. It simply had to come. It was
fought and decided, and all living Americans are now glad of it and rejoice
in its conclusions, as they accept its decisions. What was your Decoration
Day piece. Jack? You know how it ends give us the last stanza."

VIFAV OF JAMI.S RIVER FROM
LI B BY HILL.

A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL

"Iff""- '* v

fie9

UNION CAVALRYMEN SALUTING THE

MONUMENT OF WASHINGTON.

In Capitol Park.

To which Jack, nothing loath, responded in moderated tones, so as not
to disturb those who were listenine to the concert :

" For the wreck and the wrong of it, boys and girls,
For the terror and loss, as well,
Our hearts must hold
A regret untold
As we think of those who fell.
But their blood, on whichever side they fought,
Jle-made the Nation, and Progress brought.
We forget the woe ;
For 7i'<? live, and know
That the fighting and sighing,
The falling and dying,
"Were but steps toward the Future the Martyr's

Way !

_Adown which the sons of the Blue and the Gray
Look, with love and with pride, Decoration Day."

"That's about mv idea of it," Un-

cle Tom declared. "So it seems to
me, in that spirit Americans should look
with interest and appreciation on the
memorials of our brave Americans. History hangs by slender threads.
Had it not been for Franklin's way of making friends, and thus securing the
aid of France in the Revolution, Adams and Henry would have been ' trait-
ors ' instead of Arnold, Washington would have been a 'wicked rebel,' and the
American Revolution would have been but an insurrection. Americans would
have been rearing statues to-day to the De Lanceys and Olivers, whom we
now detest as 'tories,' instead of to Prescott and Putnam and Hale and Jef-
ferson whereas, every one of these was an American, and of certain value
to his country- -rebel and tory alike. So, too, I can see in the splen-
did Lee on horseback, on Lee Circle, here in Richmond, the qualities that
make for courage, manliness, gallantry, and devotion, quite as much as in the
equally striking Grant on horseback in Grant Square in Brooklyn, or the
mighty monument that, overtopping all others in the world, in the city that
bears his name, testifies to the nation's love and pride in the name and fame
of Washington."

The young people were not altogether willing to accept Uncle Tom's
theories. Somehow, it seemed to them that to admit virtues in one side
took away from the other. But Uncle Tom assured them that such a stand
was local, narrow, un-American.

" Be liberal, be broad-minded, boys and girls," he said. " Remember that

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

loyalty is as much brotherly love as
it is hoisting the flag, and that pa-
triotism is as all-embracing as it is
assertive. Never tolerate treason ;
but never forget to forgive. Re-
member the words of Lincoln, most
American of Americans : " \Ve are
not enemies, but friends. We must
not be enemies. Though passion
may have strained, it must not

break our bonds of affection. The
mystic chords of memory, stretch-
ing from every battle-held and pa-
triot grave to every living heart
and hearthstone all over this broad
land, will yet swell the chorus of
the Union, when again touched, as
surely they will be, by the better

aneels of our nature!

" And yet Lincoln gave the
rebels Hail Columbia," declared
Jack, reflectively.

" Of course he did," replied Uncle
Tom. "It was his duty to preserve
the Union, even through blood and tears, and he never faltered. But he
never wavered in his great-hearted affection for all Americans, either. '\Yith
malice toward none, with charity for all ' that was his plea, even in the

BLOODY RUN', RICHMOND, VA.

Scene of an Indian battle in old Colony days.

A FAMOUS OLD CAPITAL 115

hour of victory. Thank God ! that ' better nature ' which he sought to

^ o

awaken is now common to all his countrymen, and no true American heart
harbors a trace of sectionalism, or limits its love of country to any narrower
boundary than that of lake to gulf and ocean to ocean."

Uncle Tom saw that his words had made an impression upon his boys
and girls, and he sought by just a final word to broaden and deepen that im-
pression in the way he specially desired.

" So we come back, you see, to where we started," he said. "All men
who have shed lustre or brought credit to the American name, or who by
gallant deeds, by worthy lives, or by earnest efforts, have helped to make
America famous, are famous Americans, whatever their time, their section or
their occupation. Here, in Richmond, while we honor Marshall, the great
Chief Justice, and Jefferson, the statesman, we can also honor Lee, the general,
or Jackson, the ' Stonewall ' hero, or Poe, the poet, who played here as a
boy. For all of these men were famous Americans, as well as famous Vir-
ginians, and all, in time, will find their rightful places in the righteous ver-
dict of unbiased history."

K ou can fcave no conMic', without being yourselves the aggressors. )o have no oath
registered in Heaveo to destroy the government, while /slull hive the most solemn one
10 "preserve, protect and dcfVnd" it.

CLOSING PARAGRAPH OF LINCOLN'S FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS.
From original from which the address was delivered.

AFTER THE PAINTING BY GILBERT STUART, IN POSSESSION OF EDWARD COLES, ESQ.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Third President of the United States, and author of the Declaration of Independence.

CHAPTER VIII

WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO

At Charlottesville Up the Little Mountain The House with Two
Fronts The Grave on the Mountain The Story of a Statesman.

ACK stood at the foot of the staircase of the little inn at
Charlottesville, and called impatiently up the stairs.

" Come, come, girls ! Stop prinking ! " he cried. " We 're
bound for a mountain-top, not for the university."

The next moment the door above swung open and the
girls came down the stairs, while Marian, in her most digni-
fied manner, said to her brother :

"Jack Dunlap, we scorn your insinuations. We dress just as much to
honor dead statesmen as live collegians ; so there ! "

Roger, ever gallant, sought to rise to the opportunity, and try his luck

with a quotation.

" If eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for being,"

he remarked, whereupon Jack sank limply into the nearest chair, the girls
courtesied profoundly, and Uncle Tom clapped Roger on the back with a
laughing "Bravo, Roger! Virginia courtesy must be in the air, and
catching."

A ride of four hours the day before had brought the party to picturesque
Charlottesville. A restful night in that quiet town had refreshed them
greatly, and put them in prime condition to see and enjoy the home of
Thomas Jefferson.

The wagonette was at the door, and soon they were speeding out of
Charlottesville and along pleasant country roads to the mansion on the
mountain-top.

The road wound up the steep hillside, a good three miles from town,
though even there the same spirit of progress that they had noted at

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

Richmond seemed to be in evidence,
for the town was pushing ambitiously
out into what were formerly farms
and old estates.

The hill-slopes were green and
inviting, the valley was dotted with
farms, the little stream across
which Thomas Jefferson, as a boy,
had often swum his horse, wound
through the plain, the woods were
brilliant with the contrasting white
and red blossoms of the dogwood

and the redbucl, and everywhere
were the delight and beauty of a
spring morning in Virginia.

The young folks enjoyed the
ride greatly ; but Bert said, as the
horses breasted the climb, 4> ' Little
mountain ' ! That 's what Monti-
cello means, is it ? Seems to me
it 's quite a respectable one. Why,
it 's almost as steep as a road in the
Catskills. I should think Tarle-
ton's troopers must have been pretty well winded it they galloped all the
way up this hill just to loot Jefferson's home."

" Oh, did theydo that? The mean things ! ' cried Marian.
" Bert is just a trifle too realistic," said Uncle Tom. " Tarleton and his
troopers came tearing up here to capture that pestilent rebel, Jefferson, who
was then governor of Virginia. But the governor just managed to give
them the slip, and the British colonel kept his hands off the fine old place
it was not so very old then, however, and did not do much damage."

Jack seemed just a bit dissatisfied. The idea that the British in the Rev-
olution could stay their hands whenever there was a chance to pillage or
destroy did not accord with his idea of history.

" 1 thought that was just the sort of picnic that chump of a Tarleton
liked," he said severely.

" Even the worst of us are not so black as we are painted," Uncle Tom
declared. " Tarleton has enough sins to his account without adding the loot-
ing of Monticello. He held off his hands here, even when Arnold had
burned Richmond and Cornwallis had laid waste Jefferson's lowland estate
of Edgehill, two or three miles away."

"JACK STOOD AT THE FOOT OF THE
STAIRCASE."

WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO 119

" What were the Americans doing all this time ? " asked Jack. " Where
were our soldiers ? '

"With Washington," Uncle Tom replied. "Virginia was stripped of
fighting men at the time of Cornwallis's raid. She was almost bare of re-
sources, too, so lavishly had she contributed to the support of the American
army. When the State was invaded by the British, first by Arnold the
traitor and next by Cornwallis and Tarleton, Jefferson, who was then gov-
ernor, would not call on Congress or the army for aid, lest Washington's

BACK FROM THE RAID.

"The governor just managed to give them the slip."

forces should be weakened. He himself was no soldier ; the militia he
summoned were worse than useless ; the legislature fled from Richmond
to this town of Charlottesville ; and along came Cornwallis and Tarleton
to bag the whole ' rebel brood.' The militia made themselves scarce ; the
fugitive legislature followed suit; and Jefferson, making for shelter here
at Monticello, had just five minutes' warning, brought by a sort of Vir-
ginia Paul Revere, who came tearing up this road to give the alarm. He
was just in time, for, as Jefferson galloped down the mountain on one side,
he saw the redcoats climbing up the other. He got off, you see, just in the
nick of time."

I2O

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" I should say so ! " exclaimed Roger.

" Were his family here? " asked Christine. " How frightened they must
have been ! "

" They had already hidden their valuables and had been hurried to a
safe place," Uncle Tom explained. " Jefferson had then six adopted chil-
dren in his family- -nephews and nieces and three little motherless girls
of his own."

"Well, he did have his hands full," said Jack.

" But he took good care of them and got them all to safe places, while
Cornwallis was burning and pillaging his estate of Edgehill," Uncle Tom
continued. "After the invasion Jefferson was taken to task for what was
claimed to be an indifference to Virginia's security, and even to-day some
historians refer contemptuously to his conduct during the British invasion.
The truth is, however, that what appeared indifference, and was even called
cowardice, was indeed heroism ; for Thomas Jefferson knew better than his
critics the condition of affairs. It was a case of the few suffering for the
many. He felt it to be better even that Virginia should be
overrun and laid waste than that the success of the cause
for which America was fighting should
be jeopardized by a call for help. So
he did the best he could with
what he had at hand, and his
own State came in time
to appreciate and ac-
knowledge his wis-
dom. There are
phases of patriotism,
boys and girls,"
Uncle Tom contin-
ued, ' ' that are quite ,
different from those
with which we are
familiar in history.
To suffer that good
may come, even
when that suffering
seems needless, or in-
vited, even, may some-
times be, instead, a

. . , . . "DE BRITISH AM COMIX'!"

high order of patriotism. Hiding the valuables

WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO

121

A DISTANT VIEW OF MONTICELLO.

By this time they had reached the crest of the hill, a spur of Carter
Mountain, upon which, perched six hundred feet above the plain, stood the
dome-topped mansion of Monticello, the much-loved home of Thomas Jef-
ferson, author of the Declaration of Independence.

The wagonette drew up before the " quarters," and the old negro who
has shown the historic house to a generation of visitors met them with
garrulous greeting.

" Is this the front?" Marian inquired, going up the broad steps of the
western portico. "Oh, is n't it just lovely! Where 's the door?'

" No, missey," the old negro replied ; " the entrance is cl'ar round on de
east front."

"Why, is there another ?" asked Marian. "This looks like the front."

"Well yes missey," said the polite old chap, " clis yere 's de r'ar
front. De ra'al front is on de furder side."

They left the "rear front" and walked around to the main entrance of
the mansion, the beautiful east front, in which are set the historic clock and
weather dial, and which opens into the great hall, once the center of the

I 22

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

^-:' ;,.

.TKe'S^t Porflfeo .

onticello-.'-

THE EAST PORTICO OF MONTICELLO.
" De ra'al front."

master's overflowing hospitality, when Monticello was the Mecca of strangers,
admirers, and friends.

The young people, by favor of the present owner, spent a delightful hour
in and about the old place examining, inspecting, exclaiming.

They saw the octagonal drawing-room, the great clining-hall, the tea
room, and the library ; they saw the room occupied by Lafayette, the double-
alcoved bed-chamber near to the conservatory, and the room in which Jef-
ferson died. The old negro told them how the house was built, wing by
wing, of bricks made on the place, and of timber felled and hewn on the
estate. He told them that the plan of the house and the grounds was Jef-
ferson's own, and that even the furniture was designed by him, and much of
it made on the place.

"Well, he could do a little of everything, could n't he ?" said Roger.

" Indeed he could," Uncle Tom replied. "In head and hand and heart,
Thomas Jefferson was a marvel." And then he told the girls what a charm-
ing grandfather was the great Democrat. He liked nothing better than a
lively romp with his boys and girls, and he was always devising and making"
all manner of toys and contrivances for them -cupboards and closets, and

WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO

dishes, and doll-houses, until the little Jeffersons and Randolphs naturally
came to the conclusion that "grandpapa" could do about everything'.
" I don't blame them," said Christine. " It looks as if he could."
" Of course not many real relics of Jefferson are to be seen about the
place to-day," Uncle Tom told them. " Change of owners and the fortunes
of war have sadly depleted its belongings and marred its beauty. But it
seems to be the desire of the present owner to make the restored mansion as
nearly Jeffersonian as possible, and the furnishings of the house are, as you
see, on the colonial plan. But, after all, it is the environment that interests.
As Monticello is to-day, in situation, outline, atmosphere, and outlook, in

THE WEST PORTICO OF MONTICELLO.
" De r'ar front."

the real breath of the place, so it was in the days of its famous master, plus
the life of a great baronial estate ; for that it was in its palmy days, when
all the world knew it as the home of the Sao-e of Monticello."

After they had inspected the house and rambled about the beautiful
grounds, Uncle Tom brought them all together at last in the spacious out-
look, a stone's throw from the house.

124

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

THE HALL AT MONTICELLO.

" My ! what a view ! " cried Marian.

" Your uncle Thomas had an eye for scenery, had n't he? " said Jack.

" He was a great lover of natural scenery," Uncle Tom replied. " Even
in France, where he did and saw so much, he was always pining for what
he called his Virginia wilderness on the mountain-top."

They sat silent for a while enjoying the scene. Hillside and valley, as
the boys and girls looked out upon them, were green with all the verdant
beauty of a Virginia spring. Great trees rose above them on the far-spread-
ing lawns. Redbud and lilacs, dogwood and golden willow, gave color and
fragrance, while redbreasts hopped about on the grass or swung and whistled
on the branches above them.

Below them stretched the valley, where to the right Uncle Tom located
for them Shadwell, the birthplace of Jefferson, Edgehill, his other estate, and,
farther off, Montpellier, the home of yet another President of the United
States his successor, James Madison. To the west, the long spur of the
Blue Ridge rose from the basin-like valley, while above this ridge could be
traced the faint, far-distant line of the Alleghanies. Almost at their feet
lay Charlottesville, and, just beyond the town, they could see, peeping from

WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO

125

its screen of trees, the clustered buildings of the University of Virginia,
founded by Jefferson in his later days, and almost as dear to his heart as
the Declaration of Independence itself.

" What a lovely, lovely spot ! " said Christine, upon whom the place and
its associations made a deep impression. " I 'd rather live here than at the
White House."

"Jefferson was much of your opinion, my dear," Uncle Tom declared.
" The White House of his clay was little
more than a great, draughty, white barn ;
and, yet, it was the White House rather
than this charming Monticello that
linked Jefferson's name to fame."

" Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling-ling ! "
cried Jack, swinging an imaginary bell.
"All aboard for a biography cruise!
Heave ahead, Uncle Tom ! Here 's just
the spot to give us Jefferson's story."

" It must be condensed into brief
space, then," said Uncle Tom ; " for we
shall need to start on our return ride
speedily." .

So Uncle Tom sketched rapidly for
them the outline of Thomas Jefferson's
career. He told them of the young-

* ^5

Virginian's boyhood and youth, into
which, though earnest and painstak-
ing, the boy managed to get a good
deal of fun and out-of-door life, and
learned to love the woods, the fields,
and the farm; he told them how Jeffer-
son gained success as a young lawyer,
and at last ventured into public life ;
how, at twenty-six, he became a mem-
ber of the Virginia House of Burgesses ;
and how, when he went into politics, he
was both prudent and honest, and made
avow never to be drawn into speculation THE MAIN STAIRWAY AT MONTICELLO.
or "jobs," or be anything but just "a farmer"; and, through fifty years of
public life, Uncle Tom assured them, Jefferson kept his vow.

" Then, politicians did speculate and make money out of their opportuni-

126

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

ties in Jefferson's time, eh ? ' queried Jack. " Why, I thought these were
the degenerate days, and that every one was angelic in the good old times."

" My dear Jack," said Uncle Tom, " there is not a phase of public dishon-
esty or political intrigue to-clay but had its parallel in what are wrongly
called the good old days. You know my theory ; we are an improvement
on our ancestors in every way- -morally, physically, and intellectually."

" Hear, hear, hear ! " cried Jack.

"Oh, Uncle Tom!" exclaimed Christine. "Is that so? Better than
Washington ? "

" Don't hold me to individual cases, my dear," said Uncle Tom. " I
speak collectively. The world progresses in everything that works for good.
In spite of all the unpleasantnesses we daily see, in spite of all the hard
things we hear, we are better than the folks ol those so-called ' good old
days.' In the story of the past it is the good only that survives. We do
not see or else we do not heed the evil. Distance always lends enchantment
alike to past and future the was and the is-to-be. But here ! let me get on
with Jefferson. He was not very well off as a young man, but in 1/72 he
married a rich wife, and his two thousand acres increased to forty thousand.
Then it was that he built Monticello, turned his ' little mountain ' into a park,
and became a landed proprietor."

" I thought he was called the Great Democrat," said Bert.
"He was," replied Uncle Tom; "but more from the principles he laid
down and the measures for which he worked than from any simplicity in

living or surroundings. His love ol personal liberty grew
with the years. He heard Patrick Henry give his great

Richmond speech, and be-
came a fiery patriot. When
Washington was made com-
mander-in-chief, Jefferson was
sent to Congress in his place,
and there prepared and pre-
sented the famous document
with which his
name is chiefly
connected the
Declaration of In-
dependence."

" I have seen
the desk on which

JEFFERSON'S CHAIR AND WRITING-TABLE. ne WTOte the

WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO

I 2

i I i

claration of Independence," Roger announced with due impressiveness. "It
belongs to one of his descendants in Boston."

" And when we w r ere in Philadelphia, Roger," declared Jack, solemnly,
" I saw as many as four million descend-
ants of the fellows who put the Declara-
tion through Congress."

" What do you mean, Jack?" said
Roger. " Philadelphia people ? Where
did you get four million ? "

"No; Philadelphia flies, my son,"
was Jack's reply.

" Oh, Jack Dunlap ! " exclaimed
Marian. " Don't be ridiculous."

"No; honor bright, it 's so," Jack
asserted. " A man there told me that
this very Thomas Jefferson declared that
the final vote on the Declaration of In-
dependence was hastened by the flies
that came in swarms from a near-by
stable and nearly pestered the lives of
the Congressmen those hot July days.
So the delegates just hurried things, to

, r , n . JEFFERSON'S DOUBLE-ALCOVE BEDROOM.

get out of the way ot the hies.

" Is that really so, Uncle Tom?" asked Marian, a bit doubtfully.
"Well, Jack tells it, and Jack is an investigator, you know," Uncle Tom
replied diplomatically.

"Then, I should think, "said Bert, "that, instead of theeagle, theflyshouldbe

the national 'bird' of America. He made
us free, if he put the Declaration through. "
" What an absurd lot of boys you
are!" said Marian. " Do drop fairy tales
and let Uncle Tom go on with facts."

"Well, I like that!" said Jack. "I
tell you my fly story was fact, Marian
Dunlap. We get it straight from the Sage of Monticello himself."

"The Sage of Monticello! " cried Marian scornfully. "As if Jefferson
would say such a ridiculous thing as that."

"That's the trouble with girls," remarked Jack. "They always will
doubt the truth of history."

" But that fly story is n't history, is it, Uncle Tom ? " said Marian.

DESK ON WHICH THE DECLARATION
OF INDEPENDENCE WAS WRITTEN.

From a drawing by Thomas Jefferson.

WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO 1 29

"Well Jefferson, like Franklin, had an excellent sense of humor,"
said Uncle Tom. "So it may be that he is responsible for Jack's fly story,
just as he is responsible for lifting out of a Latin comic poem our splendid
national motto of E Pluribus Unum"

" Oh, yes ; I remember how we came across that story in Washington,"
said Christine.

" For further particulars inquire of Mr. Albertus Uphamus, our lexicon
fiend," said fack. " Push ahead with grandpapa Jefferson, Uncle Tom."

"Well," said his uncle, again picking up his biographical thread, "Jef-
ferson declined a reelection to Congress, believing he could best serve the
cause by keeping his State progressing toward liberty and self-government.
So he went into the Virginia legislature, and for nearly two years worked
away on a constitution for the new State. He was always proud of this
work, especially of the clause that established religious freedom in Vir-
ginia. That may seem to you, now, a simple affair, not even open to ar-
gument ; but it took a long, hard fight to get it through. Things were dif-
ferent in Jefferson's day. Bigotry and sectarianism have almost died out in
our hundred and twenty years of freedom. Another sign of progress, you
see, boys and girls. America has no place in this enlightened day for the bias
of bigotry or the enigma of exclusion. It was these that Jefferson ever
fought against, and against them all real Americans should earnestly pro-
test, as we stand at the dawn of a new and yet more glorious century of
power and progress."

Uncle Tom spoke earnestly, and the young people, though they did not
catch his full meaning, applauded his sentiment and honored him with an
emphatic " That 's so ! "

"In 1779," said Uncle Tom, "Jefferson was elected governor, and soon
after had to stand the strain of British invasion of which I told you, which so
nearly culminated in his capture. After his term closed he refused reelection,
thinking that a soldier was a better head for the State just then. His wife
died, and he came here to Monticello sad and heartbroken ; but he was not
permitted to remain here long. His country demanded his services. He
was sent to Congress, where he invented the dollars and dimes of our na-
tional currency, which, before, had been pounds, shillings, and pence."

" Good for him ! " cried Jack, " He was right up-to-date and American,
was n't he ? "

" None more so in his clay," Uncle Tom replied. " In 1784 he was sent
as American Minister to France and returned in i 789 to go into President
Washington's cabinet as Secretary of State. He resigned in 1794, because
lie and Hamilton could not agree, and thus helped to invent politics in Amer-

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

ica, for out of this disagreement came the two political parties of his day.
In 1/96 he was elected Vice-President, and in 1800 he was elected Presi-
dent of the United States."

" Well, he kept going right up, did n't he?" said Roger.

"That 's the time he rode horseback to the capitol, hitched his horse to
the picket fence, and just went in to be inaugurated, is n't it?" queried Jack.

" All of which reads very nicely, but

** J

I 'm afraid it is n't. altogether fact," said
Uncle Tom. ''He meant to ride to his
inauguration in his own fine coach and
four, but his turnout did not get to
Washington from Monticello in time.
So he went some say on horseback,
others say, in a hired coach just like any
other President, and was inaugurated
with just as much display and noise and
jubilee."

" Well, how did that horseback story
get into history then ? " inquired Jack.
" From a later occurrence, I imagine,"
Uncle Tom replied. " W T hen Madison,
his successor, was inaugurated, Jeffer-
son and his sixteen-year old grandson
rode on horseback to the capitol,
hitched their horses to the palings, and
went in to see the show. The two occa-
sions have simply got mixed, you see."
"That 's so. Now, what were the
biggest things he did as President ? '
asked Roger.

"The biggest things, as you would
call them," said Uncle Tom, "were, I
suppose, when he sent Decatur and
his sailors to say to the Dey of Algiers, ' No, sir ! we won't pay tribute ' ;
the purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then rising
to great power in France; and the embargo of 1807, which Jefferson always
held, if strictly kept, would have prevented the war of 1812."
"Would it?" asked Bert.

"That 's an open question," Uncle Tom replied. " If all men had been
Jeffersons it might have served his purposes ; but men are not alike, and de-

LAFAYETTE.

The statue by Bartholdi in Union Square, New York.

WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO

MONTICELLO HOSPITALITY.

signs frequently go wrong- -as in this case. After his two terms as Presi-
dent, Jefferson came home here to Monticello but not to be left alone. He
was kept busy being hospitable, and it well nigh ruined him. His affairs
became so involved that, in his last years, he was in desperate straits for
money ; he nearly lost Monticello, and had to sell his
great library to supply his needs. He died on the
Fourth of July, 1826 - - the fiftieth anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence, which owed its form
and language to him."

"That was odd, was n't it? " said Roeer.

" It was certainly a coincidence," replied Uncle
Tom ; " but it was emphasized still more by the fact
that on the same day his fellow-worker, old-time
friend, political rival, and brother-patriot, John
Adams, died in his Massachusetts home his last
words a thought of Jefferson."

"Give us Daniel Webster, Jack," said Bert, as
they all rose from their seats in the outlook. So,
and as they walked clown the road to the monu-
ment, Jack, obligingly, as ever, recited for them
there, under the Virginia sky, upon that forest-
clothed hill-slope of Monticello, the great orator's
tribute to these two "fathers of the republic":

IN THE BALL-ROOM AT
MONTICELLO.

132

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" 'Their fame is safe. That is now treasured up beyond the reach of ac-
cident. Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor
engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as
lasting as the land they honored. Marble columns may indeed moulder into
dust, time may erase all impress from the crumbling stone, but their fame
remains ; for with American liberty it rose, and with American liberty only
can it perish.'

And Uncle Tom responded with a solemn " Amen !

They halted before the iron-fenced enclosure by the roadway down the
mountain and looked upon the simple ten-foot obelisk that rises above the
dust of the third President of the United States.

" Xot much of a marble column about this," was Jack's comment.
Bert read aloud the inscription on the pedestal :

" ' Here lies buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Amer-
ican Independence, of the
statutes of Virginia for
Religious Freedom, and
Father of the University
of Virginia.'

" Is n't that splendid ! "
said Christine, impressed
alike by the simplicity and
meaning ot the inscription.
"Those three things, I
suppose," Marian re-
marked, "are what folks
consider the greatest

THE GRAVE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. things he did "

O "

" So considered by himself," Uncle Tom explained. "In fact, that in-
scription was composed by Jefferson himself, and found among his papers
after his death."

As the wagonette took them up, and they drove down this historic hill-
side toward Charlottesville, Uncle Tom, in a few words, summed up the
famous man whose home they had seen : "A great leader, a great American,
a great man," he said. "With an unwavering faith in the will of the people
as the sole law of the land, he became, for our -republic, the typical democrat,
a believer in the theory of government by the people. Politically a
mighty factor in American history, he was personally a delightful man,
benevolent and intelligent, cheery of manner and placid in disposition ; he
was never angry, fretful, or discontented; he was happiest when helping others,

WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO

133

IN CHARLOTTESVILLE.

and one of his chief rules of con-
duct was ' never to trouble another
for what he could do himself.'

At this Marian bent forward
and nudged, significantly, her bro-
ther.

" Very good advice, my dear,"
said Jack, the incorrigible. "Please
see that you follow it."

That afternoon, they took the
trolley quite to the other end of
this picturesque old town of Char-
lottesville, to visit the delightfully
situated University of Virginia
the child of Jefferson's later years,
founded by him, endowed by his - <
exertions, and ever loyal to his
memory.

Uncle Tom and his "pilgrims"
wandered about the beautiful J
grounds, unrivalled in situation and
unsurpassed in view. They walked
the cool and shady colonnades before the students' low-roofed dormitories ;
they studied the curious curved brick walls enclosing certain sections of the

134

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

^ *

."vjiy
f"

grounds - - a Jefter-
sonian contrivance to
economize bricks, and
yet have strength
and durability ; they
visited the museum
and saw the rem-
nants of the library
and the marble statue
IN- THE UNIVERSITY GROUNDS. o f tne founder, saved

These walls are one brick thick, the winding form 1 ., tl"IP SfnHpnt^ from
is taken for supposed economy of material.

the fire that destroy eel

the famous Rotunda, designed by Jefferson. The Rotunda
and annex still lay in ruins, but a nobler structure they were
told was soon to rise thereon, and other buildings of modern de-
sign and finish. Thev "did their manners" for a while in the cool drawing-

O J O

room of one of the courteous Professors ; they strolled about East Lawn
and West Lawn --the double "Campus" of the college, as Bert called it;
they visited the gymnasium and the athletic field, in which the boys were
especially interested. Indeed, when he had talked with some of "the
fellows," and compared notes of records and achievements, Jack declared
that he did n't wonder that, in the excitement of the fire, twelve of those
" plucky chaps " had in a few minutes taken down and carried out, without a
break, the heavy marble statue of Jefferson, which it had taken the contrac-
tors many hours and much ingenuity to erect.

THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA AT CHARLOTTESVILLE.

The central rotunda, designed by Jefferson, was destroyed by fire in 1895.

WITH THE SAGE OF MONTICELLO

135

' I tell you," he said, " excitement does a good deal, but sand does more,
and these university fellows have a lot of it. They 're just A i ball players,
and I don't wonder. Look at what they 've got here in grounds and
scenery. I tell you the}' can build men down here in Virginia. Three cheers
for the mother of Presidents ! Run up the flag for Thomas Jefferson ! "

IN THE COLONNADE OF THE UNIVERSITY.

CHAPTER IX

IX THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY

Over the Hills into Kcntuckv The Three Giants The Champion of a
Mistake Calhoutis Story The " Millboy of the Slashes' Blue-
grass Landscapes Ashland, the Home of Henry Clay.

HE boys and girls long remembered their westward way from
Charlottesville.

Up hill and down dale, climbing heavy grades, piercing
mountain passes, while the afternoon grew into sunset and
the sunset into glorious moonlight, the train sped on, now
giving broad vistas of the Piedmont lowlands, stretched like a panorama
beneath them, now showing peak after peak of the forest-clad Blue Ridge,
piled far above them, until they crossed the wide Shenandoah Valley,
and climbed the farther slopes of the Alleghanies. A constant succession
of " Oh ! " and " Ah ! " of " Look ! " and " See ! " kept eye and tongue busy,
as picturesque views of mountain and valley, farm land, village, and hillside
clearing followed fast upon each other ; and when at last the dark settled
down, and in the highlands, where peak seemed crowded against peak, the
mountain-tops were ringed with fire, the children accepted this disastrous
illumination as a spectacle specially prepared for their benefit, and thanked
Uncle Tom for so dramatic a finale.

As for Uncle Tom, he was watchful for whatever, on this delightful car
ride, might interest his young charges. He pointed out to them as they
drew away from Charlottesville the last glimpse of Monticello perched on
its distant hill-top ; he showed them in what direction, miles to the south, lay
Appomattox, and, farther still, Red Hill, the pleasant plantation home of
Patrick Henry, champion of Independence. As they crossed the valley of
the Shenandoah each one of the five wished to break out with " Sheridan's
Ride," but could not for the views that claimed their attention ; and as they
drew up at Staunton Station, Uncle Tom told them that forty miles to the

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

A VIRGINIA BY-WAY.
In the Virginia lowlands.

south rose that surprising rock freak, the " Natural Bridge,' up which young
George Washington once climbed to cut his name, high above that of all
other visitors.

So they journeyed on into the health-giving regions of the Virginia
springs ; and as they sat at supper in the comfortable dining-car, Uncle Tom
fell to talking of the new region they were to enter during the night, while
they, as Jack expressed it, " lay sleeping at the rate of forty miles an hour,"
as, after crossing the Alleghanies, they would descend into the fertile region
of Kentucky, the heroic land of American history.

" The dark and bloody ground, was n't it called that ? " asked Roger.

"The home of Daniel Boone," cried Jack.

" And of Henry Clay," said Bert.

" Henry Clay ? " queried Christine ; " is n't he the man who said, ' I had
rather be rio-ht than President? '

" Tell us about him, Uncle Tom," said Marian. " Can we see where
he lived ? "

"That 's the next thing on the docket," Uncle Tom replied. " I hope
to show YOU Ashland to-morrow.'

" But see here," he said, as, a few minutes later, they sat in the unoccu-
pied saloon compartment of their car, which they now and then, as Bert
explained, "preempted for a conference," "what can you boys and girls
tell me about Henry Clay ? Who was he ? "

They really could n't tell so very much when thus brought to book.
Bert said that Clay was called the great Kentuckian, though just why, he

PAINTED BY MATTHEW HARRIS JOUETT.

OWNED BY H. c. MCDOWELL.

HENRY CLAY AT THE AGE OF FORTY-THREE.
When he was Speaker of the House of Representatives.

140

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

i* t ".V N- ~T^ s* ,*

NEAR CALHOUX'S HOME.

did n't know, unless he was Kentucky's greatest man. Roger thought he
was Webster's rival in the Senate, though precisely over what Roger
could n't tell unless it was in the desire to be President. Jack said -he was
called the " mill-boy of the Slashes," though just what that meant Jack really
could n't say.

As for the girls, Marian was positive that Clay had something to do with
the Missouri Compromise, which kept the nation from fighting over slavery,
and Christine knew he was Secretary of State and two or three times was
defeated for the Presidency, although he was the most popular man in the
country, which, so Christine declared, seemed to her very odd indeed.

Uncle Tom smiled approval at these attempts to locate Henry 'Clay, as
he called them, although he felt forced to confess that the information was
a trifle vague as to foundations and reasons.

" But, then," he added, "your misty conception of one of the most popu-
lar leaders in American politics is but a reflection of the cloudiness that veils
all the men of what mi^ht be termed the middle ao~es of American historv.

o o

The fathers of the republic still stand out clear and strong; but the giants,
of the "forties" Clav, Webster, Calhoun are little more than a memorv,

j -

scarce more, indeed, than names to the mass of Americans to-day. But,
you see, failure begets forgetfulness, and these three men, because they
failed of their chief ambition, the Presidencv, fail of clue recognition.

It does not seem right, but perhaps it is just. I doubt now if you can tell
me as much about Calhoun as you did of Clay. Can you ? "

There was silence a moment. Then Bert said :

"Was n't he called 'the great Nullifier'? Did n't he believe so thor-
oughly in State Sovereignty and State Rights that he came very near break-
ing up the Union ? "

Uncle Tom nodded.

" Was n't he Vice- President ? " asked Christine.

IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY

141

"Yes; for two terms," Uncle Tom replied.

" And a Southerner with a great head of hair? " asked Marian.

" Right," was the answer; "at least, his best-known pictures pile up the
hair, though the best-known, you remember, are not always the best in fact."

" Well, I guess that's all we know of the gentleman," said Jack. " Bert
can go up head."

"It is n't very much to know, though; do you think so?" was Uncle
Tom's comment. "And yet, in his day," he added, "John C. Calhoun was

JOHN C. CALHOUN.

as great a force in American history as Daniel Webster, as notable a person-
ality as Henry Clay. Honored, almost idolized by his State, followed by a
host of supporters, his 'career was, nevertheless, a great mistake, and pos-
terity, as I have assured you, never perpetuates mistakes. It is only suc-
cess that succeeds."

"Now, Uncle Tom," cried Christine, "you know you don't believe that.

142

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

CALHOUN'S OFFICE AND HOME AT FORT HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA.
Now on the grounds of Clemson Agricultural College.

How many times have you repeated for us that poem of Story's ' lo
Victis,' is n't it?"

"Oh, yes; a fine thing!" exclaimed Jack. "I know it, too:

' I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the battle of life ' '

" All right, Jack," said Uncle Tom, restraining his nephew's oratory ; "I
don't know, however, that that exactly fits Calhoun's case. You see, he suc-
ceeded to a certain extent, and out of his apparent success came America's
greatest stress and bloodiest struggle for existence. And yet, Calhoun's
life story is that of an earnest and honest endeavor toward what he deemed
just, right, and patriotic ends. Action depends largely upon the point of
view, and to his standpoint the world has given the verdict of 'a mistake.'
But John C. Calhoun was a famous American ; he is South Carolina's most
eminent son, and is well worth our study and remembrance."

" He was a disunion man, was n't he? " objected Bert.

" He was an earnest and outspoken States' Rights man," Uncle Tom re-
plied. " He held that each State was an independent power, and had the
right, under the Constitution, to act for itself, even to act contrary to --or
what is called 'nullify' a law of the nation."

"From iic nllus, not any," interpolated the philological Bert. "That
means, not amounting to anything, useless, not binding."

IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY

143

" In other words, N. G.," said Jack; "make it brief, professor."

" To us Calhoun's doctrine sounds revolutionary," Uncle Tom continued.
"It was ; but all such beliefs, as we look back upon them, were really neces-
sary to the proper development of the real strength of the republic. Obsta-
cles help us to remove obstacles, you know, and the path of abiding union
lay through attempted disunion."

"That sounds odd," said Roger.

"It would if it were n't Uncle Tom who says it," Christine declared.
"He always sees a good side to everything."

"We must, my dear," said Uncle Tom, smiling. "Why else should
things occur? I remember somewhere having seen a verse that fits here:

" To that clearer sight
The rim of shadow
Is the line of light.

Do you know what that means ? Well, you will, later. And let me say
for Calhoun and his followers that they acted from what they deemed right
motives. Even though he w r as the chief and most eloquent advocate of
slavery, he was so from principle, and while abhorring his conclusions, we
should honor his integrity. No man ever questioned Calhoun's sincerity,
and he certainly had what is called the courage of his convictions."

sKsfefc:-:. I

CALHOUN'S OFFICE ON HIS FORT HILL ESTATE.

144

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" But that is what we wish to forget him for," said Marian. " Is n't there
something we can remember him for? "

" Certainly," replied Uncle Tom. " Calhoun first proposed the annexa-
tion of Texas, and he kept the nation from a third war with England, in

1848, over the vexed question of the
Oregon boundary. These are both
what the boys would call ' feathers in
his cap,' and are well worth remember-
ing."

"Where did he live?" Christine
inquired.

"In the very uppermost corner of
South Carolina, just where the State
lies like a wedge between North Caro-
lina and Georgia. Calhoun, you know,
was South Carolina born and bred.
He was Secretary of War under Pres-
ident Monroe, and Secretary of State
under Tyler. He was Vice- President

for two terms, with John Quincy
Adams and Andrew Jackson. While
he was Secretary of War he removed to
this estate in the wed^e of South Caro-

lina. It was called Fort Hill, and was
a quaint old Southern mansion, very
much like Mount Vernon.

"The estate now belongs to an agricultural college and the old mansion
is, I believe, used as the college museum and post office. Not far from the
house still stands the little office or library in which the great Nullifier did
his thinking, reading, and working."

" The same as on the Webster place," Christine reminded them.

" There were numerous things that were almost coincidences in the ca-
reers of those three great Senators, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun," Uncle Tom
replied. "Each was a leader, each aspired to the highest place in the na-
tion, each failed of success. They were all born at the same period
about 1780; all three died at the same period about 1850. A com-
parative study of their lives is of great interest, for their influence upon their
times \vas great."

"Tell us about Henry Clay, Uncle Tom," said Bert. "You began to,
you kno\v, and then switched off on Calhoun."

A HERO OF THE FORTIES.
General Samuel Houston, first President of Texas.

IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY

145

"You 're a great fellow to stick to the main subject, Bert," said Uncle
Tom, with a laugh. "That 's all right; I like to see it in you. It means a
-clear mind and persistence two qualities to keep a man active and bring
him to success."

" Oh, that 's Bert, every time, Uncle Tom," cried Jack. " He 's a master
mind. He '11 be President yet. Don't go back on your Iriends, will you,
old fellow ?"

" Nor on your convictions, either, Bert," said Uncle Tom. " That is what
has wrecked too many reputations and brought too many public men to

' -

ASHLAXD, THE HOME OF HENRY CLAY.

grief. Now as to Henry Clay. His story is one of popularity and progress,
tinctured with failure. He was a poor boy, born in the Virginia lowlands,
at a place called the Slashes, in Hanover county, a short distance north of
Richmond. He was the fifth in a family of seven, and one of his 'chores'
was to ride the horse to mill; hence, the " mill-boy of the Slashes," you see.
He was a bright, wide-awake boy, and finally managed to eet to Richmond

-* J o o

.and start out in life as a lawyer. In 1797 he decided to try his fortunes in

146

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

a new region, and removed across the mountains into Kentucky, settling
in Lexington the town for which we are bound."

" I '11 bet he did n't go in a parlor car, though," said Jack.

" Of course he did n't," said
Marian. " Why, they did n't even
have steam-cars then, did they. Uncle
Tom ? "

"No, no; it was 1830, at least,
before the railway pierced these
hills," Uncle Tom replied, "nearly
forty years after Clay crossed the
mountains. You may be sure that
Henry Clay went on horseback, as
did most people then, along the old
highway to the West that had
been made out of the trail of
trappers and pioneers. He soon
became popular in Kentucky. He
had a frank, cordial way about

him that made friends quickly,
and before long he was in
politics. He was sent to the
legislature in 1804, where he
advocated the gradual abo-
lition of slavery. In 1806 he
was sent to the Senate of the

United States."

-I'"-'.- ^

!\ THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY 147

" A senator so soon ! " cried Bert. " Why, how old was he ? '

" Not quite thirty," was Uncle Tom's reply. " But young men of prom-
ise quickly got to the front in those days."

" I should say so," said Roger.

" Why were n't we living then ? " remarked Jack.

" From that time on, for more than forty years, Henry Clay was a pub-
lic man, either in the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the Cabinet.
He was three times Speaker of the House of Representatives ; he was Secre-
tary of State under President John Ouincy Adams; he was one of the com-
missioners to sign the Treaty of Ghent that closed the W r ar of 1812. From
first to last his policy was popular, because it was what is called American."

" Meaning by that? " queried Bert.

"Meaning by that," replied Uncle Tom: "'the best for America, and
America the best ! ' I don't mean that he went about bragging and ' spoiling
for a fight,' as the saying is; he was n't, by any means, one of those chip-
on-the-shoulder people sometimes called 'Jingoes' ; I mean that he labored
for the welfare of the republic in whose future he so ardently believed.
Henry Clay made mistakes, and had many shortcomings, but from first to
last he was an American : national, broad-minded, patriotic, proud of his
country, ardently devoted to the Union, earnest and eloquent for every mea-
sure or policy likely to advance American nationality from curbing the
tyranny of England in 1812 to struggling to keep the Union unbroken in
1850."

" That 's the kind of man I like," cried Jack. " Why under the sun
was n't he President ? "

"Simply because he was n't elected, Jack," said Uncle Tom.

" Well, it was a shame," Jack declared. " He was better than half the
fellows who were elected."

" A man who is so ardent and so splendid a party chief as was Henry
Clay," said Uncle Tom, "also makes many enemies. The crowds cheered
for ' the mill-boy of the Slashes ' and ' Harry of the West,' as they loved to
call their magnetic leader, but he always just failed of nomination or election.
For twenty years the prize of the Presidency dangled before the eyes of
Henry Clay only to be snatched away by less able men, and always to ac-
complish the very desire which Clay had most at heart- -harmony and
union. When you read American political history, you will understand why
so popular a leader never became anything but a fallen idol."

" I don't see it," exclaimed Jack, hotly. Jack seemed already to have
become a Clay partizan by inspiration, Uncle Tom declared. " He did n't
fall. The people who went back on him fell," said Jack.

148

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

THE PARK AT ASHLAND.

" Good for you, Jack ! " cried Uncle Tom, who always did admire enthu-
siasm. " I like to see earnestness, even when I am not thoroughly in ac-
cord with it. Your remark, too, though your own, singularly enough is
exactly what Henry Clay's admirers said. I wonder if I can recall a spirited
bit of verse by an ardent Clay man \Yilliam Wilberforce Lord. I got it
by heart once because then I believed it. Mr. Stedman considers it as fine
as Whittier's lines on Webster. Let 's see how it sounds to-day. It was
written after Clay's overthrow, and was called ' On the Defeat of a Great
Man.' "

And Uncle Tom, leaning back against the comfortable cushions of the
compartment, recalled Lord's spirited lines :

' Fallen ! How fallen ? States and empires fall ;

O'er towers and rock-built walls,
And perished nations, floods and tempests call
With hollow sound along the sea of time;

The great man never falls ;
He lives, he towers aloft, he stands sublime;

They fall, who give him not
The honor here that suits his future name,

They die and are forgot.

IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY 149

: O giant, loud and blind ! the great man's fame
Is his own shadow and not cast by thee ;

-j

A shadow that shall grow
As down the heaven of time the sun descends,

And on the world shall throw
His godlike image till it sinks, where blends

Time's dim horizon with Eternity."

" Fine, but not Whittier," was the verdict of Roger of Boston.

"It 's true, all the same," said Jack. "Great heads, eh yours truly
and Mr. Lord ? "

" Come back here a hundred years from now. Jack," Uncle Tom suggested,
" and see how your hero's fame stands the test of time. That, after all, is
the real standard of greatness."

With that they separated for the night, and next morning were up
bright and early for their first glimpse of Kentucky, as they sped on from the
eastern foot-hills toward Lexington, in the heart of the blue-grass country.

"Why is it called blue-grass, Uncle Tom?" asked Marian. "It looks
greener than green to me and how beautiful and velvety."

" Later in the year you get the blue effect that gives this famous Ken-
tucky grass its name," Uncle Tom replied. "When the wind bends the high
grass, you catch the tint that underlies the green and gives a bluish tinge
to the waving blades."

" But that man in the smoking-compartment just told me," said Bert,
" that the blue grass was not of Kentucky origin. He says it was brought
here from Indiana, but that the Kentucky soil has seemed particularly adapted
to its development. Is that so, Uncle Tom?"

" Give it up," his uncle replied. " I ani not up in botanical history, as
your friend in the smoking-room seems to be. Perhaps he is right ; but for
all purposes, sentimental, picturesque,
and practical, the blue grass is es-
pecially a Kentucky product, and will
always be associated with this fertile

region."

Thev reached Lexington and their

^ o

hotel in time for breakfast, and, soon

after, sauntered up and down broad,

prosperous-looking Main Street for a HENRY CLAVS INKSTAND.

glance at the attractive town.

Roger seemed inclined to resent its size and importance.

"Why, it 's bigger than our Lexington," he said, with the tone of one

150 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

who thought that the Lexington of America should be the historical town

O <~>

surrounding- the storied Middlesex green.

'To be sure it is," said Uncle Tom. "This Lexington leads your Lex-
ington by nearly twenty thousand people. It is a business center, you can
see, Roger, and a thriving, go-ahead city. But let this satisfy you it was
named for your Lexington in Massachusetts. For while the settlers were
hiving out their town, the tidings came to them of that famous fight that

* t^ *~) <_*

opened the American Revolution, and at once they gave to the new Ken-
tucky settlement the name of that far-off Massachusetts battle-field."

" Good for them ! " cried Jack. " There 's appreciation for you, Roger."
" That was fine, was n't it ? " said Roger, highly satisfied with the infor-
mation ; and as they boarded a trolley in front of the Breckenridge statue
on their way to Ashland, the Boston boy raised his cap in salute to the en-
terprising Kentucky city, which he called " Sam Adams's stepson."

A ride of a mile along broad and pleasant Main Street brought them to
a turn in the road from where it was only a short walk to the estate fa-
mous throughout America under its name of "Ashland."

The "old Kentucky home " of Henry Clay lay at a very slight elevation
in the midst of broad and far-reaching pastures, while all about the house
itself clustered a stately growth of ash, oak, and walnut trees.

The house stood back some distance from the road, a broad driveway
leading to the ample front door.

But here again, as in the Webster case, the children learned that they
were not looking upon the real Clay house. That, so Uncle Tom informed
them, was torn down years ago because no longer safe, the small, yellow
building off in the fields being the only real survivor of Henry Clay's day.

"Well, here 's a curious thing!" said Jack, standing still beneath a great
ash, and pushing back his cap in surprise. " Do you notice the coincidence,
Uncle Tom ? Clay, Webster, and Calhoun-- three statesmen of the same age
and time each one of them in the Senate each in the Cabinet each
hoping to be President each one a farmer on a big estate - the house of
each one practically wiped out of existence after the death of the owner,
and, standing not far from the house, the only real relic in each case a
solitary little yellow building, used by its former owner as his study or office.
No\v, is n't that odd ? '

The whole party exclaimed at the curious coincidence, and Uncle Tom
remarked :

"It is as I told you, Jack, when we were talking over Calhoun's story.
The similarity in the lives of these three great statesmen, though they
were so absolutely different as personalities, is marked and striking. But,

IN THE BLUE -GRASS COUNTRY

im/ry

^ I ' n

CLAY'S WALK AT ASHLAND.

I confess, I had not seen or known of all these points that you bring out."
You have a sharp eye for 'curios', old fellow."

The cloor of the mansion was flung open in hospitable welcome, and
under the guidance of an affable colored butler the children were shown
through the handsome house, every room of which is eloquent with memo-
rials of the great man who once called Ashland "home."

The house, they were glad to know, was in almost every respect an exact
and faithful reproduction of the original Clay mansion, built by " the great
pacificator " in 1809.

But, even more than the house, the surroundings of the house spoke ot
the famous Kentuckian. Here, at least, were things that actually environed

FHOM THE DAGUERREOTYPE OWNED BY ALFRED HASSACK.

HENRY CLAY IN 1844.
When he was nominated for the Presidency of the United States.

IN THE BLUE-GRASS COUNTRY

A MIRROR FROM ASHLAND.
Now in possession of John M. Clay, Esq.

him, and in which he delighted the tall pines transplanted by him from the
Kentucky mountains ; the winding path that was his favorite \valk, tree-
shaded and shrub-bordered, just as arranged by him ; the wide stretches ot
pasture land beyond the

* * ~^g T\_n_.vr ~ " VI f V-A-'T""

house, which, as in the l !;

founder's day, give the

finest grazing-ground in

the world to a blooded

stock that has become

famous in horse-history.

Boys and girls alike
were ''simply crazy," as
their extravagant lan-
guage declared, over the beautiful Kentucky horses, which had been an
increasing feature in the landscape ever since their descent from the east
Kentucky highlands. But the Lexington horses, so Jack affirmed, "just
walk away with them all."

Beyond the town, through a frame of leafy walnut branches, Uncle Tom,
as he stood with his young people on the violet-studded Ashland lawn,
pointed out to them, two miles away, the tall column of the Clay monument
in the Lexington cemetery.

Leaving beautiful Ashland, the tourists boarded a trolley back to town,
and, a mile to the north, as Ashland was a mile to the south, they came to
the grave of a true American.

The towering marble shaft, topped by the ever-familiar figure of Henry
Clay, the law T maker, sprang into the air from a pedestal that was the tomb.
Within this rectangular room the children saw, through the gate of open iron-
work, the marble sarcophagi that held the remains of Henry Clay and his
devoted wife. Encircled by a wreath carved upon one draped sarcophagus
stood the simple announcement: HENRY CLAY; while on the base of the
supporting pedestal these words were read - - a message from the dead
statesman to his fellow- Americans :

" I can with unshaken confidence appeal to the divine Arbiter for the
truth of the declaration that I have been influenced by no impure purpose,
no personal motive, have sought no personal aggrandizement, but that in all
my public acts I have had a sole and single eye and a warm, devoted heart
directed and dedicated to what, in my best judgment, I believe to be the true
interests of my country."

"Well, I guess that 's so, is n't it?" was Bert's comment, as, at last,
they turned from the grave of Clay and walked down the grassy slope.

154

THE CEMURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

A BLUE-GRASS MEADOW PASTURE.

"Yes; I believe it is," his uncle replied. " \Yith all his inconsistencies,
Henry Clay was immovable in one thing: his devotion to the Union. Al-
most his last public words were a plea for harmony. ' Let us,' he said, ' discard
all resentments, all passions, all petty jealousies, all personal desires, all love of
place, all hungering after the gilded crumbs which fall from the table of
power .... and think alone of our God, our country, our conscience, and our
glorious Union.'

" That was hue." said Roger ; " but they did n't mind him."
" Xo ; they did n't," Uncle Tom replied. " The conflict between freedom
and slavery was inevitable. It had to come, and not even the loving appeal
of the great peacemaker could stop, although it did for a time stay, it. If it
had come in his clay I am certain he would have been found on the side of
l_ nion. There only could he stand who gave voice to this as the sentiment
of his old age : ' So long as it pleases God to give me a voice to express
my sentiments, or an arm, weak and enfeebled as it may be by age, that
voice and that arm will be on the side of my country, for the support of the
general authority and for the maintenance of the powers of this Union.'

" Henry Clay," continued Uncle Tom, as once again they took the trollev
and. watching the tall Clay shaft recede in a verdant perspective, buzzed

IX THE BLUE-GRASS COUXTRY

back to town, "was a notable figure in the history of the republic. Imperi-
ous, headstrong", brilliant, imaginative, restive under advice, impatient under
criticism, he lacked caution as a leader and accuracy as a guide. Though
fearless as a party chieftain, he fought mostly for compromise, and though
ambitious for the Presidency, he desired it for national rather than personal
ends. A statesman and not a politician, he hated selfishness in office and
greed in public trust, so that his integrity as a man and citizen us free from
spot or stain. A gentleman always, he could face down all assaults upon
his honor or his name, and if he had not been consumed by the one laudable
ambition to be President of the republic, his story would have been one of
success, of leadership, of popularity, and ol a fame undimmed by the shadow
of failure or the cloud of personal ambition. But his record is still that of
a great American, and his country will gratefully remember his services,
while for years his home here in beautiful Lexington will be a point of pil-
grimage for the patriot, the citizen, the American."

3-*' ttf

i Z\f5j?

THE CLAY MONUMENT.
As seen from Ashland Lawn, across the city of Lexington.

AN OLD-TIME CHRISTMAS IN KENTUCKY.

CHAPTER X
IN AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE

Jack's Discomfiture Beautiful Kentucky The Dark and Bloody Ground
-Louisville Hospitality --Glimpses of Jackson At tJic Hermitage
Old Alfred's Reminiscences Relics and Stories The Home and Char-
acter of Old Hickory.

S Jack registered for his party at the hotel in Nashville -
Jack always assumed this duty, and Uncle Tom declared
that it was clone with such an air of proprietorship that he
always felt his own insignificance he said to the clerk, as
he buried the pen-point in the box of shot :
"Whereabouts does the trolley start, for the Hermitage? Near here?"
"The Hermitage!' exclaimed the hotel clerk, with the hotel clerk's
superior though affable smile ; " why, there 's no trolley to the Hermitage.
That 's twelve miles off."

" Is that so ! " said jack. " Well, that 's the first time we Ve been so
far from a lemon. Everything, everywhere, from Norfolk on, has been just
a trolley-ride away. What 's the matter with the Hermitage?"

"Oh, that 's all right," the clerk replied, with a twinkle; "but you see,
Old Hickory did n't think of trolleys when he settled there. Like to move
it for you, sir, but, you see, we can't. It 's a pleasant trip down there,
though. Better take it in."

"Why, that 's what we 're here for," said Jack, turning away to join the
others, marshaled under Uncle Tom's lead at the elevator.

To them, Jack reported. In the midst of the laugh at Jack's expense
that followed, Uncle Tom assured his nephew that his inquiry was entirely
unnecessary, as all such details had been duly attended to, and that they
would leave for the Hermitage on the morning train.

"Meantime," he said, "we '11 still be loyal to your trolley program,

158

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

jack, and ride out this afternoon to see the Yanderbilt University and the
big exposition buildings at the farther end of the city."

They did so, and were amply repaid for the trip, surprised and pleased

at the bigness and beauty of Xash-

O *

ville the great exposition buildings
set in a broad, green park ; the State
Capitol, with its Grecian outlines, set
high on a hill ; and, close beside it,
the grave of President Polk, and the
fine equestrian statue of General
Andrew Jackson, whose home, called
by him "the Hermitage," they were
now en route to see.

Their journey west and south from
Lexington had been a delightful one.
The boys and girls all fell in love with
Kentucky. The green stretch of
" blue-crass" country between Lex-

o J

inpton and Louisville was a veritable

garden-land, and Roger declared that
he should prevail on his father to sell
out in Boston and buy one of the

beautiful estates in Pewee Valley, or some other fair stretch of Kentucky

country, and ofo into the horse business.

* ^5

At this there was a eeneral shout. The idea of the Boston bov "weak-

ening on his beloved Hub," as Jack expressed it, was too much for them.

" All the same," said Bert, " there 's no discount on this, " and he swept
his hand toward the verdant landscape that lay on each side of the rumbling
train. " That man in the smoking compartment yesterday told us that
Kentucky was the Lord's own country; and it does look like it --on the

f *

surface."

"And yet," Uncle Tom declared, "no region in our land has been more
torn by ferocity and feud. Think of it ! This was the dark and bloody

.- j

ground '- -this peaceful-looking landscape !

" Forest land, though ; not pasture then, I guess," put in practical Bert.

" Of course, much of it ; but just as beautiful then as now, Bert," said
Uncle Tom. " But it was the red-man's battle-ground. Here, again and
again, Northern and Southern Indians met in fierce struggle for the possession
of these choice hunting-grounds ; here hunters and pioneers struggled with
the red owners for a foothold. fust a few miles to the south of where we are

JACK ALWAYS REGISTERED.

IN AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE

"A VERITABLE GARDEN-LAND."

now the Kentucky river winds its way through the region made famous by
Daniel Boone ; and at our very next stop Frankfort, the capital of the
State the great frontiersman lies buried in the only six feet of Kentucky
soil that, after all he did for this region, he could call his own. There, too,
in that same Frankfort cemetery, rises the monument to one whose name
and work you must recall O'Hara, the soldier-poet."

" What, the one who wrote the ' Bivouac of the Dead ' ? " cried Roger.

" Why, that 's the poem that is cut up and posted about among all those
soldiers' graves at Arlington," said Jack.

" Oh, yes; just across the river from Washington," said Marian ; " I re-
member that. And the man who wrote that splendid poem is buried here,
you say ? "

" Just beyond us here, in Frankfort cemetery," replied Uncle Tom, while
Christine, looking through the window toward the town they were nearing,

repeated softly :

" On Fame's eternal camping-ground

Their silent tents are spread,
And Glory guards with solemn round
The Bivouac of the Dead."

i6o

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" Somehow, that poem always just goes through me," said Marian. "It
makes me tingle."

" A line piece of verse," said Uncle Tom. " One stanza not used in Arling-
ton is local, and applies especially to the Kentucky soldiers of 1812 and

1 846 who rest beneath their marble monu-
ment yonder in Frankfort cemetery :

" Sons of the dark and bloody ground,

Ye must not slumber there
Where stranger steps and tongues resound

Along the heedless air ;
Your own proud land's heroic soil

Should be your fitter grave ;
She claims from war its richest spoil

The ashes of the brave. "

Just then the train drew into Frank-
fort, and Uncle Tom pointed out the old
and new capitol buildings and told them
of Kentucky's contributions to the re-
public.

" ' Your own proud land's heroic soil %
has a notable record," he said. " A
Kentucky man drew my attention to it
yesterday as we wandered about Lex-
ington. Let me see if I can recall it.

Two Presidents of the United States
Zachary Taylor and Abraham Lincoln
were Kentucky born, you know, and the one Confederate President, Jef-
ferson Davis. Besides these, two Yice-Presidents of the United States
and two acting Yice-Presidents, two Secretaries of State, four Secretaries
of the Treasury, three Secretaries of \Yar, one Secretary of the Navy, one
Secretary of the Interior, six Postmasters-General, six Attorneys-General,
seven Judges of the Supreme Court, two Presidents of the Senate, and six
Speakers of the House. That 's quite a list, is n't it?'

" I should say so," said Bert.

" Anything left for Ohio? " queried Jack.

" You don't think that Kentucky man's 'Kentucky-ness' made him swell
things, do you ? " asked Roger.

" \Yell, his loyalty may have led him into over- appropriation," said
Uncle Tom ; " for he included James G. Blaine, because the famous Speaker
taught school and married his wife in Kentucky, and I suspect one or two

THE MAN IN THE SMOKING
COMPARTMENT."

IX AND AROUXD THE HERMITAGE

others may have been Kentuckian by his adoption.
Still, it 's a strong list, and one not easily paralleled.
Kentucky 's a great State, you see."

So they all concluded before they were through
with it. Their two days in Louisville were crowded
with pleasure. The situation, extent, energy, and
stateliness of the city impressed them, its wide
streets and verdant lawns gave to it breadth and
beauty, while its hospitality was avoided only by a
vigorous effort.

But Uncle Tom, with a stern sense of duty,
dragged his "brood " away from the delightful Third-
street mansion w r here lived a charming Kentucky
woman whom some of the boys and girls had met at
their Maine summer resort by the sea, and who in-
sisted upon keeping them all and indefinitely. So
at last they escaped across the Kentucky border
" by the skin of their teeth," Bert biblically declared,
and reached the southernmost point in their trip
Nashville and the home of Andrew Jackson.

161

>vMasfei :

SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AND TOMB OF O HARA, FRANKFORT, K.Y.

1 62 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

The morning" after their arrival in Nashville they took an early train
on the Lebanon Branch road, running east from Nashville, and, as they
made the hour's run through a green and fertile country of rolling land
that, so Bert declared, looked " real New Englandy," Uncle Tom gave
his young- auditors brief glimpses of the remarkable man whose homestead
they were approaching.

"A stirring life, from the word 'go,' was that of Andrew Jackson," he
said. " We see him first a rough, red-haired, Ireckle-laced, fatherless boy
of the ' piney woods ' section of Carolina, picking up a poor living and a
poorer schooling. A bluff and boisterous boy, I imagine ; something of a
bully, but never a coward. Brought up on the border, he was a belligerent
before he was in his teens, fighting the British as a boy guerrilla, seeing his.
brothers and mother die through British cruelty, and early learning the
lesson of hatred to the foes of America that clung to him through all his
eventful life.

" \Ye next see him a Western emigrant, crossing the border into Ten-
nessee in i 788, when he was twenty-one years old, settling as a lawyer in
the new town of Nashville, and taking long horseback rides from court-
house to court-house through a region swarming with Indians and wild
beasts - - enemies he was obliged again and again to face in fight.

"After this come success, recognition, popularity, advancement. He
helps draft the constitution of the new State of Tennessee, is sent to the na-
tion's capital, first as a representative, then as a senator ; he becomes Judge
Jackson of Tennessee, then General Jackson, finally President Jackson.

" We see him building on his big plantation, toward which we are trav-
eling, a house of logs in 1804. I will show you that very log house, yet
standing. There he and his dearly loved wife live for fifteen long years,
when, in 1810, he builds the house now famous as the Hermitage.

"We might, if we had time, follow him step by step throughout his
steady progress from a ' piney- woods boy' to President. It would be a course
checkered with much hard fighting, many personal quarrels, lawsuits, duels,
bitterness, and anger, for Andrew Jackson loved hard and hated hard ; but
there would be in it, too, honesty, integrity, business ability, firmness, cou-
rage, loyalty, and love. These were the things that sent him ahead, that gave
him popularity, that made people believe in and follow him. Let me give
you these steps upward, in just so many words : farmer-boy, soldier-boy,
saddler's apprentice, law-student, horse-trainer, lawyer, frontiersman, prose-
cuting attorney, land speculator, constitution-maker, representative, senator,
judge, storekeeper, farmer, flatboat-builder, wholesale shipper, cotton-
planter, stock-raiser, militia officer, volunteer soldier, general, conqueror in

IN AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE

ANDREW JACKSON.

the war of 1812, victor in Florida, governor of Florida, United States sena-
tor, presidential candidate, President, hero by popular acclaim ! - - there is a
record of steady progress filling a life of seventy-eight busy years, and punc-
tuated with all those fiery incidents that made Andrew Jackson at once a
terror and a triumph. I think there is no other figure in American history
whose success is so meteoric, or whose career was so dramatic as that of this
tall, thin, sinewy, strong-faced, stiff-haired, seventh President of the United
States, whom men still love to refer to as ' Old Hickory.'

The train, soon after, left them on the platform of the little wayside sta-
tion called Hermitage a depot, a cross-roads country store, a house or

164

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

two in sight, and, stretching all about, green and wooded slopes and pastures.
The girl at the store stepped to the door and shouted, " Jack ! You Jack!" with
such startling earnestness that our Jack really felt uncomfortable. The other
Jack came, and with him the carriages Uncle Tom had ordered. Then fol-
lowed a delightful two miles' drive to where, turning from the pike, they drove
through a shaded roadway up to the doorway of a low, rambling, square-built,
porticoed, two-story house, standing far back from the road the Hermitage.
" How perfectly delightful ! " exclaimed Marian, as she surveyed the
breezy, hospitable-looking place, which seemed to speak a welcome in every
line and corner of its unpretentious amplitude.

They paid a lingering visit to the
homestead which, with twenty-five acres
of surrounding land, is now owned
by the State of Tennessee, and cared
for by the Ladies' Hermitage Associ-
ation. Under the guidance of old Al-
fred, the last of the Jackson slaves, they
inspected the few, the very few, remain-
ing Jackson relics (for most of them,
unfortunately, have been scattered or
transferred), the house, the grounds,
the garden, and the monument.

The old fellow proved entertaining,
and a loyal adherent of the " ole oqn'ral "

J o

and of " Missus Jackson."

" Why, I held the ole gin'ral's arm
jest like dat Tore he died," he assured
Roger, grasping the boy's arm ; and he
delighted the girls by holding forth on
"Missus Jackson's" goodness and im-
partiality.

"She wasa goodmissus," he declared,
" 'n mighty good to the pore folks. She
could sing, and ride a horse as well as
the gin'ral hisself, and she was 'tentive
THE GIRL AT HERMITAGE STATION. to her pra'rs and minded her Bible.
"jack! YOU jack!'" Manv 's de time," he added reflectivelv,

J r>

"dat Missus has put me, Marse Andrew, and the Injun boy, one after
t' other, 'crost her knee and jest whopped us for bein' owdashus."

Uncle Tom hastened to explain that "Marse Andrew " was Mrs. Jackson's

IX AXD AROUND THE HERMITAGE

THE HERMITAGE HOME OF ANDREW JACKSON.

nephew and the general's adopted son, while the "Injun boy' was that
little Indian orphan, whose story is familiar, who was picked up by Jackson
on a Creek battlefield, sent to the Hermitage, and cared for by the conqueror
of his race.

"The Hermitage was a great place for children, white and black,"
Uncle Tom declared. " Andrew Jackson had no sons or daughters of his
own, but he loved all children, and there were many nephews and nieces to
play about these grounds, while the boys and girls through the country that
were named ' Andrew ' or ' Rachel ' by his admirers were legion."

They wandered through the big breezy rooms of the old-fashioned man-
sion while Alfred drew their attention to things that seemed to him impor-
tant the paper on the halls and stairway, imported from France by Jack-
son, and put on the walls under his supervision a monstrous pattern of
commingled history and mythology, as impossible in scene as in perspective.

He took them to the wide-porticoed piazzas, up-stairs and down, and
showed them just where Jackson stood when he made his last public speech,
and he drew their attention to the cedar- shaded walk that led from the o-ate-

entrance. The great cedars that lined it were planted by the " ole gin'ral,"
so he explained, "in the form of a git-thar."

" A what ? " inquired puzzled Marian; and it required a repetition and an
explanatory sweep of the hand to show that the old custodian meant that
the cedar walk was shaped like a guitar.

Alfred also explained, as he led them about the house to show its pro-

1 66

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

THE OLD HERMITAGE STILL STANDING.
Built 1804. The smaller building is old Alfred's birthplace.

portions, that when the Hermitage was built in 1819 it was just a square
blockhouse with a small porch. "But in 1835," he informed them, "the ole
in'ral, 'ca'se he was President; you see, put on dese yere exaggerations,"

and he indicated the ample pillared
porticoes which project from the
house at front and rear.

The children smothered a laucrh

at the old man's apt though inno-
cent appellation, and then followed
him afield to the first Hermitage
the old house of logs, a gunshot
away from the later mansion. That, they learned, was Jackson's home at
the time of the w^ar of 1812 the war that made him famous, when, behind
the cotton bales of New Orleans (only Bert assured them that there were
no cotton bales there at the time of the battle), he forced back the veter-
ans of Wellington and closed a leaderless war with a brilliant victory.

They roamed all about the place, resting again and again in the shade
of the great encompassing trees. Then old Alfred grew interested in the
enthusiastic young people and made an exception in their case. For he
unlocked the gate in the iron fence that encircled the monument and let
the boys and girls stand within the temple-like
mausoleum that marks the grave of a statesman.

"As simple as Webster's, so far as inscription
goes, is n't it ? " said Bert. " But it tells the story,
just as Webster's did. All the world knows An-
drew Jackson."

The girls read twice, carefully, the touching trib-
ute to his wife Rachel that Jackson caused to be
carved upon the slab that lies close beside his own.

" Is n't it beautiful ? " said Christine. " I don't
see, Uncle Tom, how a man \vho could say such
lovely things about his wife could be such a fighter
in war and politics."

" Jackson's respect for w r omen was almost
knightly in its courtesy," Uncle Tom declared.
"His affection for his wife was peculiarly deep and strong, and when she
died, just before his inauguration as President, he went to Washington, in
the midst of shouts of welcome and congratulation, a lonely and broken-
hearted man."

" Yes. sir, clat 's cle troof," old Alfred affirmed. " I 'member, jest 'fore he

JACKSON'S TOMB.

IN AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE

167

IN OLD TENNESSEE DAYS.

went, de ole gin'ral he planted dese yere willows hisself, beside ole Missus'
grave. Dey was jest switches den, but dey clone growed, 'cept dat ar one
what was struck by lightnin'. De ole gin'ral loved dis place. Wen he gits
into his kerridge fer to go to Washington he done tuk off his hat to de house,
jest like it was a lady, and den he dribe away."

It was all very interesting. Yonder, at the old house in the fields, so
Uncle Tom told them, Aaron Burr had been a frequent visitor, and from it

1 68 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

Jackson went to war and victory; here, in the "new" house, Jackson had
received Lafayette as a guest, and behind the mansion were spread the long"
tables for the great barbecue in honor of the famous Frenchman. Here he
received the news of his election ; here he outlined the action that made his
name a power in American politics ; here " all the world " came to see and
honor him ; and here, on a June day, he died, an old man of seventy-eight.
The young people felt, indeed, that the Hermitage had been well worth the
visit. It seemed, so Christine declared, to put them nearer to the real man
with a good and tender side, whom they had only known by the unyielding
nickname of " Old Hickory."

A lunch at the Hermitage, a visit to the Confederate Soldiers' Home on
the adjoining grounds, a talk with numerous friendly and grizzled old veter-
ans who had worn the gray, a delightful drive back to the station through
woodlands vocal with finch-songs and robin-notes, and through the mingling
green and white of Tennessee's spring foliage and blossoms, completed this
most satisfactory trip to the home of Jackson-.

In the fields beyond the country store they waited for the up-train to
Nashville, and while they did so, Uncle Tom, as they all sat in the shade of
the great hickory-trees, sought to give them a brief summing up of the
character of the master of the Hermitage.

" I have already told you," he said, " that I can name no more unique
or picturesque figure in American history than Andrew Jackson."

" How picturesque, Uncle Tom?" demanded Bert, who was always very
particular as to adjectives. " Can you apply that to such a bluff and gruff
old fellow as Jackson ? "

The girls remembered the inscription on his wife's tablet, and were in-
clined to protest against calling him bluff and gruff. But Uncle Tom did
not seem to find the boy's words objectionable, and simply assured Bert that
anything that occupied a unique or "decorative" position in material or in-
tellectual conditions could be called picturesque.

" Certainly," he added, " nothing could be more noticeably picturesque
in character or story than this brave and fiery old fighting-man. No man
was ever more devotedly followed, none was ever more cordially hated.
Partizans rallied around him as about a tribal chief; enemies raged against
him as against the bitterest foe. He came into our political history as a free-
lance ; his nomination and election upset all the old traditions. The aristo-
crats prophesied anarchy ; the people hailed his inauguration as bringing in
the reign of the people. All the starch and show that had held sway
in presidential etiquette from Washington's time were overthrown. It was
a new departure, and Jackson's election to the Presidency," Uncle Tom

IN" AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE

169

declared, " was the most important event in American history from Wash-
ington's day to that of Lincoln."

" Jackson was the first ' people's President,' ' he said. " More than Jeffer-
son, he was the father of national democracy ; more than Clay, he was in-
tensely, even belligerently, American ; more than Webster, he had what
we call, ' the courage ol his convictions,' and would live up to what he
esteemed right, no matter who opposed it. Absolutely fearless, vigorous in
methods, quick in action, emphatic in speech, it he thought a thing should
be done, he did it, careless of consequence.

" Not a great man in the sense that Washington and Lincoln were great,
he was yet so brave, so outspoken, so determined, and so resolute that he

.--.-

^f tfKoaES? t f^

l?'Aw!l*P^e3

5s=*=fe=%f3=i ; S*i=i;. 4-"^? -Si-tr

f 7r^?f^

r-^s..

*->7*r-n. i ^X

JACKSOX SQUARE AND THE CATHEDRAL, NEW T ORLEANS.

silenced all opposition and triumphed over all enemies, while his stern and
inflexible honesty rose almost to greatness."

" He did n't go much on civil-service reform, Uncle Tom, did he ? " asked
Roger.

"Was n't he the man who said, 'To the victor belong the spoils'?"
Jack inquired.

" No; he was not the originator of that detestable saying," Uncle Tom

I/O THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

replied ; " but he acted up to it, for it was the advice of one of his partizans.
Even in that, though, was Jackson's picturesqueness displayed. He was in-
tensely loyal to his friends ; he was equally vindictive to his foes, and from
his administration certainly dates the system of political rewards and punish-
ments which for half a century marred and cheapened American politics
and patriotism. Jackson, you see, was the soldier in office. He knew no
master save his own will, which, he declared, was the will of the people.
And it did appear to be so, too ; for the majority of the people believed so
thoroughly in him that his two terms as President were at once the most
popular the most dramatic and the most effective of those of all the Presi-
dents of the United States up to his time."

RACHEL, WIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON.
In a locket worn by the President.

" He won the battle of New Orleans, and he said 'the Union must and
shall be preserved.' I know that much about him," said Jack. " What
else ? "

" I can't enumerate here in detail, Jack," Uncle Tom replied ; but this I
can tell you, Andrew Jackson was a patriotic President."

IX AND AROUND THE HERMITAGE

1 '..MP

ONE OF "OLD HICKORY'S" SPORTS. IN A TENNESSEE HUNTING-FIELD.

"No monkeying with the Constitution allowed keep off the grass
that kind of President, was n't he, Uncle Tom?" said Jack.

"That 's about it in your peculiar and vigorous speech," Uncle Tom
admitted. "With the sternness of the despot he crushed the rebellious at-
tempts of the ' nullifiers,' and saved the Union from disruption ; with an
equally heavy hand he demolished the institution called the United States
Bank, which he considered a menace to the republic ; he brought England
to terms ; made France pay a just but delayed indebtedness ; settled disputes
of long standing with Denmark and with Spain ; and forced Europe to rec-
ognize and admit the strength and vigor of America as a nation."

"That 's the talk!" exclaimed Jack, with enthusiasm. "He had some
'sand' about him, General Jackson did."

"He was certainly what we call to-day American and aggressive,"
Uncle Tom declared. " But he was so from inclination and conviction, not
from policy. He was a true man, whatever he did.

"Warm-hearted, fearless, patriotic, honest, and sincere, he lived, the
people's idol ; and dying, was canonized by all America as the synonym of
leadership, force, and mastery.

" He w^as impulsive, he was hot-headed, he was obstinate. He made
many mistakes, and yet even these proved successes ; for, in all the history
of the republic, Jackson w r as the only living President who retired from
office more popular than when he went in.

I 72

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" Throughout all this region he was loyally loved. All over the land
men were his faithful partizans long after his public life closed, and his last
years at the Hermitage were those of a sage and an oracle, to whom men
looked for advice and direction. A remarkable man every way, boys and
girls, was Andrew Jackson. From the time when, as a plucky boy ol thir-
teen, he refused to clean the boots of the British officer, to the day when he
died yonder, at the Hermitage, an old and honored man, his story is well
\yorthy of study, and, whenever studied, will be found suggestive, picturesque,
dramatic, American.

"There! I Ve talked till train-time. All aboard for Nashville, and
good-by to the Hermitage ! "

The>- whirled away toward Nashville. But in the intervals of " Jack-
son talk" and delight at the Tennessee landscape Jack waxed eloquent
over an account of the splendid "coon hunt" that "the other Jack," had
told him of, as the Northern and the Southern boy had sat together beneath
one of the great shade trees at the Hermitage.

THE LAST PORTRAIT OF ANDREW JACKSON.
Painted at the Hermitage in 1845.

CHAPTER XI
BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI

Uncle Tom 's Latest Mammoth Cave Explorers The Birthplace of Lin-
coln Across the Prairies By the ^Father of Waters " Where Grant
got His Experience-- A Leaders Life A Herds Death.

T was a good three hours' run through regions where the
names had a certain familiar sound to those who had studied
the campaigns of the Civil War Nashville and Franklin
and Bowling Green. Suddenly Uncle Tom started to his feet.
"Come, boys; gather up your traps," he said. "Put on
your hats, girlies. The next station is ours."

"The next station?" exclaimed Marian, who for the time was immersed
in the new " St. Nicholas," which Uncle Tom had bought for her at Nash-
ville. "The next, did you say? Why, we can't be back again at Louis-
ville as soon as this!"

"A hundred miles from there, my dear," laughed Uncle Tom. "This is
just a little joke of mine. Here we are Glasgow junction! All out for
Mammoth Cave ! "

"Mammoth Cave! No, Uncle Tom! Are we really going there?"
came the surprised and exultant chorus. " Oh, is n't that just splendid ! " And
a demonstration of affection was made upon this scheming uncle who had
worked upon them another of his delightful surprises.

In the midst of it all the train stopped, and soon after they were lunching
at the comfortable little railroad inn ; and, before long, the short branch
railway bore them into the honeycombed hill region and up to the rambling
hotel of logs which stands in its pleasant woodsy park, upon the crust of
earth so wondrously seamed and tunneled by the crossways and caverns
of the mighty Mammoth Cave.

Will they ever lorget that delightful burrowing in the ground the
descent from the upper world ; the barred iron gate at the great black mouth

173

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

of the cavern; their "convict garb of blue jeans," as Jack described it ; the
swinging torchlights; the jolly party of young folks- - students from a
Bowling Green institute- -with whom they made the trip; the endless pas-
sages "stretching from nothing to no-
where," as Marian expressed it; the
great domed chambers; the yawning
pits, the fantastic forms and figures
formed by stalactites and stalagmites;
the giant's coffin; the bridal altar; the
star chamber; the elephant's head; the
corkscrew; the statue of Martha Wash-
ington; the memorial cairns, or monu-
ments, piled up by generations of vis-
itors; the flaring fires lighted by the
guides to brincr out strano-e formations

o o o

or gruesome contrasts ? These, and all
the other surprises, delights, wonders,
and what Christine called "shivery
sensations" of that eight-mile walk un-
derground, will stand out among the
chief memories of their " famous-men
hunt," because the experience was at
once so unexpected and so novel. And
next morning, as they sped northward
toward Louisville, the personally con-
ducted five held a mass meeting in their
parlor-car compartment, and returned a
special vote of thanks to Uncle Tom,
duly engrossed in a shaky, " railroacly '
hand on a telegraph blank, and as
shakily signed by each one of them.
But when they had left the curious cave region behind them, and were
speeding Louisville-ward again, Uncle Tom led their minds back to the tem-
porarily deserted channel of historic Americans, and advised them that they
were passing over storied ground.

" Up and clown these highways," he said, "contending armies moved in the
fierce clays of the Civil War, struggling for the possession of Kentucky, a
border State. Off there to the east, at Perryville, was fought the most des-
perate battle ever waged on Kentucky soil. It was brother against brother,
and Kentucky was saved to the Union. But even more than by the valor of

THE BOTTOMLESS PIT, MAMMOTH CAVE.

BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI

75-

HODGEN'S MILL AND DAM ON NOLIN'S CREEK.
Three miles from Lincoln's birthplace; town of Hodgensville in the background.

the boys in blue was Kentucky saved to the Union by the wisdom and
patience and will of Abraham Lincoln, himself a Kentucky boy."

" That's so," said Bert ; " he was bom in Kentucky, was n't he ? And so
was Jefferson Davis, too."

"Yes; some miles southwest of us, in Todd County. From this region,
by the way, came also Mrs. Lincoln, whose name was Mary Todd. Strange,
is n't it, how lines of coincidence cross?" Uncle Tom answered. "But, as I
was saying, I esteem the saving of Kentucky by Abraham Lincoln one of his
chief claims to greatness. It was a triumph of sound judgment and inex-
haustible patience. No other man not Clay himself, the great pacificator
-could have achieved the beneficent ends aimed at and attained here in
Kentucky by Lincoln, the great emancipator, whose early home lies not far
away from the very region we are now traversing."

"Oh, are we so near his birthplace?" cried Roger. "Whereabouts
is it?"

Uncle Tom consulted a moment with the porter, crossed to the window,
and then said :

',-'

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" Now, look look out of the window here, on the left. See that little
stream coming down through the pastures ? Now we are crossing it. Boys
and girls, this is Nolin's Creek ; and on the banks of this little stream,
twelve miles farther up, Abraham Lincoln was born."

At once the. boys' hats were doffed in salute to this, the most impor-
tant river in Christendom, so enthusiastic Jack declared, and the girls fluttered
their handkerchiefs toward it ; for, as you know, this peripatetic five had
been schooled in Uncle Tom's belief that Abraham Lincoln was the world's
greatest man.

Even as they rumbled over the bridge and looked across country to-
ward the rolling land where, when all was forest or scarcely-won clearing,
the great American was born, Uncle Tom dropped into poetry, as he some-
times would, and gave to his boys and girls those fine lines from Lowell's
matchless tribute in his " Commemoration Ode."

"It seems to fit just in this place," he said:

" Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating as by rote ;

For him, the Old-World moulds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero ne\v,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true."

"How was he different from anybody else?" asked Bert. "You call
him 'new' and ' the American.' Have n't we had other men as American?
What 's the matter with Franklin ? "

" Nothing is the matter with him, Bert," said Uncle Tom. " FYanklin,
in a way, was the most characteristic A.merican ; certainly, up to the time of

- 7f~

"ALL ABOARD FOR ST. LOL'IS!

BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI

177

Lincoln, he was the greatest American as an American. But Lincoln
was a new type. Franklin had quite other environments, and was broad-
ened and deepened by foreign travel and education. Lincoln was all Amer-
ican. Had he never been Presi-
dent he would have carved out
a career that would have been
unique in our history; for he
learned from experience and a
knowledge of men how to make

the most of opportunity, and to

ALONG THE ROUTE IN ILLINOIS.

become, as Lowell said of him, ' wise, stead-
fast in the strength of God, and true.' It was
this nobility of soul that made him the savior of
his country. It was this wisdom, steadfastness,
patience, and belief in the strength of his cause

and in the Eternal Justice that enabled Abraham Lincoln, in despite of criti-
cism, false accusations, and a restless and insistive North, to save Kentucky
to the Union, and by so doing to save the Union for us for you as well as
for me, boys and girls, and for the ages yet to come."

Next morning they left Louisville, crossed the Ohio River, and, running
northward, changed cars at a little Indiana junction, and were soon speeding
westward out of the broken land of Indiana, and across the Illinois prairies
to the mighty Mississippi and its mightiest city St. Louis.

178 THK CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

The wonderful levels of the far-reaching- prairie lands were a revelation
to these sons and daughters of the hills and the sea. Indeed, Bert declared
that he got the same sense of space and vastness on those verdant and fertile
prairies that he did on the ocean when they had steamed southward to Fort-
ress Monroe. Like the sea that day, the prairie was, as Bert expressed it,
'one great rolling plain of color."

That was perhaps just a bit poetic ; but Jack went even beyond his
cousin, and declared that his impressions could find vent only in verse. With
a wave of the hand toward the verdant fields and the clear, overarching
skies, he delivered himself of this Roger insisted on calling it ''Jack's
Epic " :

" Green as the greenest of greenness,

Blue as the bluest of blues,
Flat as the flattest of flatness,
Wide as the widest of views.''

" Bravo, Jack ! Hail to the twentieth-century Wordsworth ! " cried Uncle
Tom, while the girls crowned him with an elongated time-table, and the
whole party bent in homage to him as " the laureate of the peripatetic," as
Bert proclaimed him.

At last the prairies billowed up into what, carrying out the ocean simile
as the land ran into the bluffs along the river, they called the surf. At sun-
set they saw the mighty Mississippi, and, crossing it by the famous Eads
Bridge, they left the train at the fine Union Station, and were soon at the
dinner-table in their ofreat hotel in St. Louis.

Two days were spent in sight-seeing in this metropolis of the Missis-
sippi Valley the " Future Great," as some of its indwellers refer to it.
They shot up to the roof of the tall Union Trust Building, and took a
bird's-eye view of the terraced city and the turbid river flowing at its feet.
They rambled through its broad streets, rode to its beautiful parks, saw its
great stores and splendid residences, walked along its "paved seashore," as
Marian described the sloping levee fringed with big " stern-wheelers " ; and
there Jack, looking out upon the broad tide, recalled Lincoln's words :

The signs look better. The Father of Waters 'again goes unvexed to the sea. Thanks to
the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles up they met New
England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too,
in more colors than one, also lent a hand. On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down
in black and white. The job was a great national one, and let none be banned who bore an
honorable part in it. And while those who have cleared the great river may well be proud, even
that is not all. . . . Thanks to all. For the great republic, for the principles by which it
lives and keeps alive for man's vast future thanks to all.

./A.

GENERAL GRANT RECONNOITERING THE CONFEDERATE POSITION AT

SPOTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE.
By C. W. Reed, after a sketch made at the time.

:8o

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

A RIVER BOAT OX THE .MISSISSIPPI.

"That 's good, Jack," said Uncle Tom, nodding approval; "and here
beside the great river which he freed, in the very city in and about which so
many of his earlier experiences centered, let us remember the man to whom
the thanks of the republic are specially clue Grant, greatest of American
soldiers, the product of an iron will and of a stern necessity."

" See here, Uncle Tom ! " exclaimed Jack ; " is n't that rather going back
on us? You said in New York that we would, for the purpose of this trip,
call Grant a New Yorker, and now you 're bringing him out west again."

"That 's so, Jack," said Uncle Tom, with a laugh. " I did say so, and
I 'm not going to depart from that decision. But here we are on his earlier
stamping-ground ; and while I count him a great New Yorker, here, in
Missouri and Illinois, he first became known. Here his successes and his
failures tried his metal, and gave him to the nation schooled by experience
into the trained and reliable fighting-man. And yet it is a curious fact
that, though he was the greatest soldier of his day, Grant hated war."

This seemed so impossible a statement that the young folks all expressed
surprise, and Marian said, suspending the wedding ceremony, as Jack
called her act of pouring into the Mississippi the vial of ocean water she
had brought from Fortress Monroe :

"Why, Uncle Tom ! Is that likely a soldier to hate fighting?"

"That 's what he said himself," Uncle Tom replied. "'Although a
soldier by education and profession,' he declared, ' I have never felt any sort

BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI

181

of fondness for war, and I never advocated it except as a means of peace.
I never went into a battle willingly or with enthusiasm. I was always glad
when a battle was over.'

"That sounds odd, does n't it?' said Bert. "How could he win if
he never liked to fight ? "

" ' I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer,' ' quoted
Roger, significantly.

: -- ' ' ''

GENERAL GRANT AND STAFF.
General Grant is sitting wilh his back to the smaller tree. From a war-time photograph.

"That 's it, Roger. He won because he fought to win," Uncle Tom
declared. "That is what generalship means. It 's what the old clarky at
Jackson's home called the 'git-thar' quality; and Grant, as you know, had
but one end in view to ' git thar ' ! '

" And he did, did n't he? " said Jack, to whom Grant was always a hero.

"He did," Uncle Tom replied; "but only because he had learned
patience through hope long deferred, and endurance because of great

I 82

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

and repeated obstacles. In tact, his life was one of vicissitude the best
schooling for practical experience and ultimate success."

They walked across to inspect the Grant statue in Grand Avenue, and,
after they had roamed the city a little more, gathered about Uncle Tom in
the comfortable entresol of their hotel, and listened as he outlined for them
the story of Ulysses Simpson Grant.

" He was an Ohio boy," Uncle Tom began, "born at Point Pleasant, on
the banks of the Ohio River, not far from Cincinnati. His boyhood and
youth were uneventful. He got the appointment to West Point by acci-
dent, and went there against his will. After his graduation he was sta-
tioned at Jefferson Barracks- - the pleasant military post we visited this
morning, ten miles below St. Louis. He served through the Mexican war,
came back a captain, married a St. Louis girl, and went to farming a little
ways out of town. He had a hard time of it. His farming was not profit-
able. He tried real estate and bill-collecting with no better success, and
finally went to Galena, in the northwestern corner of Illinois, and ' clerked
.it ' in his father's tannery. There he lived unnoticed and unknown until
the war came. He tried to get an army appointment, but could not; but at

,, -

^tt

.' ' fi^.^i

BIRTHPLACE OF GENERAL GRANT, POINT PLEASANT, OHIO.

BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI

GENERAL GRANT.
From a photograph taken early in the war.

last was made captain of a volunteer company, then colonel, then brigadier-
general, and then commander of the military district of Cairo. From that
time January, 1862 his hidden ability began to show itself, \\hile
others argued he acted. He took Fort Donelson; won the battle of Shiloh;
captured Vicksburg ; conquered at Chattanooga ; was made lieutenant-gen-
eral ; and at Nashville, where we were the other day, assumed command of
the armies of the United States. He took charge of the Army of the
Potomac in the spring of 1864. In one year he brought the war to a
close. Then he was made General of the United States Army, Secretary
of War, President of the United States. That is his story all the sue-

1 84

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

cesses and honors of his life crowded into less than ten years. But to reach
that high position the experiences of an unsuccessful youth were necessary.
Hope deferred taught him patience ; discouragement taught him decision ;
failure taught him persistence. The tan-yard was the preparatory school to
the general's saddle."

"Well, that was all right," said Roger; "he tanned 'em as a boy, and
when he was a general he tanned 'em, too."

"Yes; and he and victory rode tandem, eh, folkses ? " declared Jack.
But the girls clearly counted these puns frivolous ; Uncle Tom, too,
gave them but scant attention as, continuing, he said: "But he was the
same Grant, you know. The daring with which he flanked the enemy
at Yicksburg was just the same as that which had made him captain for the
action at the San Cosine gate."
" What was that ? " asked Bert.

" Why, don't you know ? " cried Jack. " That was when he lugged a can-
non into a church steeple, \vas n't it, Uncle Tom?"
" Yes ; tell us about it, Jack," said his uncle.

" Not much to tell, only it was mighty
plucky," said Jack. " It was when
Grant was a lieutenant in Mexico.
The Americans wanted to get into the
city, and were stopped by the enemy at
the San Cosine gate that was one
of the principal entrances into the city
of Mexico, you know. Grant saw a
way to flank them. He got permission
and a mountain howitzer, took some
gunners with him, and started for a
little church he saw across the fields
and ditches. The church had a high
steeple, but Grant took the howitzer
to pieces, carried it across the ditches
and up into the steeple, put it together,
loaded it, and banged away at the
enemy until he cleared them from the
gate. Then the Americans captured
it, and next day the city of Mexico surrendered, and Grant was made a
captain. Bright boy, eh?'

" I should say so," said Bert.

"Well, that was Grant every time," Uncle Tom declared. "He had a

CAPTAIN" U. S. GRANT.

BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI

FOUNTAIN AND AQUEDUCT AT THE SAN COSME GATE, MEXICO.
Where General Grant won his captaincy in the Mexican war.

keenness for perceiving what is called the strategical importance of a point ;
he was prompt at deciding what to do, and quick to do it after deciding.
That is the secret of much of his success. That is how he forced the San
Cosme gate ; that is how he won when, in the Civil War, opportunity came
to him."

" But I thought you said he was successful just because he ' fought it out
on this line if it took all summer,' don't you know," said Bert.

"They call him ' Grant, the hammerer,' don't they?" Roger asked.

" They do," Uncle Tom replied. " But he was equally ' Grant, the strat-
egist.' If you will read, some day, how he got in behind Vicksburg, and
how he fought at Chattanooga, you will see that he was something more
than a hammerer."

" But that 's the way he got Richmond, is n't it, Uncle Tom ? Just by
keeping at it, and not knowing when he was whipped if he ever was
whipped. I don't believe he was," Jack declared.

" Any other man would have called it being whipped in the Wilderness
campaign," replied Uncle Tom ; " but Grant would not. By energy and te-
nacity he won, and the nation was saved. For, you see, he could tell when

i86

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

hammering was needed, and could keep fighting" it out along a certain line,
no matter how often he was apparently baffled. Other leaders adapted
themselves to circumstances : Grant conquered circumstances. It required
something more than skill or strategy to defeat so great a general as Lee
and his splendid fighting array. It needed skill plus tenacity; and that, as
I told you, won the day. He just stuck to it, and ended the rebellion."

"That makes me think of something by James Russell Lowell about
Grant that our history teacher had us learn for Grant's birthday," Christine
remarked. "Shall I say it, Uncle Tom?"

" Certainly, my dear," he replied. " I shall be as delighted to hear it as
I am to know that clue honor is paid in our schools to the birthdays of the
heroes of the nation. What were Lowell's lines ? "

" It was from one of his last, unfinished poems, our teacher said," Chris-
tine explained, "and it went something like this:

' He came, grim, silent, saw, and did the deed

That was to do ; in his master grip
Our sword flashed joy ; no skill of words could breed

Such sure conviction as those close-clamped lips ;
He slew our dragon, nor, so seemed it, knew

He had done more than any simplest man might do.' "

" That was Grant," said Uncle Tom. "Modest and unassuming, simple
and silent, he recognized the duty that was laid upon him, and did it."

" I guess there were no fuss and
feathers about him," said Jack.

" Not a bit," returned his uncle.
" Sagacious, resolute, energetic,
aggressive, audacious, courageous,
indomitable, indifferent to danger

or fatigue, relentless in battle,
magnanimous in victory - - these
were the attributes that brought
Grant to success and made his
name famous."

THE TEMPORARY TOMB OF GENERAL GRANT. " He OUght to have abig Statue,"

Riverside Park, New York. sa j J R O g erj emphatically.

" Ought to have ! " cried Jack. " Why, what 's the matter with the one
in Riverside Park ? "

" \Vhat ! that little round box-cover?' said Roger. "That 's not a
statue."

BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI

i8 7

mm--! i >pmm

^JJJ^^jjSffia^.^JUAjLfi.a^.U .1,lf-..pMJU^

Sj iaiS^Eiii-^ ;iv;:;^sW:iB i^ai.}.^*

f, __=*_ * ^L- ___
L = J l =^ : ~ : f-^':: ::^^

' T5S3 RS s- : ' >l ' ~""~ *=? -

. _w - _$ - -JF

-ffck.- ---iv;^-- i V -

; ' ! - - |

THE PERMANENT TOMB OF GENERAL GRANT.
Riverside Park, New York.

"Oh, no; the new one alongside of it, I mean," said Jack. "Just wait
till that is finished. That '11 be big enough. Why, you can see it from
everywhere/'

" But that is his tomb, you know," said Bert. " That should be fine, of
course. What Roger meant is his statue. I don't think this one in St.
Louis is as fine as it should be."

" Wait until you see the one in Chicago," said Uncle Tom. " That, I think,
will satisfy even your over-enthusiastic demands. But, after all, boys and

1 88

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

girls, the best monument to General Grant will be in the hearts of the Amer-
ican people, for whom he fought and won. That \vill grow, as time goes on,
until it overtops even the tallest statue. But we should remember to-day
that right here in the Mississippi Valley is where the great general was
schooled in the experiences that worked finally for success. Here, near
the city, you have seen the Jefferson Barracks, where he was first stationed ;
not far from here is the Dent farm, at Whitehaven, where he won his wife ;
and, near it, the little farm where he built his log cabin, and tried farming
and real estate until forced to go at something else. Four hundred and fifty
miles up the river, at Galena, he was busy as a tanner's clerk when the
war broke out. In Springfield, where we go to-morrow, he reported for
service with a company of volunteers four days after the President's call for
troops ; and one hundred and twenty-five miles down the river, at Cairo,
he first assumed a separate command. From that as a starting-point, he
fought on until, as Lincoln said, he made the Father of Waters flow 'un-
vexed to the sea.' So, you see, the name of Grant is associated with
many points in this region, and here, therefore, it has been highly proper
to study him."

"And yet you called him a New Yorker," persisted Jack.

" Simply because there he lived after fame and greatness had made him

PRESENT ASPECT OF PITTSBURG LANDING, OR SHILOH, IN TENNESSEE.
Here Grant first won fame. On the hill to the right is seen the flag-staff of the National Cemetery.

GENERAL GRANT WRITING HIS MEMOIRS AT MOUNT McGREGOR.

190

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

America's foremost living man," said Uncle Tom, " and because, especially,
it was in New York that he waged the longest, the fiercest, the most dra-
matic fight of his whole life."

" A battle in New York! Why, where was that?" exclaimed Marian,
overhauling her historical knowledge to locate such a famous fight.

" In that plain vine-covered, brown -stone house which I showed you at
Number 3 East Sixty-sixth street," her uncle returned. "There Ulysses S.

Grant fought the battle against dis-
aster, disgrace, and death - - and won
it. In all history," added Uncle Tom,
gravely, "there has been no more
pathetic, no more dramatic, no more
heroic spectacle."

"Tell us about it, Uncle Tom," said
Christine.

" He had reached the pinnacle of
fame in his native land," Uncle Tom
declared. "He had led its armies to
victory; he had been hailed conqueror
and deliverer; he had stood at the
head of the republic as President ; he
had traveled in foreign lands and been
welcomed by kings and princes and
people as the greatest of American
soldiers. Honored by his country-
men, respected by the world, there
was but one other thing he desired -
to leave his children a heritage equal
to his fame. For their sake he went into business. The old story of his
youth was repeated failure. But it was failure through the rascality of a
man who traded upon the name, the honor, and the reputation of the great
general who trusted him ; and when the crash came, the name, the honor,
the reputation of the great general, were trailed in the dust.

"He was stripped oi everything. He was almost penniless. Defeat
seemed destruction. But even as in war, his darkest moment was but the
entrance to action. He set to work to retrieve himself, to save his credit
and his name. He became the annalist of the events that had made him
great. He determined to tell the story of his campaigns, and his success is
scarcely exceeded in the history of literature.

" But almost before pen touched paper a fell disease struck him down. He

GENERAL GRANT'S NEW YORK HOME.
No. 3 East Sixty-sixth street.

BESIDE THE MISSISSIPPI 19!

was threatened with a speedy and painful death. Then his wonderful will
came into play : he would not surrender ; he would fight disease and death
until he had finished the work he had set himself to do. Stubbornly, tena-
ciously, he clung to his purpose. At times he seemed close to defeat, but,
rallying, he fell to the work again. When we were in New York I showed
you the Sixty-sixth street house where that fearful fight was fought. The
battle shifted to a mountain-top near Saratoga. There, on Mount McGregor,
he rallied, there he sank, there again he held death at bay, until at last he
conquered. The memoirs were completed; the task he had set for himself
was done. Then he laid down his pen the pen that, indeed, had been
mightier than the sword ; he said, ' I am ready,' and died a greater hero
than ever he had been in war, a nobler figure than when in the presence of
kings, or as the head of his own republic."

" ' Victor for us and spotless of all blame,

Doer of hopeless tasks which praters shirk

One of those still, plain men that do the world's rough work,' "

said Christine, returning to Lowell's ode once more, while even the boys
were silent. The story of that victory of the vanquished stilled even their
exultant enthusiasm in the nation's peerless soldier mighty even in death.

A JAPANESE PICTURE OF GENERAL GRANT'S RECEPTION IN JAPAN.

CHAPTER XII

AT LINCOLN'S HOME.

The Mississippi Valley Pioneers of France /;/ Lincoln s Land The
Simplicity of it All The American A " Rebel's" Tribute.

LL aboard ! " once again. Then, along the bluffs of the Mis-
sissippi, they rode five-and-twenty miles to terraced Alton
and its white-paved hill-slope, where, across the river, the
turbid Missouri, rolling down from its source in the Rockies,
nearly three thousand miles away, joins its flood to the
tideless Mississippi, bound for the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, twelve
hundred miles to the south.

That is what Uncle Tom told them as, at Edwardsville, five miles below
Alton, they first saw the Missouri. It seemed to link them more closely to
the great Northwest and the last of the borderers. The young travelers, in-
deed, were quite bewildered by the joint statistics of the Mississippi and
Missouri flung at them by Uncle Tom.

He told them that the Missouri was really the main stream ; that the
length of the great river from its source in the Rocky Mountains to its many-
mouthed delta was thirty-nine hundred miles ; that it represented, with its
tributary rivers, more than fifteen thousand miles of navigable water ; and
that it drained a territory larger than central Europe. He told them what
an important part the mighty river and its feeders had played in the early
history of the land, and how, for over a hundred and twenty years, France
had held the whole great basin in fee from that far-off day when, down the
very stretch of water on which they were now looking, the brave Chevalier
de la Salle, with his Indians and Frenchmen, came paddling into the
Mississippi from the tributary Illinois, and, first of white men, traced the
course of the mighty river from Alton to the gulf, and gave to France,
as Parkman says, " a region watered by a thousand rivers and ranged
by a thousand warlike tribes."

193

194

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" And we bought the whole outfit for fifteen millions," said Jack. " Three
cheers for Thomas Jefferson ! What is it worth now. Uncle Tom?"

" Give it up, Jack- -billions," returned Uncle Tom, falling back upon the

LIFE-MASK OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

convenient basis of vague and glittering generalities. " But I can tell you,
young people, the story of this Mississippi watershed, from La Salle's day
to our own winning of the West, is mightily interesting. Missionaries,
voyageurs, courier clu bois, pioneers, trappers, traders, Indian-fighters,
France's bluecoats, England's redcoats, the stars and stripes, the stars and
bars, liberty, union, progress all these flash out on history's screen, an
American vitascope full of life and color and dramatic action. Oh, no ; we
don't monopolize all the romance of history in the valley of the Hudson, or
round about Plymouth Rock. Why, right here in this hilly town of Alton,
Lovejoy died for fighting slavery; and here, years after, Abraham Lincoln
gave it the first fail in its mighty wrestle for existence.''

AT LINCOLN S HOME

195

"And Lincoln was a champion wrestler, was n't he?" said Jack.

"Just as Washington was," said Roger. "But what was the 'first
fall ' ? "

"Why, here in Alton," Uncle Tom explained. " Lincoln made one of his
great speeches in the famous Lincoln -Douglas debates. Those speeches
made Lincoln famous ; they made him President ; they were the first steps
in his progress to martyrdom and immortality."

" Are we coming into the Lincoln region now ? " queried Marian.

" Yes," Uncle Tom replied; "from here on stretches the country through
which he traveled again and again as country lawyer and growing states-
man ; here his tall form, his sinewy frame, his odd voice, his countless
stories, his stirring words, all became familiar, and from here sprang the
many true stories and the thousand legends which even now surround his
life and make one agree with Emerson's statement that if Lincoln had lived
at a time when printing was unknown he would in a few years, by his prov-
erbs and fables, have become mythological, like /Esop or Pilpay, or one of
the Seven Wise Masters, the story-tellers of antiquity."

LOVEJOY'S PRINTING OFFICE, ALTON, ILLINOIS.
Near which Lincoln made one of his great speeches.

"Then here is just the place to tell us his story, Uncle Tom," said
Christine. " What was it ? "

" 'The short and simple annals of the poor,' ' answered Uncle Tom.

"Why, that 's from Gray's 'Elegy,' 1 ' Christine said.

"Yes; that poem was one of Lincoln's favorites," Uncle Tom replied;
" and when asked for the story of his life he replied with that line from Gray.

196 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

It fits, certainly. His was a story that for years was preparing to be told;
for the real story of Abraham Lincoln is crowded into less than seven brief

but busy years of effort, action, and achievement."

" Is n't that so with the lives of most public men ? " inquired Bert.

" Your own recent researches should be the best answer to that, Bert,"
Uncle Tom replied. " Look at the famous men with whom you have be-
come acquainted. Nearly every one of them had a record of eminence be-
fore fame was reached the two Adamses, Jefferson, Hamilton, Webster,
Franklin, Clay, Calhoun. But Lincoln, up to the time of his Presidency,
never held but one civil office, unless we count his term as a representative
in Congress a civil office. It scarcely seems that. The one distinctively
civil office he did hold was village postmaster, a position so insignificant
that he was said actually to carry around his post-office in his hat. All his
life seemed a preparation by hard and bitter experiences for the hardest and
bitterest of all- -the Presidency of the United States."

" But he did get ahead," persisted Bert.

"So modestly, or at least so silently," replied Uncle Tom, " that when
he was nominated for President men had to ask ' Who 's Lincoln ? ' Up to
that day he was practically ' unknown, unhonored, and unsung.'

At this, three, at least, of Uncle Tom's auditors sprang at him with a
shout, and Bert cried gleefully :

"Aha, Uncle Tom! Got you there, have n't we? 'Unwept,' not
'unknown.' Is n't that so, boys and girls? We did n't study our Walter
Scott for nothing. See canto six, ' Lay of the Last Minstrel,' don't you
know ? Give it to him, Jack."

Whereupon Jack, nothing loath, gave voice to the whole quotation:

" Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself has said,

This is my own, my native land !
\Yhose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,

From wandering on a foreign strand !
If such there breathe, go, mark him well ;
For him no minstrel raptures swell ;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish could claim ;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung."

LINCOLN AND HIS SON "TAD."

Lincoln said of this picture : " Please explain to folks that Tad and I are looking at a photograph album. They might think
we were reading a book. We were n't ; and I don't like giving out false impressions."

13*

198

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

"There, sir; 'unwept,' not 'unknown,' you see," said Marian.

" Rio-ht you are!" cried Uncle Tom, in lau<r.hing acknowledgment.

O J * ' * *

"I '11 have to be careful when I drop into quotation before the school-boy
or <rirl of this advanced acre; and I 'm o;lad to acknowledge it, too, and

o o o o

cry for quarter."

And quarter at once was granted with the hug and caress that sweeten
criticism.

"But, somehow," said Christine, musingly, "that extract from Scott
does n't seem to fit Lincoln's case does it, now? He did n't go away and
come home and make fun of his native land; and he certainly did n't go
down ' unwept, unhonored, and unsung.' Seems to me that one verse from
his favorite Gray's ' Elegy ' fits him better :

' Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,

And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'"

'V-' -ff

' >r '/ >

" Well, that certainly does seem more ap-
plicable to his case during nearly fitty years of
life," Uncle Tom replied.

" But that does n't fit, either," declared Bert.
" Better give up poetical parallels. Lincoln did n't
'blush unseen' or 'waste his sweetness,' did he?"
Not much," said Jack. " He was very much
in evidence at just the right time."

And yet," said Uncle Tom, " we can even
connect that fervid extract from Scott with the
President. For that 'Breathes there

a man ' was the text for Edward Everett

THE INAUGURATION OF LINCOLN.
From a sketch by Theodore R. Davis, made at the time.

AT LINCOLN S HOME

199

"HE WAS AS PLEASANT AND PATIENT WITH BOYS AS WITH SENATORS

AND SECRETARIES.' 1

Male's matchless story of ' The Man Without a Country, 1 which you all know
and love ; and that story was written to stimulate patriotism at the time
when Abraham Lincoln was calling for volunteers to defend and preserve
the Union in the dark days of the war."

" Oh, yes ; don't you remember how splendidly Dr. Hale worked that
'Breathes there a man' into the story?" said Marian. "I declare, I

2OC

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

cry every time I come to that part where poor Nolan tried to read the
poem."

"And so you can connect that poem with Lincoln after all, Uncle Tom,"
said Roger. " I never saw such a man. \Ve can't down you, can we?"

" I 'm in Lincoln's country, you see, Roger," said Uncle Tom, with a
laugh, "and nothing could ever clown him. So it must be in the air, eh?"

'' Go on with the 'short and simple annals of the poor,' Uncle Tom," said
Bert, reverting, as usual, to the main topic.

" Well," began his uncle, "you saw, back in Kentucky, the little stream
on the banks of which Abraham Lincoln was born on the i 2th of February,
1809. It is near to what is now the village of Hodgensville ; but there was
no village thereabouts when Lincoln was a boy. Indeed, I doubt if we have
seen, in all our travels,
ranch, hut, or cabin hum-
bler or meaner than the
miserable little hovel in
which was born the great-
est President of these
United States. It would
be hard for me to tell you

the real facts. You would
think I was overstraining
the case just for effect.

^^i: :

,. H ^m. .-

VIEW OF THOMAS LINCOLN'S FARM, WHERE
PRESIDENT LINCOLN WAS BORN.

Farm now occupied by Mrs. Richard Creal. The house stood back of

the group of trees near the right center of picture; a rock spring is

at the end of the path under the group of trees in left center.

But this you can believe Abraham Lincoln's
story was poor enough at the start ; but, for

AT LINCOLN S HOME

2OI

that reason, his rise was all the more wonderful. For, as in fairy-tale or
wonder-story, the prince or hero was all the more notable because of the
difficulties he overcame or the tasks he accomplished, so with our great
American. The fact that
he faced and conquered
obstacles that have dis-
couraged millions of less

determined men, ob-
stacles of birth, upbring-
ing", surroundings, educa-

o 7 o ]

tion, and circumstance,

makes him all the more

our hero, all the more a

character to be admired,

honored, wondered at, re-
vered. Boys and girls,"

continued Uncle Tom,

solemnly, " I stand be-
fore his story in simple

amazement, marveling at

the ways of Providence,

that, in his case, so set at naught man's most mathematical statement that

1 out of nothing, nothing can come.'

" "Ex nitiilo niJiil fit' ' murmured classical Bert.

" Is n't this one of the cases in which you can say that the exception

proves the rule ? " inquired Roger.

" Perhaps so," Uncle Tom replied, "and yet it is even more one of the

cases that show ho\v wonderfully and how
wisely is plotted out the making of a mighty
man. See how carefully Lincoln was whittled
out to fit the place he was sent to fill. He
began life away down a ' poor white ' on a
scrubby hillside farm. His father was shift-
less ; his mother was overworked ; he him-
self was a forlorn and ragged little son of the
soil. He had uphill work to learn his letters
and get an education; but he got one. He
never w r ent to school more than a year in all

the days of his life put together ; but he never stopped studying. Strong,

sinewy, good-natured, obliging; with a will of his own, but always con-

GLOBE TAVERN, SPRINGFIELD.
Where Lincoln lived after his marriage.

HOUSE WHERE PRESIDENT
LINCOLN WAS BORN.

From a sketch from memory, in possession of
R. T. Durrett, Esq.

2O2

THK CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

SENATOR STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.
Lincoln's chief political rival before the war, and stanch supporter afterward.

siderate of others ; a peacemaker, although, as you know, a champion
wrestler ; a favorite through all this backwoods region, and as honest as
the day is long, Abraham Lincoln served his hard apprenticeship to experi-
ence, and came out tried and true. He was chore-boy, hired man, flat-
boatman, rail-splitter, clerk, storekeeper, soldier, inventor, surveyor, post-
master, representative in Congress, lawyer, politician, President going on
two steps and slipping back one, until well up the slope where Fame stood
waiting at the top."

"A politician, Uncle Tom? Why not a statesman ?" queried Bert.

"Why not, Bert?" was Uncle Tom's reply. "Now, what is a states-
man ? "

"Oh," said the boy, "a 'way-tip politician, I guess."

"That 's about it," laughed Uncle Tom. "A man must be a politician
in the best sense of that much-abused word before he can become a states-
man. And Lincoln was the true politician. Established as a practising
lawyer in Springfield, whither we are now bound, he found appreciation,
success, popularity. Traveling all over this part of Illinois, ' riding the cir-
cuit/ as it was called, from court-house to court-house, he became known in

AT LINCOLN S HOME

twenty counties, and gradually made for himself a reputation as a trustworthy
counselor, an honest adviser, and a capable lawyer. Law is the stepping-
stone to politics, and an honest lawyer will be an honest politician. Lincoln
began to speak in public, and to interest himself in local, State, and national
questions. He had served a silent term in Congress in Daniel Webster's
clay ; he had heard John Ouincy Adams's earnest appeals ; he had imbibed
Henry Clay's principles; and he had developed a hatred for slavery which,
while not that of the fanatic, the one-idea man, or even of the advanced
reformer, was that of the conservative and the patriot."

" And yet he was the man who put an end to slavery," said Roger.

" Because, after all, it is the conservative and the patriot who act," Uncle
Tom replied. "There is need for the reformer, need even for the fanatic.
Before Abraham Lincoln came John Brown, you know. But the man of
balance, of moderation, of caution, is the man who finally brings about the
needed result. And, even here, I am scarcely able properly to place Abra-
ham Lincoln for you, even as his story seems slight, when we look at the hero
himself. In his case the subject dwarfs
the narrative, and greatness like his is
far beyond qualifications."

The visit to Springfield was thor-
oughly enjoyable. From the moment
that they drew near to the city out of
its adjoining farms and prairies, and saw
above the trees the great dome of the
new Capitol, the ardor of investigation
seized them. Had
not Uncle Tom
curbed their energy
and held their ardor
in check, they would
have sallied out to
" do the town " at
once.

But Uncle Tom
was a careful guar-
dian. He insisted
on the girls remain-
ing quietly at the
hotel, although he

,, , , ,. THE PRESIDENT AT THE FRONT DURING WAR-DAYS

allowed mem a walk RECONNOITERING THE ENEMY.

2O4

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

into the Capitol grounds and through the corridors of the great cross-shaped
building, where they freely criticized the poorly-executed historical paintings,
and halted with inquiry before the fine statue in the grounds.
" Menard," they read. " \Yho was Menard, Uncle Tom ? "

" Oh, one of the old explorers," Uncle Tom replied, off-hand, but in so
" unexplanatory " a tone, as Marian expressed it, that she charged him with
not really knowing himself, and he confessed he was a bit misty, but prom -
ised to look it up for her.

The boys, meantime, had procured bicycles and whirled away on a tour
of investigation up and down the broad and shaded streets of what is es-
teemed "the best paved city in the State of Illinois." It is proof of their

S^SS=3j&r-^*'*-' . ~=~*? n ?*3-^-r-S- :f \S /

THE HOUSE IN SPRINGFIELD IN WHICH LINCOLN LIVED WHEN HE WAS

ELECTED PRESIDENT.

loyalty to Uncle Tom and the girls, however, that they confined themselves
to streets and parks, and refrained from any " Lincoln hunt," as Jack said.
Next morning, however, they began in earnest and saw all there was to
see in Lincoln's pleasant home-town. Here was the site of the old Globe
Tavern, where the young lawyer took his bride and began his married life

AT LINCOLN'S HOME 205

at the extravagant price of "four dollars a week for board and lodging."
Here, the site of the law offices where he first " hung out his shingle," and
especially the very building in which were passed his most successful days
as a lawyer the old office of " Herndon and Lincoln." The Lincoln office
they found to be a dentist's " studio," and Jack declared it was like pulling
teeth to get any trustworthy information about Lincoln thereabouts, al-
though he was partly compensated by an introduction to a man who used to
play "hand-ball" with Lincoln in front of that identical office.

They visited the old State- House, now the County Court- House, set in
the center of a public square. It was built the very year that Lincoln moved
to Springfield, and in it he served as a legislator, and made his mark in the
world as a public character and a leader of men.

At last they stood before the home of Lincoln.

Jack was inclined to resent its simplicity, and Roger declared that he
knew " lots of folks " in the villages about Boston who had better and bigger
houses than this.

" Of course you do," said Uncle Tom. " There are plenty of people in
the villages about Boston who are better off than Lincoln ever thought of
being. This simple two-story frame house is typical of the man. There is
nothing about it uncommon, pretentious, or imposing. It is just a plain
house of one of the people. But it was Lincoln's home. That is sufficient.
Not Nero's golden house or any home of royalty in old or later days stands
higher in the world's esteem. And yet, plain though this house is, it is, as
you know, a vast step beyond the great President's early home."

A small girl, not over well informed concerning Lincoln matters, showed
them through the house, which is now the property of the State of Illinois.
The collection of Lincoln relics was neither extensive nor important, and Uncle
Tom informed them that the few belonoqncrs o f the house and other relics

5 O

of the great man were now widely scattered. There had been a struggle
for possession, he said, and, as a result, some were in this Lincoln home-
stead, some in the memorial chamber in the Lincoln tomb, some in Chicago,
and some in Washington. " One would imagine," said Uncle Tom, " that so
modest a collection of relics could all be housed together, but in the strife
for ownership they have gone to half a dozen custodians."

"Somehow," said Christine, "it makes me think of that in the Bible
it is n't wrong that it should, is it, Uncle Tom? 'They parted my raiment
among them, and for my vesture, they did cast lots ! '

And Uncle Tom said, quietly, "That is not the only instance, my dear,
in which we may find a parallel between the Bible story and that of Lincoln."

They rode a mile or so beyond the city to beautiful Oak Ridge Ceme-

2O6

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

concerning

THE PROSCENIUM BOX
At Ford's Theater, where Lincoln was assassinated,

trry, where, just within the entrance, rises
the monument to Lincoln above the ped-
estal which is his tomb.

" Ouincy granite ! ' said Uncle Tom, as
they approached the pile of gray and bronze.
"It takes us back to that plain little farm-
house, at the foot of Penn's Hill, does n't
it- -the home of the 'old man eloquent' of
Lincoln's congressional days the man who
Abraham Lincoln his clear course
emancipation - - John Ouincy
Adams."

Fronting them was the open doorway to
the memorial chamber, full of Lincoln relics.
But Uncle Tom passed this by and led the
way to the rear, where, through a grated
iron door, they saw before them the tomb of
Lincoln.

The marble sarcophagus that stood over

April i 4 , i86 5 . the grave bore within the circle of a carven

wreath the single word, " Lincoln " ; above the wreath was the sentence so
characteristic of the man: "With malice toward none, with charity for
all '' ; across the top of the sarcophagus was laid the stars and stripes.

The children were silent a moment.
The place, the associations, the man, alike
held them speechless. Then Jack said :
" ' Now he belongs to the ages ! ' Was
n't that what Stanton said as Lincoln
died, Uncle Tom? You told me once."
" Yes, that was it, Jack, and the great
war secretary spoke truly," Uncle Tom
replied. " I think of that as I stand here ;
and I think, too, of a noble poem by a
Southerner and an ex-rebel soldier,
Maurice Thompson :

' Years pass away, but freedom does not pass ;
Thrones crumble, but man's birthright crum-
bles not ;

And, like the wind across the prairie grass TRE MONUMENT AT SPRIN GFIELD.

A whole world's aspirations fan this spot After a photograph teken by ; . A . w . Pittman for ; . c . Power

AT LINCOLN S HOME

20/

With ceaseless pantings after liberty,

One breath of which would make even Russia

fair
And blow sweet summer through the exile's cave,

And set the exile free ;
For which I pray, here, in the open air
Of Freedom's morningtide, by Lincoln's grave.' '

"And he was a rebel soldier! ' ex-
claimed Ro^er. "You would n't think

so from that, would you ?"

" Many things happen differently
from \vhat one would think, Roger,"
Uncle Tom replied. " The man w<ho
lies within this crypt was the best
friend the South ever had, and the
time will surely come when her people
will build statues to honor him with an
even deeper reverence than they give
to the heroes and leaders of that ' Lost
Cause ' which they can never forget,
but for which now they w^oulcl not wish
success. No man loved the Southern
people more than Abraham Lincoln. He loved all alike, because they were
Americans. As Mr. Thompson, from whose poem I just quoted, says :

' He was the North, the South, the East, the West,

The thrall, the master, all of us in one.
There was no section that he held the best ;
His love shone on impartial as the sun.'

No nobler American, no nobler man ever lived, boys and girls, than he be-
fore whose honored grave \ve stand Abraham Lincoln, the American."

Still sobered, and silent, they turned at last from the crypt and spent a
brief season in the memorial chamber, where they seemed especially impressed
by the fitting arrangement of three commemorative busts Lincoln be-

J O O

tween two other great and historic martyrs, Coligny and William the Silent.

Then they rode back to town ; they visited once more the plain, homely
brown house that had been the home of Lincoln, and, soon after, left for
Chicago deeply impressed by all that they had seen, but especially with the
simplicity of everything, so in accordance with all they knew or had heard
of the great emancipator.

On the journey to Chicago Uncle Tom gave them just a little talk on

LINCOLN'S BOOKCASE.

From the Keyes Lincoln Memorial Collection, Chicago.

2O8 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

the famous man now in their thoughts, and sought properly to point out to
them his place in history.

" Before all else," he said, "Abraham Lincoln was a man ot the people.
By that I don't mean that he was uncultured or uncouth. Lincoln was
always a gentleman in the best sense of the word, and no man had a finer
native dignity. He never lowered himself. He was at once the peer of the
greatest, the equal of the poorest. He understood the people better than
any other man that was ever sent to lead them. Let me give you a bit from
Maurice Thompson once more. I consider his poem a remarkable one,
and true, to the heart of it :

' Annealed in white-hot fire he bore the test

Of every strain temptation could invent ;
Hard points of slander shivered on his breast,

Fell at his feet, and envy's blades were bent
In his bare hand and lightly cast aside;

He would not wear a shield ; no selfish aim
Guided one thought of all those trying hours,

No breath of pride,
No pompous striving for the pose of fame

Weakened one stroke of all his nobler powers.' '

"Why, it 's like a photograph," said Christine. "Thank you so much
lor telling us ot that poem, Uncle Tom. I mean to read it all when I get
home."

" Do so, all of you ; it will surprise and inspire you," said Uncle Tom.
" Lincoln had a remarkable face," he continued. " How many of you can
recall it now as you remember the picture?"

" I can see just how it looks," Marian declared, shutting her eyes to
help her memory.

" I think you can, "said Uncle Tom. " Lincoln, it is asserted, is the only
President with an absolutely impressive likeness."

. "What's the matter with Washington, Uncle Tom?" asked Jack, still
with closed eyes. " I can see his face too."

"I don't vouch for that statement; I only repeat it," said Uncle Tom.
" But Washington's portraits are as varied in looks as in quantity. Lincoln
never varies. When once his picture has been studied the general expression
is never forgotten. Just as marked in mind as in feature was this won-
derful man. Absolutely without vices or eccentricities, he had strongly-
marked characteristics. Tender-hearted but inflexible when occasion re-
quired ; sunny-tempered, but tinged with melancholy ; simple in speech and
life, but capable of eloquence and of stirring words that will live forever;

AT LINCOLN S HOME

2O9

A COUNCIL OF WAR IN THE CABIN OF LINCOLN'S .SPECIAL STEAMBOAT.

and above all else logical, which all orators are not, you know ; brave,
broad-minded, just and true, his humanity embraced all men, his faith in
the people he knew so well never faltered; his homely phrases have grown
into maxims, his loving words into a benediction. There never was, in any
age of the world, a leader more directly selected by Providence to guide
the destinies of his people and be the savior of the republic. Born in the
lowest ranks of life, he rose to the highest leadership. Upon his life,
through four years of terrible war, hung the destinies of a nation and the
redemption of a race. Study his story closely, boys and girls. It grows
greater with each re-telling ; for, as time goes on, Abraham Lincoln will rise
above his fellows as unquestionably the greatest, noblest man of this won-
derful nineteenth century, now almost ended."

" Why not the greatest of any century, Uncle Tom ? " said Bert. " Can
you match him in any ? "

2IO

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" I told you once before, Bert," Uncle Tom replied, "that greatness like
Lincoln's is beyond comparison or qualification. I make no comparisons
now. I give you instead, as the end of my little talk, Lowell's splendid
tribute to the great President. You see, when I get to talking of Abraham
Lincoln I distrust myself; for words are weak and he alone is strong."

And, with a final bit of quotation
from the " Commemoration Ode,"
Uncle Tom brought his remarks to
a close :

" I praise him not ; it were too late ;
And some innative weakness there must be
In him who condescends to victory
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait,
Safe in himself as in a fate.

"So, always firmly, he;
He knew to bide his time,
And can his fame abide,
Still patient in his simple faith sublime,

Till the wise years decide.
Great captains with their drums and guns
Disturb our judgment for the hour,

But at last silence comes ;
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower.
Our children shall behold his fame,

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American."

ONE OF THE LAST LINCOLN PORTRAITS.

From a photograph taken March 6, 1865.

FACSIMILE OF LOWELL'S LINES.

CHAPTER XIII
BY THE POTOMAC

In the Big City of the West Across Ohio In the Land of Romance - The
Great White Dome At Mount Vcrnon The Greatest of Men.

HEY had a fine time in Chicago. Every one does when one
has friends there ; and every one of course has friends in the
big, open-handed, open-hearted city.

They walked and rode and " hiked " over a sufficient por-
tion of its one hundred and eighty square miles of area ; they
shot up to the roofs of its "sky-scrapers"; they tunneled far beneath its
dividing river ; they strolled along its lake front ; they shopped in its great
stores; they spent many pleasant hours " a-wheel," and decided that, with
its four thousand acres of park land and its hundred miles of boulevard,
Chicago was indeed a paradise for cyclers ; they marveled at its breadth,
its bigness, and its prosperity in fact, the only thing they clicl not wonder at
was the resident Chicagoans' "civic pride," which, Roger declared, was as big
as its boundaries, and he did n't know that he blamed them for their enthusiasm.
They visited its few historic points, noted its memorial buildings, monu-
ments, and tablets. Christine, standing before the building that marks the
spot on DeKoven street where, so Jack told her, Mrs. O'Leary's historic
cow kicked over the equally historic lamp, and laid a city in ashes, dropped,
as was her wont, into an appropriate poem, and gave them portions of Whit-
tier's beautiful "Chicago." You know that poem, of course. It begins:

" Men said at vespers, ' All is well ! '
In one wild night the city fell."

If you do not recall it, look it up at once, for it fitly marks the underlying
sympathy which, in times of disaster or of stress, makes all the world akin :

" A sudden impulse thrilled each wire
That signaled round that sea of fire ;
Swift words of cheer, warm heart-throbs came ;
In tears of pity died the flame !

212

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

THE GREAT FIRE AT CHICAGO, OCTOBER, 1871.

" From East, from West, from South, from North,
The messages of hope shot forth,
And, underneath the severing wave,
The world, full-handed, reached to save."

Christine's sympathetic voice gave especial beauty to the final verses, re-
cited upon the very spot where started the flame that unloosed the heart-
strings of half the world :

" Ah ! not in vain the flames that tossed
Above thy dreadful holocaust ;
The Christ again has preached through thee
The Gospel of humanity !

" Then lift once more thy towers on high,

And fret with spires the western sky,
To tell that God is yet with us,
And love is still miraculous ! "

"Well, she's lifted 'em, has n't she?" said Jack "towers and spires
and all. I guess it 's a good thing to have a fire once in a while, when

BY THE POTOMAC

213

there 's pluck and sand behind it, as there was here. I don't believe the
old Chicago would know the new Chicago ; do you, Uncle Tom ? '

" I imagine they would need to be presented to each other, just as much
as old Fort Dearborn and John Kinzie's log-house would need an introduc-
tion to Lincoln Park and the Auditorium."

At last the too brief visit was over ; grips and dressing-cases once more
were locked and strapped ; the good-bys were said, and, all aboard once
again, the tourists were speeding southeasterly across five States, en route
to Washington, the national capital.

All day the train rolled on across the wide-spreading fields of Indiana and
Ohio, while Uncle Tom, in the intervals of fun, chatter, and quiet, told them
the story of George Rogers Clark, the brave borderer, who had won Indiana
for the republic, and of the second Mayflower in which New England "pil-
grims " had sailed to the colonization of the Ohio wilderness.

That same Ohio country, he told them, was in Washington's mind when,
in the dark hours of the Revolution, in the shadow of possible defeat, he

VIEW ON STATE STREET, CHICAGO, LOOKING NORTHWARD, FROM MADISON STREET.

14*

214

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

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THE LAKE SHORE DRIVE, CHICAGO.

declared that the colonists would never give up, but if driven from the At-
lantic seaboard, "then," asserted the great commander, "we will retire to
the valley of the Ohio, and there we will be free."

Next morning they awoke in Maryland and the romance of history.
For miles the railroad cleft the lofty ridges, and, following the course of the
twisting Potomac, now beneath rocky heights, now along wooded slopes, and
always in sight of the flashing river, it bore them through a land as rich in
studies for stories as were ever the Scottish Highlands, only awaiting the
Walter Scott who will some clay give its stirring romance to the world.

Across the rushing river and through these broken hill-gaps, so Uncle
Tom told his young people, twice did the South invade the North ; here,
beside the Potomac, had young George Washington, as boy and man, passed
and repassed as surveyor, as explorer, as envoy, as colonial major and
colonel, the chief instrument of Dinwiddie in his strife with the French
along the Ohio, the only stay and safety of England in the tragedy forever
famous as Braddock's defeat. For, here at Cumberland, where they break-
fasted, Uncle Tom explained, were the headquarters of the invaders of the

BY THE POTOMAC

2I 5

.v"* - ?-.. : i ^-r ?-\

-,- x^fesv. ; i*jt'iU*

THE TRAGEDY OF BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT.

French possessions ; it was Washington's point of departure upon the peril-
ous trips in which he won alike confidence, experience, and fame.

Here, too, in this hill-country, just the place for foray, feud, or siege,
amid the straggling stone houses upon the heights and along the river-bank,
was played, in later years, said Uncle Tom, "the curtain-raiser that prefaced
the mighty strife of brother against brother, when John Brown and his men

2l6

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

stood at bay in the old engine-house here at Harper's Ferry as dramatic
a situation as one of Stevenson's hand-to-hand conflicts, in a country as
rugged as that stern old borderers' sense of duty."

It was all mightily interesting. As Uncle Tom told them the story of
Harper's Ferry, the young people looked with eager eyes upon the steep
and rocky heights, the winding, rushing river, the old houses on each bank,
and the monument that marks the spot where Brown of Ossawatomie and
his handful of followers faced death unflinchingly for principle a fool-
ish and harebrained band of fanatics, no doubt, but, as Bert assured them,
"his soul is marching on"; and Uncle Tom declared that "yonder gray-
stone monument beside the Potomac and the canopy-covered rock on the

beach at Plymouth are foster-broth-
ers each the beginning of a new
era in the history of America and
the world."

" And we Ve seen 'em both," said
Jack.

" Perish with him the folly that seeks through
evil good,"

said Christine, drawing upon her
favorite Whittier,

' : Long live the generous purpose unstained
with human blood ;

Not the raid of midnight- terror, but the
thought which underlies ;

Not the borderer's pride of daring, but the
Christian's sacrifice."

JOHN BROWN.

Christine was always, so Jack de-
clared, "rounding up with Whit-
tier," and Uncle Tom had to admit that Whittier was really the only poet
who had given immortality to this romantic region. So, when in the region
about Sharpsburg, he recalled the struggle at Antietam near by, and the
later turning-point of the Civil War at Gettysburg, Christine thought rather
of Barbara Frietchie and Stonewall Jackson, and knew that it was these
very hill-gaps that had made history and a noble poem as well,

" On that pleasant morn of the early fall.
When Lee marched over the mountain- wall
Over the mountains, winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.' 1

BY THE POTOMAC

South of Washington Junc-
tion, where the railroad
branches off to Frederick, Un-
cle Tom pointed out to them,
across the Virginia border, the
direction in which, so he said,
lay Leesburg, the nearest point
of departure for the home of a
famous American a states-
man and a President, a man
whose name is now al-
most a household word
James Monroe of

Virginia.

JOHN BROWN'S FORT, HARPER'S FERRY.
This building is now in Chicago. A granite monument marks its site at Harper's Ferry.

"What, the Monroe Doctrine man?" said Roger.

" Only Jefferson was the real Monroe Doctrine man, was n't he ? ' said
Jack.

" No ! is that so, Uncle Tom ? " was Bert's query.

" So recent students of American politics tell us," Uncle Tom replied.
"They assert that Jefferson undoubtedly inspired it, for Monroe was his
friend and follower. Indeed, Jefferson regarded Monroe so highly that he
said of him, ' his soul might be turned inside out without discovering a
blemish to the world.'

" Pretty good send-off for James, that, was n't it now ?" Jack observed.

" Monroe seems to have deserved it," said Uncle Tom. " He was
as brave as he was good. He fought under Washington at the battle of
Trenton, and was the last of the five ' Revolutionary' Presidents. As to the
< Monroe Doctrine,' however, we must give a certain amount of credit to our
old friend John Ouincy Adams. He had a liberal hand in suggesting, out-
lining, and preparing it. James Monroe lived off here a little ways, on his
fine old estate of Oak Hill, near Leesburg, and thirty-three miles from Wash-

2l8 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

ington city. Oak Hill is a great stock-farm and creamery now, and in good
condition, though out of the possession of the Monroe family. You remem-
ber we saw Monroe's tomb in Hollywood Cemetery, at Richmond."

"Oh, yes; that queer iron summer-house sort of affair," said Bert.

"Monroe died, however, in New York, in 1831," said Uncle Tom, "at
the house of his daughter, Mrs. Gouverneur. Her husband, by the way,
was a descendant of my old colonial hero Jacob Leisler, the people's gov-
ernor, who was martyred for independence in New York in the days ol
William and Mary, a forerunner both of the American Revolution and the
Monroe Doctrine, too."

" Uncle Tom," laughed Jack, "you are- -a corker! " Jack really could
n't find anything but his expressive slang to meet the case. " You just
make everything come your way."

" I don't, Jack. History does. Facts do," declared Uncle Tom. "Blood
does intermingle, you see, and the world is not so wide or so big alter all."

So, with talk and with story, the morning wore away, and they drew
near to Washington. And when, at last, the great \vhite dome and the
tapering shaft of the mighty monument burst upon their vie\v, they felt at
home aofain. For here thev were once more on familiar ground ; salt water,

o * o

they knew, was now not so far away, and their journey of exploration to the
South and West was over.

They renewed the old associations ; revisited the places that had the
strongest hold on their memory; honored Congress with a brief attendance

O J ' O

and a divided attention, and found a new interest in the capital and its
notable spots by connecting sites, houses, or places, statues or scenes, with
ihe famous Americans whose lives and homes had been their study as they
had wandered about the land.

They visited the Petersen house on Tenth street, in which Lincoln died
now a veritable museum of Lincoln relics and
reminders, and the property, as it should be, of the
government. They hunted up the spot in Statu-
ary Hall in the Capitol where John Quincy Adams
fell stricken with death oddly marked with con-
centric circles, as shown in the diagram on this page.

They tried to imagine his mother, Mrs. John
Adams, hanging out her " Monday wash " in the
now splendid East Room of the White House;
they conjured up Jackson, tracing out with his cane

the majestic proportions of the splendid Treasury Building; they hunted up
the sites of houses made famous by bein^r the houses in WashiVii>'ton ol

J O O

THE ST. MEMIN PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON.
From a. photograph in possession of Mr. Charles Henry Hart.

22O

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

the great men they had studied Webster and Clay and Madison and
Grant ; and marveled as once again they listened to the story of how the
new Washington had obliterated or swallowed up the old, and become a
noble and beautiful capital.

So, in time, they came to Mount Vernon, the Mecca of every Amer-
ican who has in his heart one atom of affection for his native land, and time
or money enough to visit the national capital, no more to be left out of
such a trip than Jerusalem out of Palestine, the Yosemite out of California,
or Stratford-on-Avon out of Engfland.

The place showed no perceptible change from their former visit, except
that the trolley-road was more pretentious and the trolley-trips more fre-
quent. Still as brightly, between its sloping banks, the broad Potomac

WASHINGTON'S SECRETARY AND BOOKCASE AT MOUNT VERNON.

slipped southward to the bay; still, through its gaps of green, as they came
sailing down the river, the famous old mansion stood just as invitingly on
its green and shaded knoll. Trees, garden, lawns, outbuildings, barricaded
rooms, relics, mementos, and reminders all were in as eood condition and as

full of interest as ever ; and, even as before, they found themselves awed into
silence before the sacred tomb, and thrilled into enthusiasm bv the throng

BY THE POTOMAC

221

AN OLD-TIME VIEW OF MOUNT VERNON.
Published in 1798, by I. Stockdale, Piccadilly.

of suggestions and memories that hang forever about the pillared portico
and cupola-crowned roof of that rambling old Virginia farm-house, renowned
through all the world as the home of Washington.

There happened to be but few visitors to Mount Vernon that morning.
Our tourists had the place virtually to themselves; so, seated comfortably
in chairs within the broad, high portico, they looked out upon the beautiful
river with which so many years of Washington's life were associated. They
"took in" the view that he so dearly loved, and talked upon the one theme
of which no American ever tires the life of Washington.

"Was there ever any other man in all the world so much thought of
really thought of as Washington?" Christine inquired.

" I doubt if there ever was, my dear," Uncle Tom replied. " Indeed, I
am sure there was not. Every nation has its great men has, indeed, its
greatest man ; and yet in every nation are varying opinions. Greece killed
Socrates, and now he is her greatest man ; but it was later ages and alien
people who so elevated him, even as they gave to Csesar, killed by his coun-
trymen, his proper place as the greatest Roman. England's greatest man
may have been Cromwell, or Shakspere, or Alfred ; opinions differ there
even as they differ in France and Germany, in Austria, Italy, or Spain.

222

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

The test of greatness is popular remembrance - - and I know of no char-
acter in history who holds this place so unquestionably as does George
Washington."

" ' First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen,' '
quoted Jack.

"More than Lincoln?" inquired Bert.

" Lincoln's fame has but just begun," Uncle Tom replied. " It is
American. The fame of Washington is world-wide. It has steadily grown
for over a hundred years. It shows no dimming of its glory, and he
who seeks to belittle it is like one who beats upon a great wall with
his puny fist to make no impression thereon and only to find himself ridicu-
lous. So we might add to Jack's quotation from Marshall's speech, first
in the hearts of his fellow-men. For, as you see, all the world honors
Washington. To no one man have all nations so paid the united homage
of esteem. Statesmen, historians, poets, politicians alike point to Wash-
ington as the supremely great,
even while some of them scoff at
republics and doubt the worth of
liberty and equality."

Whereupon Jack cried: "That's
just where Byron comes in.
Don't you know what he said
right on that point ? We had to
learn it last Washington's Birth-

day :

' Where may the wearied eye repose,

When gazing on the Great,
Where neither guilty glory glows

Nor despicable state ?
Yes, one the first, the last, the best

The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom envy dared not hate

Bequeath the name of Washington,
To make men blush there was but one ! ' "

CREAM-JUG, SALT-CELLAR, CANDLESTICK, AND
CADDY-SPOON USED AT MOUNT VERNON.

"And he was an Eno-lishman ! "

said Bert.
" Confederates boomino- Lincoln, Britishers hurrahing; for \Vashino;ton

o o o

-it is kind of odd, is n't it, though?" said Roger. " How do you account
for it, Uncle Tom ? "

BY THE POTOMAC

223

si%^,;

' ! L ~:-'-\ : ' '.'-''"'' ' ^J,V. S M^A,.. i^.r--, -A

UNDER THE ELM AT CAMBRIDGE.
General Washington taking command of the army.

" It is one of the proofs of great-
ness," Uncle Tom replied; ''when
foemen become admirers fame can
go no higher. The best thought
of the South now yields reverence

to Abraham Lincoln ; after a hundred years of scrutiny and criticism the
latest and broadest of English historians says of George Washington, ' No
nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life.' '

"Who was that, Uncle Tom? " asked Marian.

" Green," Uncle Tom replied ; " not the historian of England's kings and

224

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

wars, but of England's people -- among whom, indeed, by ancestry, Wash-
ington can claim a place."

" Is n't that so, Uncle Tom? " said Bert. "Was n't Washington nearer
an English gentleman than an American?"

o o

"'Don't get that folly in your head, my boy," Uncle Tom replied. " It is
a favorite error with certain American critics who would exalt Lincoln at the
expense of Washington. Such criticism is unnecessary. The two need not
be compared. They are types by themselves. Washington may not have
been a man of the people in the sense that Jackson was, or Lincoln, but he was
an American and of America. And yet he sprang from the soil as much as
they or any one else. Here in these Virginia valleys he grew to manhood a

country boy, a farmer's son as much as any tan-
ner's son or any ' mill-boy of the Slashes.' Fifty
miles below where we now sit, on the banks of
the broadening Potomac, he was born in 1/32,
in a low-roofed old farm-house that would seem
very plain and small to you to-day."

"Is it standing now?' asked Marian, who
always wished to locate any reference to place
or personality.

" Oh, no ; it was burned when Washington
was three years old," Uncle Tom replied. " But
the spot has been properly marked at last.
In Washington's clay the place was known as
Bridge's Creek. To-day it is called Wake-
field, and a year ago a modest but satisfactory
monument was placed upon the spot where once
stood the farm-house that was the birthplace of
Washington. As a boy, he lived in another
farm-house on the banks of the Rappahannock,
opposite the city of Fredericksburg, forty miles
to the south of us. In 1743 his brother Law-
rence built a house here on this estate, and
called it Mount Vernon, from the British ad-
miral under whom he had fought at Carthag-ena.

O O

When Lawrence died in 1752 George Wash-
By permission of John Crawford & Son, designers.

ington became owner of Mount Vernon, and
here was his home until his death."

"And is this the very house that his brother built? " asked Christine.
" Oh, no; the original house was scarcely one third the size," Uncle Tom

MONUMENT OX THE SITE OF

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S

BIRTHPLACE.

BY THE POTOMAC

225

THE RETREAT FROM LONG ISLAND.
A marvel of generalship. Washington directing the passage of the American army across the East River, at night.

replied. "The old house was rebuilt and enlarged after the Revolution, in
i 785, upon plans designed by Washington himself. As you see it to-day,
therefore, you see Washington's own work, alike as to house and grounds."

" He had to be away from here a great deal, did n't he ? " inquired Marian.

"Far more than he wished," Uncle Tom replied. "Washington dearly
loved his home and farm life at Mount Vernon. To him, his horses and
his dogs, his acres and his crops, were very important affairs. But he was
at home only twice during the Revolutionary War, and when he was Presi-
dent his most enjoyable moments were those passed as a sort of vacation
here at Mount Vernon."

" How many public offices did he hold in his life? " asked Bert.

226

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON ON THE WAY TO HIS INAUGURATION.

"Not so many in number soldier, congressman. President, that was
all ; but that service extended through nearly fifty years. Remember, he
began young. His schooling was slight, indeed. But the woods and the
fields were a greater school his university. He was a public surveyor of
land at sixteen, tramping with pole and chain over these very fields and
slopes on which we are now looking. At nineteen he was the governor's
adjutant, a major in the Virginia militia, and from that time he was before
the people, known and honored of men."

BY THE POTOMAC 22 /

" Regular genius, eh ? " said Jack.

"No, not a genius, Jack; a builder upon sure foundations, but building
slowly, solidly, safely. Washington was not born great. He grew into
greatness. Things had to be clone, and he did them. And as he did them
he gained patience, confidence, ability. See now how gradually he pro-
ceeded. From his nineteenth to his twenty-seventh year he was major and
colonel in the British colonial service, facing the French at Great Meadows
and Fort Necessity, and casting the only ray of glory that lighted up Brad-
dock's disastrous defeat."

"Which was a defeat because his advice was n't taken; is n't that so,
Uncle Tom ? " said Roo-er.

" Certainly," replied Uncle Tom ; "and men soon learned to know that,
and to appreciate the young colonel's ability. From his twenty-seventh to
his forty-third year he was farmer, member of the Virginia legislature (the
house of burgesses at Williamsburg, you know), and of the first and second
Continental Congress."

" I thought he was not in the Congress that signed the Declaration of
Independence," said Marian.

" He was a member when it met in May, 17/5, but the next month he
was elected commander-in-chief and resigned his seat," Uncle Tom explained.
"From his forty-third to his fifty-first year he was commander-in-chief of
the American forces, serving through the entire Revolutionary War without
pay ; from his fifty-first to his fifty-seventh year he was farmer, pioneer, del-
egate to the Continental Congress, and president of the convention that
framed the Constitution of the United States ; from his fifty-seventh to his
sixty-fifth year he was President of the United States ; in his sixty-sixth year
he was lieutenant-general of the armies of the United States, and in his sixtv-

o *-

seventh year he died above us here, in the little room that we have seen
to-day, and forever, sacred while this building stands, as the death-chamber
of Washington."

"Well, that 's checking off his life pretty well, Uncle Tom," said Bert.
" But tell me just what was it that made Washington great?"

Uncle Tom tried to put it into few words.

"Good judgment," he began, "and great good sense; wonderful talent
for organization and administration that is, thinking out things and putting
them through ; high moral character, manliness, courage, unselfishness, mod-
esty, a mighty will, perfect integrity, unfaltering loyalty, a clear conviction
of duty, sincerity, magnanimity, justice, truthfulness, nobility of soul. It was
the combination of all these qualities that made George Washington great.
c And no man to-day questions his greatness," Uncle Tom continued.

228

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

MINIATURE OF MARTHA WASHINGTON.
Painted in 1801, signed " R. F."

THE DE BREHAN MINIATURE OF

WASHINGTON.
Original in possession of Mrs. F. T. Moorhead.

"A farmer-boy, he became the noblest of rulers; in all the history of the
world no man has a loftier name ; no name was ever so dear to the thought-
ful among mankind ; no man ever had his name become so closely the syno-
nym for heroic virtue, or so unhesitatingly upon men's lips as the watchword
of liberty. In truthfulness, in integrity, in endurance, in wisdom, in justice,
in devotion to duty and loyalty to -purpose, he stands supreme, at once the
model for those in authority and an ideal and example for us all. His story
is a twice-told tale, and yet it is ever ne\v. It will never end while men and
women honor nobility of character, or boys and girls love to hear the story
of how the farmer-boy grew into the hero, the simple gentleman into the
world's greatest man. It will never end, for never will the world cease to
honor, reverence, and love the name of Washington."
Bert nodded emphatic approval.
" That 's so," he said ; '' great man, was n't he ! "
"Great," responded Roger, while Jack replied, "Immense."
"That 's just it," said Marian, as with thoughtful eyes she looked out
upon the Potomac. " He 's too great to think about the same as you do
about other people."

" He was very great and good, I know," said Christine ; "but I don't see
why we car't think of the nice, every-day things about him, and so get kind

o
c
z

B
C

Z
O

o
z

z
c

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO HAD RATHER LET WASHINGTON IN THAN OUT.

BY THE POTOMAC 231

of close up to him ; do you, Uncle Tom ? Here 's where he lived with his
wife Martha right here at Mount Vernon. Can't you see him riding and
walking around here, looking after things and having a good time ? That 's
a good deal easier than to think of him perched up on top of some high
monument."

"Well, I don't know," said Roger; ''that 's the way I always think of
him prancing along on horseback, like most of the statues we have seen.' 1

" Or else like the one in front of the Capitol at Washington," said Bert.

" W T hat, that third-base one, where he 's calling out 'Judgment'?"
queried Jack.

'' There ! just see, now," said Christine ; " see how quick you are to bring
him down from the pedestal and make a man of him, Jack, even in joke !
Don't you see what I mean. Uncle Tom ? '

"I think I do, my clear, and appreciate it," Uncle Tom replied. "The
tendency is to put Washington out of reach by reverence, to make a demi-
o-od of him as the old Greeks and Romans did of their leaders and rulers.

Christine wishes to give him the human heart. That 's right ; he had one,
I assure you. So, while I would elevate Washington where he could be
seen, and where he can stand as the ideal and pattern for all our boys and
girls, I still like to think of him and to have you think of him as a man
among men ; with faults and failings, just as all men have, but able so to
school himself that we forget his failings and remember only his virtues.
So, too, I like to think of him here, at Mount Vernon, where, as Christine
says, he ' lived with his wife Martha,' interested in the things about him,
showing sympathy and affection and tenderness and friendliness and hospi-
tality to all with whom he came in contact. I like to think of him here
as we can hunting the fox with young Jacky Custis, or 'getting off'
pretty Nellie Custis from her ' horrid ' music-lesson ; riding about the farm in
a broad-brimmed white hat and drab clothes, with his hickory stick and his
saddle-umbrella; listening to the fun of the negro story-tellers at the quar-
ters, and shaking all over at some good joke; taking a bowl of hot tea to the
bedside of a visitor who, he thought, had caught a cold ; protecting the
young son of Lafayette here at Mount Vernon when the boy's gallant father
was in danger in France ; walking up and clown this very portico, with
a toddling baby girl clinging to his great fingers ; romping with the little
daughters of his Secretary of State, or exchanging compliments and fun
with the nice little girl who, when she bade him good-by, said she had
rather let him in the door than let him out in fact, it must be confessed,
boys, that Washington had an especial preference in favor of the girls."
" And showed his sense," said Marian.

232

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

"Another sign of greatness," declared polite Roger, with a bow toward
the girls, which Jack at once imitated with superfluous extravagance.

"So you see, boys and girls," said Uncle Tom, "while our Washington
is high above us as the hero and the beacon, he may also be very near to us
as the man. A leader of men, he was also a lover of men, noble because he
was good, and great because he was noble ; ' the purest figure in history,' as
Mr. Gladstone declares ; ' the greatest man of our own or any age,' so
Lord Brougham, another famous Englishman, asserts ; ' the only one upon
whom the epithet "great," so thoughtlessly lavished by men, may be
justly bestowed.'

" Come ! it 's almost trolley-time. One more turn through the grounds,
one more w r alk through these glory-haunted rooms, and then : All aboard
for Washington and home."

MOUNT VERNON PLACE AND THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT, BALTIMORE.

CHAPTER XIV

TALKING IT OVER

Famous Americans in IVasJiington Homezuard Bound A "Quiz" lit
Fame-study Impressions Patriotism Memories Good- by.

NCLE TOM," said Marian, as they sat in a shady place
between the Capitol and the splendid new Congressional Li-
brary, which they had just been investigating, " were all these
men we have been hunting up ever here in Washington ? '

"What do you think about it, my dear?" said Uncle
Tom. " Run over your list and see how closely you can connect them with
this place."

Literal, as usual, Marian drew out her list of persons and places, and
proceeded to check off the names.

"Let's begin at the beginning," she said. "Franklin? No; Franklin
was n't here, of course."

"Of course he was n't," Jack decided. "Why don't you go back to
Noah while you are about it."

"Not so fast, not so fast, my young friends," said Uncle Tom. " Do
you remember that Franklin was postmaster-general of the colonies at the
time of Braddock's defeat ? "
"Well?" said Jack.

"Well," returned Uncle Tom, " Braddock held a conference of colonial
notabilities yonder in Alexandria. Franklin met both Braddock and Wash-

ington there, or in Frederick '

"What, where Barbara Frietchie lived?" asked Christine.

"Yes; and Franklin, you see, may have passed through this region,"
Uncle Tom asserted, "when he came this way to give good but unheeded
advice to Braddock."

" But there was nothing here then, was there ? " asked Bert.

233

234 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

" No," Uncle Tom replied; "nothing but a hill, a marsh, and a swamp.
Still it was the site of Washington. Go on, Marian ; who next?'

" Washington."

" \Yhy, he picked out the place himself," said Bert. " Of course he was
here in the early days of the republic."

" Of course," again decided Jack. "Go ahead, Marian."

"Hamilton? Now, he could n't have been here, could he?' Marian
declared. " He was killed by Burr before Washington was built."

"Oh, no, no, my dear," said Uncle Tom. "The government was estab-
lished here in Washington in 1800. Hamilton was not killed until 1804.
He had a hand in the selection of this site. Don't you remember that in
New York I told you how Hamilton and Jefferson walked for half an hour
in front of Washington's house on Broadway, deciding the location of the
national capital ? '

"Oh, yes; then I suppose, of course, he was here," said Marian, still
puzzling over her list. "And Patrick Henry he, too, I suppose. He was
a Virginian, and I suppose had to come this way when he went to Congress.
And all the rest of these" here she ran over her list hurriedly "they
were either Presidents or senators, so, of course, they were here the two
Adamses, Jefferson, Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Mad-
ison, Monroe, all ot them."

"Yes; they were all residents of Washington, some of them for many
years," Uncle Tom replied. " We have, you know, found either the house or
the spot where stood the house in which each one of them lived. As for
the Presidents, we know about them. Washington laid the corner-stone of
the Capitol and located the White House. John Adams was the first Presi-
dent to occupy it as a residence, and, as I have told you, his down-east wife
used the big, bare east room to dry her Monday's washing in. In that same
east room Jefferson served the sixteen-hunclred-pound cheese sent him by
the Massachusetts farmers, and the White House lights were always 'out' at
ten o'clock when ' Early to bed and early to rise' John Quincy Adams was
President. We saw the little room there, you remember, in which Jackson
used to smoke his corn-cob pipe, and in which he dashed it to the floor and
cried : ' By the Eternal ! I '11 fix 'em. Send for General Scott,' when the nulli-
fiers threatened to destroy the Union. Up and down the floor of the Presi-
dent's room in the White House went the ceaseless tramp-tramp of Lincoln
the night before the battle of Gettysburg, and in that same White House
Grant gave his daughter in marriage to an Englishman the first child of
a President married at the White House.

"So we could go on," continued Uncle Tom, "and link plenty of inter-

IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC.

236

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

esting things here in Washington with our different famous men. But we
have n't time. Our train starts in two hours, and we must be off. But it has
been a good idea to centralize all our characters here in the capital of the na-
tion to which they devoted so much of their lives, their thought, and their
labor, and which to-day gratefully remembers and honors them."

"THE GREAT WHITE DOME.

Two hours later, as their train crossed the eastern branch of the Potomac
bearing them toward home, the boys and girls craned their necks and strained
their eyes for a good-by glimpse of the tall white shaft and the great white
dome alike the landmarks and the glory of that splendid capital city of
the republic.

Then they turned their faces northward, and in due time were exchanging
greetings and caresses with the clear ones at home. Their journey was over.

But their retrospect, it would seem, had but just begun ; for when, next
day, they all gathered for a conference or, as Jack called it, an " experience
meeting ' in his father's comfortable library, the flow of tongues was so con-
stant and resistless that Mr. Dunlap declared it " Out-Babeled Babel," while
the " Oh, don't you remember," and the " Say, did you see/' and the " Uncle
Tom said " came so fast and vociferous that Uncle Tom at last was obliged
to constitute himself chairman of the meeting, rap it to order, and request
each lady and gentleman to speak to the question, one at a time, and not
to usurp the floor.

"We '11 have a quiz in fame-study," he declared, "and your father, Jack,
shall be the interlocutor. Come, try them," he said, turning to Mr. Dunlap.
"I 'd like to have you see if they Ve brought back anything worth the
bringing."

"Well, let 's see," said Mr. Dunlap; "you Ve studied twelve or fifteen
famous Americans on their native heaths. What do you think of their back-

TALKING IT OVER

237

WASHINGTON'S WRITING-TABLE.
Now in the Governor's room, City Hall, New York.

ground, as the story-writers would say ? Come, Roger, as the visiting
member, we '11 give you the preference. What impressed you most ? '

" Oh I don't know," began Roger slowly. " Statues, I guess. We 've
seen loads of them. But that one of Lincoln in Chicago - - St. Gaudens's

is best of all, I think. The
Washington monument in Rich-
mond crowds it pretty close, but

somehow there was a real
grandeur to the Lincoln, and yet
it was so perfectly simple and
natural. Seems ' to me all the
statues are too high up out
of reach. The Clay monument
at Lexington and the Douglas
at Chicago were away up in the
air, like a pin stuck in a pen-
holder. It gives you a stiff neck to look at them. Both the Lee at Rich-
mond and the Grant at St. Louis seemed out of reach, while the Grant at
Chicago very near the Lincoln in Lincoln Park, you know- -is a magnifi-
cent thing, but has so much granite about it all, and is so
high up, that it looks as if the General were just charging
across the Rocky Mountains. But St. Gaudens's Lincoln is
just the thing. There he stands right among the people
just like him, don't you know. Why, you feel like going right
up and shaking hands with him. He 's grand, but so natural.
And he 's right where you can get at him. So is the Far-
ragut in Madison Square and the Nathan Hale in City Hall
Park, in New York. I do like to get at people."

" Roger 's right," said Uncle Tom, nodding his approval.
"That St. Gaudens's Lincoln is indeed most impressive. The
great paved semicircle, with that heroic, natural figure
in the center, seemed to me strong in its magnificent
simplicity. The Grant statue near it is more im-
posing, but it is almost forbidding in its mas-
sive foundation. It is all castellated and for-
tress-like grim, as a relentless soldier, while
Lincoln stands there modest but mighty, a
friendly figure, one of the people amid the

THE FARRAGUT MONUMENT. P GO P le - A " d wHat * Mendid background

in Madison Square, New York. that great park and that ocean of a lake make

238 THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

for two such vast Americans ! Yes ; the study of statues is certainly inter-
esting. Roeer, you 're a bo\ r of discrimination.'

O O J J

" Well, Bert, let 's have your report," said Mr. Dunlap.

Bert declared himself as having been especially impressed with, as he
expressed it, " what folks don't know," particularly the lack of knowledge
concerning famous men in the very places where they were born and brought
up, or had made their homes later in life.

" A prophet is not without honor, you know, Bert, " said Mr. Dunlap,
" save in his own country and in his own house."

"That 's so. I 've often experienced that," said Jack, shaking his head.

"You, Jack Dunlap? \Yhy the house is just run for you," Marian
cried in the midst of the laugh that greeted Jack's modest announcement,
while Bert, sticking to the subject, said: "But it did n't seem to be that so
much. There 's honor enough for these great men in their homes, but
no information."

" Familiarity breeds forgetfulness, perhaps," Mr. Dunlap again hax-
arded.

" Perhaps," said Bert. "Anyhow, we struck this 'don't know' business
everywhere except at Richmond. They could answer questions there.
Why, the trolley-car conductor at Lexington did n't know Ashland as Henry
Clay's home, but as Major McDowell's stock-farm. Then Uncle Tom knew
more about Lincoln in Springfield than the hotel-proprietor, our driver, and
the man who has the store where Lincoln's office was, all put together. Even
in Ouincy it was hard to get from people real facts about the Adamses ;
Philadelphia people could n't tell you much about Franklin, and New York
is as misty about Hamilton as St. Louis is about Grant. You 've just
got to post up for yourself before going on a great-man hunt."

" That 's so, Bert," Uncle Tom confessed. " But, after all, it 's only natural.
Reverence for historic character is a matter of education ; interest in every-
day affairs is spontaneous."

" You know what I 've often confessed to you, Jack," said his father
" My one and only diary was kept as a boy in the momentous year of 1864,
and yet you could read that diary through from January to December and
not suspect that a war was being fought in America. And it was not because
the war had no interest to me. It had a mighty interest. MY father's house,

O -

you know, was a center lor war fever. But that 's just it a boy's personal
affairs are to him of more moment than the affairs of the nation- -and men
are but children of a larger growth, you know."

" But education is counteracting this indifference, I think,' Uncle Tom

declared. "Wherever we went I got more information from the boys and

ONE OF THE NATION'S HEROES GENERAL WILLIAM T. SHERMAN.
After the bust by Augustus St. Gaudens, modeled from life in 1888-89.

240

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

girls I questioned than from the ' grown-ups.' The salvation of the republic,
after all, lies in the hands and hearts of its boys and girls."

" Xo\v, Marian, it 's your turn," said her father.

" What impressed me most about these people ? " she queried, referring to
her well-worn list. "Let me see- -I guess what Uncle Tom told us once,

WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE.

that, after all, they were men. It seems as though we heard horrid, mean
little things about every one of them ; but that 's because people like to talk,
I suppose ; and, after all, I could n't but see that the great and noble things
they did pushed the little things out of sight. Every man of them all went
up in the world from pretty small beginnings, and I suppose success starts
mean things about people just as much as it starts fine things. It takes all
sorts of people to make a world, and, for my part, I 'm going to forget the
gossip and remember only the glory."

" That 's the talk, my dear ! " exclaimed Uncle Tom. " I wish you could
put that spirit into certain of our historians who seem to think that truth

TALKING IT OVER

241

consists in picking flaws. No one of us is perfect ; we all have our failings.
Forget the bad, remember the good. For it is the good in people that lives
the longest, and perhaps even the things we call failings in our great men
were but the steps by which they mounted to brave and wise and excellent
deeds for the good of their fellows and the glory of the republic. You know
how I stand. I believe that never anything in this world was without use
and advantage. The wars of Alexander and Caesar and Attila and Napo-
leon were all for the world's good, though fought for selfishness and ambi-
tion ; so slavery and the Civil War were necessary to the growth of this re-
public. There is no such thing, boys and girls, as an unmixed evil. Now,
we have progressed, I trust, beyond the need of blood and tears ; the days
of slavery and war are over, and the republic can say with Tennyson

' I hold it truth with him who sings

That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.'

I hope that America at last has reached its higher things though, even
yet, the signs of foolishness have not altogether passed."

Mr. Dunlap might have branched off into a discussion with his brother
on this open question, but Jack, improving the op-
portunity, filled in the pause.

"Want to know what impressed me the most?"
he asked. "Well tombs."

There was a general laugh at the sepulchral tone
in which Jack announced his impression so foreign
to such a really "live" boy as Jack Dunlap.

" You need n't laugh," he said. " That's right
they did. I 'm sure we saw enough of them ; we
seemed to run up against them everywhere. There
was Folk's, in the State- House grounds at Nashville ;
and Adams's, inside the place where he went to
church ; and Jackson's, in his own front-door yard ;
and Jefferson's, hung up there on a hillside; and
Webster's, almost on the seashore ; and all the others.
They 're interesting enough, but they 're not big
enough. What 's the matter with having a West-
minster Abbey sort of place for them ? We 're a big
country and we ought to honor our great men in a great

way. Grant's new tomb is going to be something like FRANKLIN'S CLOCK
when it is finished. But none of the rest amount in the Philadelphia Library.

242

THE CENTURY BOOK OE FAMOUS AMERICANS

"NO FUSS OR FEATHERS."
President Grant on the street in Washington.

to a Hannah Cook, from Webster's shabby little headstone at Marshfield to
Lincoln's ramshackle affair half museum and half ruin at Springfield."

" O, see here, Jack ! you 're going it altogether too strong ! " exclaimed
Bert. " I thought they were fine, most of them."

"No, sir! there is n't a fine one in the whole lot, except Grant's," Jack
insisted.

"Lincoln's did look somewhat shabby and run-down or rather, not
kept up," Roger admitted, "but that can be fixed; and I 'm sure we are
agreed that Webster's just suited him."

" And, surely, no one would change Washington's, or Jackson's, or
Franklin's," declared Marian, remembering their devotion to the memory
of their wives.

"That 's all right. You can have your opinion; I '11 keep mine," said

TALKING IT OVER 243

Jack. "You asked what impressed us most, and I Ve given it to you
straight. I 'd like to see something great and appropriate over the graves
of every one of these men; for they all were great, and should be honored by
something great."

" Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ?
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death ? "

quoted Mr. Dunlap, looking at Jack significantly.

" I don't care," the boy persisted. " That 's what I think. I don't mean for

their sakes, but for our own. They were great, and deserve great memorials."

" Now, I don't know," said Christine. " They were great ; but they were

great because they were simple. That 's the one thing about all of them

that most impressed me."

"What! Daniel Webster simple? Washington, Patrick Henry, John
Adams, Andrew Jackson simple do you really think so, Christine?" cried
Jack.

"Yes, every one of them," Christine declared. "That 's not what folks
remember about them all, I know, but they were all simple in their lives and
ways. Uncle Tom said so, and I think it 's fine to know that such great and
noble men could be so nice and plain and homelike about things from the
way they lived to the way they died, and were buried," she added, with a
challenging look at Jack.

"You don't remember what Emerson says about greatness, I suppose,"
said Mr. Dunlap, " but it just fits Christine's theory. ' Nothing,' he says,
' is more simple than greatness ; indeed, to be simple is to be great.'

Whereupon Roger slipped across the room and shook Christine's hand in
evident congratulation ; but Jack remained unconvinced.

" Well, all these things that you boys and girls have noted and reported
are of course interesting," said Mr. Dunlap, " though they seem to me
rather on the negative than the positive side, rather criticism than approval."
"But that, I think, is all right," Uncle Tom declared. "They wish to
see things so perfect in the honors paid to the great that they become
critical, and notice the little ' outs ' that are at once apparent. Bert and
Jack may be, in the main, correct in their monumental criticisms ; but, after
all, what greater honors can be paid our famous ones than those of remem-
brance, emulation, and praise ? It is what these men did for the republic and
for us, the manner in which they served the nation and advanced its strength
and glory, that America will never forget, and which will endure as their best
monuments and memorials."

1 6*

244

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

"I think," said Mr. Dunlap, " that just here Uncle Tom might exalt the
office that most of the men whose tracks you have been following filled at
some time in their lives. Most of your baker's dozen were, at one time or

another, Presidents of the United States."

JOHN BRIGHT. AX ENGLISH FRIEND OF AMERICA
In the dark days of '61.

"And the three who did n't get there wished they could," said Jack.

" President of the United States of America ! " continued Mr. Dunlap.
" Why, that in itself is enough to immortalize a man. The office would
make almost the smallest great. What king or queen in all the world
is the equal of the man whom the people delight to honor in a land
where the people is king? So, above all things, boys, when you come

TALKING IT OVER 245

into power as voters be careful whom you advance to this exalted position.
There is none higher. Let me, right in this place, read you what \vas
said by one of the best and bravest Englishmen that ever lived John
Bright, the friend of America at a time when all the wealth and power of
Europe seemed hostile to the republic, in the dark days of 1860 and '61."

And Mr. Dunlap, taking a book from one of his library shelves, read
aloud this : " ' Every four years there springs from the vote created by the
whole people a President over that great nation. I think the world affords
no finer spectacle than this; I think it affords no higher dignity - -that there
is no greater object of ambition on the political stage on which men are per-
mitted to move. You may point, it you like, to hereditary royalty to
crowns coming clown through successive generations in the same families, to
thrones based on proscription or on conquest, to scepters wielded over veteran
legions or subject realms, but to my mind there is nothing more worthy of
reverence or obedience, nothing more sacred, than the authority of a freely-
chosen magistrate of a great and free people.''

"Three cheers for John Bright!" cried Jack. "His head was level,

was n't it?

" Yes ; but yours will be just as level, my boy," replied his father, " if you
will keep such words as his in view and try neither to belittle your birth-
right by unjust comparisons nor cheapen it by unwise boastings. Not that I
fear that you will do either, Jack," he hastened to assert; "you 're a pretty
good patriot, though sometimes an extravagant one."

" Better to overdo in that particular, I think, than to fall short," Uncle
Tom declared. "\Yhat w T as that sonnet by Professor Woodberry, Jack, that
you and I learned together last year ? Do you remember it ? "

"What 's that? ' said Jack, still a bit unsteady over his father's uninten-
tional criticism. " Do you mean his sonnet to one who objected to his hav-
ing too much patriotism ? '

" Yes, that 's the one," said Uncle Tom ; and Jack, with a look toward
his father, said: "This is a sonnet, please bear in mind, to one who objected
that the fellow w r as overdoing his patriotism. And this is what the poet said
to him :

" The riches of a nation are her dead

Whom she hath borne to be her memory

Against her passing, when that time shall be,
And in the Caesar's tomb she makes her bed ;
And oft of such decay in books I 've read

Carthage or Venice, who had wealth as we;

Yet, all too wise for patriots, blame not me!
I know a nation's gold is not man's bread

THE STATUE OF THE REPUBLIC AT THE WORLD'S FAIR.

TALKING IT OVER 247

" But rather from itself the heart infers

That ached when Lincoln died ! those boyish tears
Still keep my breast untraitored by its fears ;

Farragut, Phillips, Grant I saw them shine,

Names worthy to have filled a Roman line ;
If I prove false, it is the future errs."

" That 's very fine, Jack, both for Professor Woodberry, who wrote it, and
you, the orator," Mr. Dunlap said, as the applause subsided, "and it 's very
true, too. The future may err, but see to it that you boys and girls do not.
The riches of a nation are her dead ! You know that now. The phrase fits,
and Professor Woodberry's sentiment, too, applies capitally to all you boys and
girls, who, after your pilgrimage to historic shrines, should now be infused
with a practical patriotism. That is what the dozen or more men you have
been investigating all displayed ; that is what every American should aim to
possess. Be not selfish individuals, or selfish patriots, even, but citizens of
America, heirs to her greatness and glory, ready to fill any post of duty or of
honor you may be called to occupy ; loyal to your home-land, ready to do
your share in aid or in service to your fellow-men in other words, be intel-
ligent, loyal, faithful, active citizens of the republic. And this call comes to
you girls just as much as to the boys. ' It is as great to be a woman as a
man,' one of our philosophers has said, and patriotism true patriotism is
not limited to sex or strength. So, at last, shall your study of our famous
Americans prove of service to you all, and Uncle Tom's latest labor of love
will not have been in vain."

The good-bys were now to be said, for, next day, Roger was to return
to his Boston home. But before the party broke up, Uncle Tom, as he had
done at the close of their Washington trip, asked each one of his boys and
o-irls what would be the thin^ longest remembered bv them of this delieht-

O *J * * J ^

fully-extended tramp about America.

In one thing they were all agreed the greatness of the American re-
public, the vastness of its area, the beauty, wealth and size of its cities. Even
New York's grandeur and Chicago's bigness did not impress them more than
the signs of prosperity and taste displayed in Richmond and Lexington and
Louisville and Nashville centres, all of them, of culture, business energy,
architectural beauty, modern ideas, and up-to-date enterprise. They agreed,
too, that such a trip as they had taken to the homes of famous Americans was
possible to all who could spare the means or time to take it ; for their homes
lay along a line of continual travel and were all readily accessible, while the
comforts of modern railway journeys made the trip at once easy and enjoyable.

<: It 's as good as an education," said Bert.

248

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

And Christine agreed, with the addition, " if only Uncle Tom 's the
teacher," in which sentiment one and all concurred.

But when it came to picking out the one thing that they would longest
remember in connection with their trip their replies were of course as di-
verse as their natures.

" I don't believe I shall ever forget the thirteen Hamilton trees near his

THE CORNER OF BROADWAY AND TWENTY-THIRD STREET, NEW YORK.

From a photograph by Pach Brothers.

home on Convent avenue," said Bert, "or the last of the Confederate earth-
works on the old Kentucky battle-ground of Munfordville."

Marian was certain she should always remember that sick chamber in
the Sixty-sixth Street house in New York where General Grant wrote his
memoirs, passed through the furnace-fire of misfortune, and fought the valiant
fight with death ; " though, to be sure," she added, " I was awfully interested
to see the place where Pocahontas fell in love with Rolfe."

" Oh, that 's ancient history," said Jack ; " it was not nearly so interesting
to me as old Alfred at the Hermitage, though I think I shall always remember
the boy conductors on the trolley-cars at Nashville, and the White Squad-
ron in Hampton Roads both of them were pretty fresh, you know."

Roger wavered between the star chamber and its morning effects in

TALKING IT OVER

249

Mammoth Cave, and Jefferson's one-brick wall at the University of Virginia,
which seemed to him at once odd and incongruous. Christine, as usual,
reserved her opinion.

Then, when all had spoken, she said : " Well, I saw so many, many
things I never can forget that it's hard to pick out just one or two. But
really, I don't think I ever can forget the beautiful way President Jackson
spoke of his wife on her tablet in the garden at the Hermitage, nor that odd
sick-chair of clear old Franklin in Philadelphia. Oh, yes, there 's one thing I
think I shall remember even longer than those, and that was the little black
girl playing at Lincoln's feet when we were looking at St. Gaudens's splen-
did statue in Chicago. Don't you remember her? It was all so appropriate,
you know, for she seemed to be almost at his feet,
even though the pedestal was too high for her to
reach him ; and she was playing there in such
perfect and unconscious freedom that really it
seemed almost typical, as you call it, Uncle Tom."

" It was, indeed, my clear," Uncle Tom re-
plied. " I believe you 're a born poet, Christine.
You always see the sympathetic side of things,
and, after all, it is the sympathetic that is prac-
tical. Here, let me give you this final bit of
verse. It is by a young poet named Cutler,
who, in 1 86 1, read this splendid war poem
before the very so-
ciety at Harvard
College that, thirty
years after, listened
to a eulogy of
Abraham Lincoln
from the lips of the
Confederate sol-
dier, Thompson. It
seems to me to fit
Christine's thought
and type, as well
as the real mean-
ing of our trip to
the home of those
who made the re-
public great. ' MADISON SQUARE GARDEN AND TOWER, NEW YORK.

250

THE CENTURY BOOK OF FAMOUS AMERICANS

And Uncle Tom recited this:

" O Law, fair form of Liberty, God's light is on thy brow ;
O Liberty, thou soul of Law, God's very self art thou !
One, the clear river's sparkling flood that clothes the bank with green,
And one, the line of stubborn rock that holds the water in ;
Friends whom we cannot think apart, seeming each other's foe,
Twin flowers upon a single stalk, with equal grace that grow ;
O, fair ideas ! we write your names across our banner's fold,
For you the sluggard's brain is fire, for you the coward bold ;
O, daughter of the bleeding past! O, hope the prophets saw!
God give us Law in Liberty, and Liberty in Law ! "

"Amen to that! " said Mr. Dunlap, almost solemnly. " For such a hope
did Franklin labor and Washington fight and Jefferson struggle and Web-
ster plead ; for it did Adams legislate and Jackson stand firm and Grant
battle and Lincoln die. For it must you all, boys and girls, strive heroic-
ally, patriotically, practically - - if you would make America the resistless,
law-abiding republic which is to be the future's glory and pride."

With that the '' Convention adjourned," as Jack declared, sine die. With
many goocl-bys and much exchange of promises, the peripatetic five sepa-
rated, and the pilgrimage to historic homes was a thing of memory ; but,
you may be sure, it proved a strong and lasting one.

INDEX.

Only the important names are entered here. There are slight allusions to many persons and places in the
book which it has not been thought necessary to include in the Index, and the entries given generally refer
to an important mention (or illustration} of the subject. When the treatment of a subject occupies a num-
ber of pages the reference is to the first page only.

Adams, Abigail, 24.

Adams, Charles Francis, 17.

Adams, John, 17.

Adams, John Quincy, 17, 218.

Adams, Samuel, 10, 17.

Alton, Ills., 194.

Andros, Sir Edmund, 51.

Ashland, the home of Henry Clay, 138.

Bacon, Nathaniel, 92.

Battery, The, New York, 51.

Blue-Grass Country, The, 137.

Boone, Daniel, 138.

Boston, I.

Bright, John, 244.

Brown, John, 216.

Burr, Aaron, 57, 167.

Calhoun, John C., 140.

Calvert, Leonard, Landing of, 82.

Cape Charles, 84.

Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, 79.

Charlottesville, Va., 117.

Chateau de Chaumont, France, 76.

Chesapeake Bay, 84.

Chicago, Ills., 211.

Christ Church, Philadelphia, 75.

City Hall, New York, 53.

Clay, Henry, 138.

Clinton, De Witt, 50.

Clinton, Governor George, 50.

Convent Avenue, New York, 62.

Cromwell, Oliver, 85.

Davis, Jefferson, 109.

Decatur, Stephen, 83, 128, 130.

Declaration of Independence, 21, 76.

De Grasse, Admiral, 86.

Delaware, Lord, 85.

Dock Square, Boston, n.

Douglas, Stephen A., 202.

Dutch Gap, Virginia, 104.

Duxbury, Mass., 34.

Elizabeth, Queen, 86.

Emancipation Proclamation, 25.

Faneuil Hall, Boston, n.

Federal Hall, New York, 52.

Fort Hill, S. C., 142.

Fortress Monroe, 88.

Frankfort, Kentucky, 159.

Franklin, Benjamin, I, 65.

Franklin, N. H., 46.

Frederick, Va., 216.

" Golden Hill," New York, 53.

Grant, General U. S., 49, 180, 242.

Hale, Nathan, 56.

Hamilton, Alexander, 49.

Hampton Roads, 88.

Hampton, Va., 92.

Harlem Heights, Battle of, 61.

Harper's Ferry, 216.

Henry, Patrick, 93, 137.

Hermitage, The, 157.

Hingham, Mass., 44.

Hodgensville, Ky., 175.

Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, 105.

Houston, General Samuel, 144.

Jackson, Andrew, 158.

Jackson, Rachel, wife of Andrew, 170.

Jackson Square, New Orleans, 169.

Jay, John, 50.

Jefferson, Thomas, 71, 107, 116.

Kentucky, 137.

Kidd, Captain, 51.

King's (now Columbia) College, New
York, 61.

Lafayette, 1 68.

Lafayette, Bartholdi's Statue of, 130.

Lawrence, Captain James, 53.

Lee, Richard Henry, 22.

Lee, Robert E., 113.

Leisler, Jacob, 51.

Lexington, Ky., 146.

Liberty Bell, 76.

Lincoln's First Inaugural Address,
114.

Lincoln, Abraham, 175, 193.

Livingston, Robert R., 50.

"Long Walk," Boston Common, 12.

Lord, William Yv'ilber force, 148.

Lowell's Commemoration Ode, 210.

Mammoth Cave, 173.

Marshall, Chief Justice, 102.

Marshfield, Mass., 37.

Mississippi River, 180, 193.

Missouri River, 193.

" Monitor " and " Merrimac," 86.

Monroe, James, 217.

Montgomery, Tomb of, 53.

Monticello, 117.

Montpellier, 124.

Mount Vernon, 220.

Nashville, Tenn., 157.

Natural Bridge, Va., 138.

Newport News, Va., 92.

New York, 49, 236.

Nixon, John, Reading the Declara-
tion of Independence, 64.

Nolin's Creek, Ky., 175.

Norfolk, Va., 88.

O'Hara's " Bivouac of the Dead," 159.

Old Dominion, 85.

Old Point Comfort, 88.

Old Province House, Boston, 12.

Old South Church, Boston, I.

Otis, James, 3.

Park Street Gate, Boston Common, 14.

Payne, John Howard, 47.

Pendleton, Edmund, 97.

Penn, William, So.

Philadelphia, 65.

251

Pittsburg Landing, 188.

Plymouth, Mass., 33.

Pocahontas, 85, 104.

Poe, Edgar Allan, 109.

Point Pleasant, Ohio, 182.

Polk, President, 158.

" Poor Richard's Almanack," 69.

Priscilla, 36.

Public Library, Boston, 12.

Quincy, Mass., 17.

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 86.

Read, Deborah, 66.

Richmond, Va., 97.

Rolfe, John, 85.

Salisbury (now Franklin), N. H.,46.

San Cosme Gate, Mexico, 184.

" Sheridan's Ride," 137.

Sherman, General William T., 239.

Smith, Captain John, 85, 105.

Springfield, Ills., 203.

Standish House, Duxbury, Mass., 35.

Standish, Miles, 35.

St. John's Church, Richmond, 98.

St. Louis, Mo., 177.

St. Paul's Church, Washington's Pew

in, 58.

Stuart, Charles, 86.
Stuart, Gilbert, 79.
Stuyvesant, Peter, 51.
Temple, Charlotte, 54.
Todd, Mary, 175.

Trinity Churchyard, New York, 53.
University of Pennsylvania, 71.
University of Virginia, 133.
Van Arsdale, Jack, 52.
Yanderbilt University, 158.
Van Twiller, Wouter, 51.
Vernon, Admiral, 86.
Wall Street, New York, 51.
Washington, Crawford's Statue of,

III, 113.

Washington, D. C., 233.
Washington, George, 214, 220.
Washington, Houdon's Statue of, 108.
Washington, Ward's Statue of, 54.
Webster Buildings, Boston, 8.
Webster, Daniel, 9, 22, 37, 131.
"White House of the Confederacy,"

109.

White, Peregrine, 43,
Whittier, John G., 41, 211, 216.
William and Mary College, 92.
Williamsburg, Va., 92.
Winslow, Governor Edward, 37.
Winslow, Josiah, 37.
Yorktown, Va., 93.
Zenger, New York's first " newspaper

man," 51.

MAR 2 5 1930