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Captain John Paul Jones. 



AMERICAN HEROES AND 
HEROINES 



BY 
PAULINE CARRINGTON BOUVij 



ILLUSTRATED 



BOSTON 
LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY 



Published, August, 1905 



Two Copies rt(xe4vcu 

JUL 6 I9U5 
Oopyngnt tdifi 



61 'i 



Copyright, 1905, 

BY 

LoTHROP, Lee & Shepard Company 



All Rights Rtservtd 



American Heroes and Heroines 



NORWOOD PRESS 

BERWICK & SMITH CO. 

Norwood, Mass. 

U. S. A. 



TO 
DOCTOR EDWARD BRINLEY KELLOGG 

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED 

WITH 

THE GRATEFUL REGARD 

OF 

THE AUTHOR 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Father Marquette i 

i^^NSE Hutchinson 13 

Sir William Pepperell 32 

Hannah Weston 57 

Captain John Paul Jones 77 

Israel Putnam 89 

l^ — Molly Pitcher 120 

Nathan Hale 129 

Haym Salomon 139 

i^— 3etty Zane . 149 

Stephen Decatur 158 

/--Dolly Madison 171 

Stephen Van Rensselaer 181 

^^ Maria Mitchell 195 

Doctor Kane 211 

/- Margaret Haughery 234 

Daniel Boone 246 

Kit Carson 258 

Samuel Houston 270 

vii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Captain John Paul Jones frontispiece 

FACING PAQB 

Sir William Pepperell 50 

Israel Putnam 114 

Dolly Madison 176 

Maria Mitchell 208 

Doctor Elisha Kane 230 

Kit Carson 266 

Samuel Houston 290 



AMERICAN HEROES 
AND HEROINES 

FATHER MARQUETTE 

With the first day of summer, when the rose 
vines were hanging pink and crimson clusters of 
fragrant bloom along the old, gray and war-scarred 
walls of Laon, there came a little, new life into the 
household of Nicolas Marquette, one of the wealth- 
iest and most powerful gentlemen of the old for- 
tress town. This little life was destined to become 
a power in the world, for the new-born child in the 
Chateau Marquette, that first day of June in the year 
of our Lord 1637, was James Marquette, who grew 
up to be the famous mission priest to the American 
Indians, and the discoverer of the great Mississippi 
River. 

This old town — now the capital of the Depart- 
ment of Aisne in France — was a place of impor- 
tance hundreds of years ago. Here the Romans, 
when they conquered Gaul, as France was then 
called, found a band of shepherds who wore cloth- 
ing made of sheepskin, and who lived peacefully on 
the rocky heights of Laon. Remains of very ancient 



2 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

buildings may be seen here to-day — buildings the 
foundations of which were laid fifteen centuries ago. 
As the years passed, the abode of the shepherds 
changed in character and appearance. The bleat- 
ing of lambs and the jingle of the sheep bell were 
silenced by the sound of the mason's mallet and the 
builder's ax, for the early Prankish kings soon made 
a stronghold on the crest of the hill where the shep- 
herds had tended their flocks, and, upon the strong 
Rock of Laon, founded the " Castle of Laon." 
Many times in the history of France was Laon 
besieged, but rarely was it taken. John the Fear- 
less, Duke of Burgundy, stormed and took it in 
1411. In 1419 the English took it, but were driven 
out in 1429. One hundred and sixty-three years 
afterward, under Henry IV — in 1594 — the fortress 
was taken by siege. Napoleon Bonaparte was 
defeated beneath its stone walls by Blucher in 18 14, 
and in 1870 it capitulated to the Germans in what 
was called the Franco-Prussian war. 

So we see that the old fortress town in which 
little James Marquette was born had been the scene 
of many a fierce and bloody conflict. But it had an 
interesting religious as well as military history. 
The Christian faith supplanted the myths of the 
savage Franks here in the third century, and to the 
rocky castle came the pious Saint Remy, the " Apos- 



FATHER MARQUETTE 3 

tie to the Franks," in 515. The seeds of the 
Christian rehgion which he planted must have taken 
deep root in the rocky soil, for in the thirteenth 
century the Roman Church built a great cathedral 
at Laon, which is one of the first specimens of 
Gothic architecture in France to-day. Eighty- 
seven bishops have ruled over the diocese of Laon 
since those early days, and three Popes, one of 
whom was the famous Urban IV, came from the 
ancient gray-walled city. 

These things are interesting to know, because 
they had an influence on the life of the child whose 
early years were spent among surroundings that 
were full of the traditions of war and religion. 
Strange as it seems, these two things were very 
closely allied to each other a few hundred years ago. 

On his father's side the boy was descended from 
a family which had always been on the side of the 
King in any quarrel that arose between the people 
and royalty, and which was allied by marriage to 
the nobility. On his mother's side he came down 
from the good Jean Baptiste de la Salle, the founder 
of the order of Brothers of Christian Schools, which 
gave free instruction to thousands of poor boys in 
France. So in the child's blood there were two 
strains — the highborn courage of the soldier and 
the patient endurance of the saint. 



4 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

One can imagine how the stories of his ancestors, 
who had fought and died for the King, and the 
tales of the pious Saint Remy, who had made Chris- 
tians of the savage Frankish warriors, filled the 
imagination of the little boy as he plucked the roses 
from the crumbling walls of the ancient defense or 
sat among the dim shadows of the vaulted cathedral 
listening to the chant of priest and choir. 

A strong desire to enter the religious life began 
to stir the heart and mind of the dreamy boy, and 
soon after his seventeenth birthday, October 8th, 
1654, he entered the Jesuit College at Havre as a 
novice. He was a student also at Pont-a-Mousson, 
and at both seats of learning he was distinguished 
for his scholarship and gentleness. 

The Jesuit priests of France had reached Canada 
nearly ten years (1611) before the Pilgrims landed 
at Plymouth, and their object was to bring Chris- 
tianity to the American Indians. Accounts of their 
work were sent to France by the priests in letters 
or documents called " relations," and these had filled 
the young priest of Laon with a desire to carry the 
story of Christ to the savages of the Western world. 

In the year 1666, when he was just twenty-nine 
years old, the youthful '' father " received the joy- 
ful tidings that he had been ordered to go to ** New 
France," as Canada was then called. On the 20th 



FATHER MARQUETTE 5 

of September of the same year he set sail for Que- 
bec. In 1666 Quebec was not much of a city. It 
consisted of the *' Castle " upon the chff, the Gov- 
ernor's house, the college of the Jesuits, the little 
convent of the Ursuline nuns, the church, and, at 
the foot of the bluffs, a few fur traders' huts. The 
life in this settlement must have seemed strange to 
the young enthusiast, but he was not there long, for 
in a short while he was ordered to join Father 
Druillettes at Three Rivers, a mission on the north- 
ern bank of the St. Lawrence River, and about 
twenty-seven miles from Quebec. Here he labored 
faithfully and cheerfully, acquiring a wonderful 
knowledge of the different dialects spoken by the 
various Indian tribes among whom he worked. 
The Jesuit authorities were not slow to see that the 
newcomer was specially fitted by nature for the serv- 
ice he had undertaken, for he was brave and gentle 
and wise, so in two years after going to Three 
Rivers he was sent to the farthest outpost of New 
France, that wide waste of unexplored wilderness 
known as the " land of the Ottawas." 

This was the first step toward that long and per- 
ilous journey that afterwards made the names of 
Father Marquette and his brave companion, Louis 
Joliet, historic, and established for France the claim 
of having discovered the Mississippi River. 



6 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Although De Soto, the Spaniard, had discovered 
this great river nearly a century and a half before 
Father Marquette began to preach the gospel to 
the Indians of the Lake region, the discovery had 
been of little use. Nobody knew much about it, but 
roving tribes of natives brought wonderful stories 
of the great river sometimes, and the fur-traders 
sitting around their campfires at night often talked 
about the " mysterious lost sea, " along whose 
shores, they believed, lay a wealth of forest and 
plain, teeming with flocks and herds and mines of 
precious metals. 

Among these traders and adventurers there was 
one man upon whom these tales made a deep im- 
pression. This was Louis Joliet, the son of a 
wagonmaker who was in the employment of the 
great fur-trading company which at that time con- 
trolled New France. 

When James Marquette was a little boy of eight 
years old, playing about the walls of Laon, Louis 
Joliet, the wagonmaker's son, was born at the fort 
of the Rock of Quebec. This happened in the year 
1648. These two children, the one an aristocrat 
in one of France's oldest and most historic cities, 
the other the son of a laborer in the wilds of Amer- 
ica, were destined to have their lives and fates for- 
ever linked together in the history of a great nation. 



FATHER MARQUETTE 7 

Louis Joliet studied for the priesthood (which he 
afterwards abandoned), and it was as a clerk in the 
Jesuit College in Quebec that he became known to 
Pere Marquette, the Jesuit missionary. As unlike 
as the two were, they were alike in possessing 
remarkable courage. The ambitious young agent 
for the fur-trading company was bent upon building 
up a name and fortune and was eager to undertake 
any adventure that might lead to fame or wealth. 
The poetic young priest was eager to carry what 
was to him the true faith to the wild nations, willing 
and even anxious to suffer death in so glorious a 
cause. Count Frontenac, the governor of New 
France, had learned too, of the wonderful sea that 
was supposed to flow through Virginia, and he also 
was eager to rediscover it and to claim its shores 
for France. Now the Jesuit priests were not 
always popular with the Indians. Indeed, the mis- 
sionary required more tact, more wisdom, more 
patience, than the colonist. Father Marquette's 
extensive knowledge of the various dialects, and the 
fact that he was greatly loved by those Indians 
among whom he lived and taught, made it plain to 
the authorities of State and Church that he was the 
man to be sent out on the quest of the '* Southern 
Sea," for such a perilous journey meant constant 
intercourse with strange and unfriendly tribes. 



8 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

For years the young priest had hoped that he 
might be sent out among these heathen people, and 
it had been his prayer that he might die alone in 
the wilderness, giving his life for the cause of 
Christ. 

In the twentieth century this may appear strange, 
but in the seventeenth century men of all conditions 
were more willing to take risks than they are to-day, 
and those of the religious orders of Catholic France 
burned with a desire to suffer for their faith. 

Father Marquette, or the " Black Gown," as the 
Indians called him, was very happy when he received 
orders to go with Joliet on the mysterious journey. 
At the mission of St. Ignace in Michigan, where he 
had worked with good Father Druillettes, the 
"Black Gown" was very sincerely loved. The 
mission was situated on the Michilimackinac, now 
called Mackinac. Lake Michigan flows through 
the Mackinac Straits to join Lake Huron, and is 
increased forty miles eastward by the waters of Lake 
Superior. The Indians thought that the island of 
Mackinac was a piece of floating land, sometimes 
near and sometimes far away. This was the effect 
of the mists that hung, sometimes heavily, some- 
times lightly, and sometimes were entirely lifted 
from the beautiful island. 

On the 17th of May, 1673, Father Marquette 



FATHER MARQUETTE 9 

and Louis Joliet, together with the ** donnes," or 
serving-men, and Indians, set out from Point St 
Ignace to find the lost Mississippi. 

The story of that journey down the Wisconsin 
River until the broad bosom of the "Father of 
Waters" was reached is a story of adventurous 
daring rarely surpassed in the world's history. 

Standing in the prow of the birch-bark canoe, in 
which the hazardous way was to be made, the " pale- 
faced priest and prophet, " with his hand uplifted 
in benediction, bade farewell to the priests and to 
the dusky children of the forest, bidding them abide 
in the faith and telling them that he was ready " to 
do and to suffer all" that they and their brothers 
might become the children of the Cross. Then, as 
stern-faced Joliet in his hunter's garb drew his 
beaver over his brows, the Indians and " donnes " 
shoved the frail barks off into the water, and the 
little band of explorers glided out upon the waves 
and soon vanished from the view of the watchers 
who stood upon the sandy beach of St. Ignace. 

For days the plash of the oars was the only 
sound that broke the stillness, save the whir of birds 
in the dense forests that bordered the pathway the 
fragile boats followed, the cries of the wild wood- 
land creatures, the sighing of the winds and the 
lapping of the waves. 



lO AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Their provision, consisting mainly of dried meats 
and maize bread, was neither large in quan- 
tity nor nourishing in quality, but when the ex- 
plorers chose to beach their canoes and take a 
short rest there were always birds and fish enough 
to provide delicious suppers and breakfasts, so the 
question of food was easily settled by fishing tackle 
or a sharpened arrow. 

But there were perils ahead of the travelers. As 
they proceeded farther, tribes of savages sometimes 
attacked them, and not always did the uplifted cross 
in the hands of Father Marquette insure safety, 
though several times the good priest found that the 
symbol was understood. As their water route lay 
through the wide plains of the West, herds of buf- 
faloes thundered across the long levels, astonishing 
and, perhaps, terrifying the white men who had 
never seen the strange creatures before. Down 
between wide plains, shadowy forests and marshes 
of wild rice the little boats passed onward, until one 
month from the day of their departure they rocked 
on the waves of the broad Mississippi. 

They had traveled a thousand miles through a 
strange land, and after much weariness and many 
dangers had reached their goal! And along the 
way Father Marquette had planted the Cross and 
sown the seeds of the Christian faith. The Arkan- 



FATHER MARQUETTE II 

sas and the Illinois tribes had welcomed the '' Black 
Gown" and asked him to remain with them, but 
Father Marquette thought it best to return to New 
France with the tidings of his discovery, and so 
after a short sojourn set the prows of his canoes 
homeward. 

It was autumn now, and as they journeyed north- 
ward the exposure and fatigues of the journey 
began to tell upon the delicate constitution of 
the priestly commander, and they, the faithful 
" donnes," saw that their beloved leader was unable 
to continue the voyage. 

Joliet was instructed to push forward and carry 
his papers and maps to Quebec. These papers were 
lost, however, by the upsetting of his boat. Father 
Marquette and his faithful followers took shelter 
along the coast. Here his illness increased, and it 
became evident that his end was near. A " coureur 
de bois," a sort of trapper in the neighborhood of 
the miserable hut where the sick man lay, brought 
him food from time to time through the winter, 
and when spring came he seemed to improve, and 
resumed his journey. After a few days, however, 
he began to sink rapidly, and pointing to the shore 
asked to be taken to a certain spot. The place he 
indicated was where the city of Ludington, Michi- 
gan, now stands. Here, alone in the solitude 



12 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

of the American forests, as he had wished might 
happen, he died on the i8th day of May, 1675. In 
a rude box of birch bark the Indians for whom he 
had given his hfe and who had learned to love him 
bore his body back to St. Ignace, where with many 
solemn ceremonies it was buried in the vault of the 
church. In 1700 the Church of St. Ignace was 
burned, and the last resting place of the hero-priest 
was lost sight of until the year 1877, when the 
bones were discovered by Father Jacker. 

The re-discovery of the Mississippi River and 
the opening of the great Mississippi Basin to trade 
and commerce was one of the most remarkable 
achievements of the early settlers on American soil. 
But perhaps the most wonderful part of that great 
and beneficial service was, that the man who led 
the exploration was guided not by motives of am- 
bition or avarice, but by the love of God and the 
love of the human race. 

Born a Frenchman, Father Marquette, the hero- 
priest, by virtue of what he achieved in his ministry 
and his martydom on American soil, won for him- 
self the enduring title of " an American Hero." 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 

In the year 1634 a group of wooden houses com- 
posed the Httle settlement that was destined to be- 
come the greatest city in New England. Crookecf 
lanes intersected this rude village, which at that 
time boasted of only one brick dwelling, and the pub- 
lic pasture near by, where the flocks and cattle were 
gathered, was white with the tents of pilgrims who 
had not yet made for themselves more substantial 
habitations. That handful of houses, the town of 
Boston, and the tented pasture with its tethered 
kine, became in due time the historic Boston Com- 
mon, which was the stage of some dramatic and 
some tragic scenes in the early days of the city's 
history. 

When the ship Griffin arrived in the port of Bos- 
ton on the 1 8th day of September, 1634, the band 
of Puritan settlers who set forth from the embryo 
town to meet and welcome the newcomers would 
have been very much distressed and astonished if 
they had known that there was one among that 
ship's company who was to bring great trouble to 
the feeble colony, and a still greater calamity upon 
herself. 

13 



14 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

As the lithe, graceful figure of Anne Hutchin- 
son traversed the gangplank of the Griffin^ and 
stepped upon the New England shore, that gift of 
prophecy which she claimed was given to her by 
God must have unfolded to her dark eyes a terrible 
vision. Tradition tells us that as she looked upon 
the thatch-roofed houses of ** Boston Town," the 
tears gathered in her eyes, and, indeed, the appear- 
ance of the settlement must have been anything but 
cheerful. 

Sober-looking men with steeple crowned hats 
on their close cropped heads stalked about the 
streets, or lanes, rather, talking together in harsh 
voices and in accents of genuine religious fervor or 
the vernacular of strained, affected piety. Women 
in their quaint bodices and kerchiefs* stood in the 
doorways to watch the passing of the strangers; 
children with unchildlike earnestness in their young 
faces peered from the windows or from behind their 
mothers' skirts. The shadows of dangers passed 
or of perils yet to come hung over the place and the 
people, and the spiritual vision of the imaginative, 
sensitive, strongly intellectual woman who had come 
so far for her faith's sake must have felt the gloom 
of these shadows. 

The boys and girls who laugh and chatter as they 
walk through Boston Common or along the 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 15 

crowded thoroughfares of the city to-day can 
scarcely imagine the scene that September day more 
than two hundred and fifty years ago, or if they 
could, they would be very, very thankful that the 
severity of Puritan doctrine and the cruelty of Puri- 
tan practice have passed from the earth; for the 
young people had but a dull time of it in those days, 
and it is a good thing, on the whole, that the strict 
old customs are as dead as those that lie in their 
ancient grave-vaults along one of the paved paths 
of the Common, so close to the din of traffic and the 
restless, hurrying throngs of the living. 

But among those who welcomed Mistress Anne 
there were some of a spirit kindred to her own. 
Young Harry Vane, the youthful Governor of the 
Colony, whose twenty-four years of life could 
scarcely have fitted him for so important a position, 
and of whom the stern old Winthrop was jealous, 
was there, perhaps, his boyish, handsome face full 
of eagerness, for the young Governor was the son 
of an English noble of high estate, and glad, no 
doubt, to see a gentlewoman from his native shore. 
Mistress Anne, too, very likely recognized in the 
young man one over whom her influence would be 
strong. 

Anne Hutchinson was born at Alford, in Lin- 
colnshire, and not far from Boston, England, on 



l6 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

the 20th of July, 1591, so that she must have been 
forty-three years old when she came to Boston, 
though her comely figure, attractive face and engag- 
ing manners gave her a much more youthful appear- 
ance. 

Her father, who came of a good family, and who 
was a clergyman, being " presented to the Rec- 
tory of St. Margaret, in the city of London, October 
28, 1605." Her mother was a great-aunt of the poet 
Dryden, and was also related to the famous English 
writer, Jonathan Swift, so she was descended by 
both sides from gentle and arms-bearing families. 
Her marriage with William Hutchinson was the re- 
sult of a pure and disinterested love, for her husband 
had no right to heraldic devices, though two of his 
ancestors were mayors of Lincoln, and he possessed 
what was of more real value, a good character and 
a meek and amiable disposition — a lucky thing for 
him, one may infer, considering his wife's strong 
and dominant will. 

Things might have gone well for Mistress Hutch- 
inson had she not fallen into some heated disputes 
with one of her fellow voyagers on board the 
Griffin, on certain religious subjects, upon which 
both felt very strongly, and which resulted in her 
adversary — the Reverend Mr. Symmes — feeling a 
deep and bitter hatred toward her. No sooner had 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 17 

they landed than he took occasion to denounce her 
as a "heretic and prophetess," two dangerous 
accusations in those days. 

Regardless of her " reverend '* foe, she immedi- 
ately began to teach her new, strange doctrines to 
those about her, and almost all of Puritan Boston 
fell under the spell of her eloquence and her mag- 
netic charm. The women flocked to her house to 
hear her read from the Scriptures and explain texts, 
and, it must be admitted, criticise the preachers, for 
this powerful woman was not afraid to exp'tess her 
opinion with dangerous candor. Boston was really 
at that period under a religious despotism. Nobody 
who was not a church member could vote in the 
General Court. No believer in a different creed 
could become a citizen of Massachusetts Bay. The 
Boston Puritans talked about the " Church " just 
as much as the Episcopalians and Roman Catholics, 
whom they hated and from whose power they had 
fled. 

The aristocratic, daring young Vane had to say 
" I confess myself an obedient son of the Church," 
and the stern, unbending Winthrop, when he got 
himself in hot water with the ministry of that 
Church, found it prudent and wise to confess his 
sins and promise to amend them. 

These people who came to Massachusetts Bay to 



l8 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

enjoy religious freedom soon forgot that other peo- 
ple came too for the same purpose, and they be- 
came in turn as masterful over the people as any 
of the prelates from whose authority they had 
escaped. 

Henry Vane, like the rest of them, soon became 
a convert to Anne Hutchinson's doctrines, and her 
firm friend. Winthrop, who had been deposed 
from the Governorship in favor of the handsome 
young aristocrat, was watching the affairs of Church 
and State in the weak young colony with anxious 
eyes. He was a man of understanding and a gen- 
tleman of breeding, but there was one point upon 
which he was unreasonable, and that was religion. 
He saw young Vane, his successful and popular 
rival, falling under the influence of this Anne 
Hutchinson, who, though her life was pure, her 
deeds of charity and kindness broadcast, and her 
manner sober, was the bearer of a strange, new, and 
to his mind, dangerous, message to the people. 

Looking back upon these times it seems strange 
that the early Puritan settlers, beset as they were 
with bodily dangers and physical hardships, should 
have spent so much of their time in splitting hairs 
upon theological points. Truly, it would have been 
wiser to have directed more of their energies 
to practical advancement and progress, but they 



ANNE HUTCHINSON I9 

had suffered for their rehgion, and their suffering 
had made them hard to themselves and hard to 
others. Winthrop and S3mimes and the rest of 
them thought, quite sincerely too, no doubt, that the 
only thing to do was to crush the heresy of Anne 
Hutchinson, which could not be done without crush- 
ing her. 

It is curious that, at a time when women held 
such an inferior position in the intellectual world, 
heads of councils of state and hoary-headed minis- 
ters should have allowed themselves to be in- 
volved in a controversy in which their chief adver- 
sary was a woman. Mistress Anne Hutchinson 
taught that the Gospel of Christ had superseded 
the law of Moses ; that no matter what sin overtook 
one who had received the gift of the " Grace of 
Love " in his heart, he was still one of the elect ; 
that the spirit of the Holy Ghost dwells in a " jus- 
tified person," and other things that nobody under- 
stands and nobody is foolish enough to bother about 
in these days. But in 1634 Mistress Hutchinson 
and her followers and the ministers of the Boston 
Church wrangled over these confusing and unnec- 
essary doctrines until it is very likely they them- 
selves became very much mixed up. The clergy 
insisted upon what they called " Works of the 
Covenant," while Mistress Anne told her followers 



20 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

they must trust only to what she called " Works of 
Grace," so the two factions became embroiled in 
what historians call the Antinomian Controversy, 
each side forgetting that "all the law and the 
prophets hang upon the two great commandments 
to * Love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbor as 
thyself.' '' There was very little love, however, 
between the ** Church " members and the " Hutch- 
insonians," who hated each other as sincerely as 
possible, one may readily believe. 

" Antinomianism '' means " opposed to the law," 
and Winthrop and Endicott and the rest of the 
jathers considered it a very dangerous heresy. 
Well, the end of it was that Mistress Anne was 
finally brought to trial for her teachings, a thing she 
could scarcely have failed to expect, for though she 
was a gentle and patient nurse to the sick, a faithful 
wife and mother and a godly woman, still she was 
transgressing her rights in openly setting up a new 
creed among the people with whom she had chosen 
to dwell. Among the ministry there were two of 
whom she fully approved, the Reverend Mr. Cotton 
and Joseph Wheelwright, her brother-in-law, but the 
preaching and teachings of all the others she roundly 
condemned, which naturally made these narrow- 
minded spiritual masters her mortal enemies. 

On the 3d of August, 1637, Henry Vane sailed 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 21 

for England, and Mistress Hutchinson lost her most 
fearless champion. In the same year the Reverend 
John Cotton, who had appeared to share Anne 
Hutchinson's opinions to some extent, changed his 
course, and the way was gradually prepared for her 
accusation and trial. 

This trial was before the Court of Massachusetts 
at Cambridge, November, 1637, and, to quote from 
Jared Sparks, " it will be allowed by most readers 
to have been one of the most shameful proceedings 
recorded in the annals of Protestantism." 

Yet some of the prosecutors were doing what 
they thought their duty, no doubt, on that memor- 
able day in Cambridge, when Puritan prejudice held 
its famous inquisition over the brave Anne Hutch- 
inson. The scene must have been an impressive 
one. The dignified Governor Winthrop, now back 
in his judicial place, since young Harry Vane was 
gone over the seas, sat grave, stem, courteous, but 
already convinced of the culprit's guilt. Endicott, 
who, as Hawthorne says, " would stand with his 
drawn sword at the gate of Heaven, and resist to the 
death all pilgrims thither, except they traveled his 
own path"; Bradstreet, Newell, Stoughton, and 
Wilde, her judges and her enemies. As the biting 
north wind swept in cold gusts through the bare 
room in which the assemblage sat on that November 



22 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

day, the defenseless woman who stood there in its 
midst must have felt that the cold gale that blew 
from the gloomy wilderness and the desolate shore 
was not more chilling that the hearts of the 
judges. 

She was ill and faint, but she was allowed neither 
food nor a seat during that long, exhausting day, 
until she fell to the floor from weakness, while first 
one and then another of them plied her with ques- 
tions. And as Anne Hutchinson answered these 
questions clearly and sensibly, quoting passages 
from the Scriptures to prove that she had done 
nothing unlawful, nothing worthy of condemnation, 
perhaps she may have felt, even amid enemies and 
with no helping hand stretched out toward her, a 
thrill of pride in her heart ; for she, a woman, with- 
out the influence of wealth or station, was pitting 
her intellect against that of the wisest men in the 
Colony. Church and State were arrayed against 
her, and she made a brave and logical defense before 
both. No matter what the issue should be, the 
fact of her trial was an acknowledgment of her 
power and her influence — a power and an influence 
never before or since equalled in this country. 

Of an intensely spiritual nature and of rare 
elevation of purpose, Anne Hutchinson stood that 
day for the principle of liberty of speech and 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 23 ' 

thought, and the seed planted two hundred and 
sixty-seven years ago, though nourished by blood, 
has grown into the glorious flower of religious and 
intellectual freedom. There is little doubt that her 
opinions were heretical, possibly dangerous, and 
that she showed but little wisdom in endangering 
her personal safety for the sake of vague theories 
and doctrines, but it must be remembered that in 
those days, strange as it now seems, what peo- 
ple believed about God or religion was of much 
more importance than what they did, or how they 
behaved. 

Here in the New World wilderness, with the 
Pequot Indians ready to make war on the settlers, 
with want and hardship knocking at their doors, 
the Colonists were waging war among themselves 
about what they called the " Covenant of Works " 
and the " Covenant of Grace," and all sorts of ques- 
tions that had nothing whatever to do with plant- 
ing crops, or building houses or establishing good 
government. 

After questioning and cross-questioning, during 
which the accused woman bore herself with dignity 
and showed the " bold spirit and ready wit " so 
cordially disliked by the elders, Anne Hutchinson 
spoke of " revelation," and of her sure faith that she 
would be saved from all danger, which was nothing 



24 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

more than the expression of a highly sensitive and 
over-wrought mind under a great mental and physi- 
cal strain. But the Governor and judges saw in all 
she said an evidence of depravity, and her sentence, 
as pronounced in the Court, stands upon the records 
of Massachusetts in these words : " Mrs. Hutchinson, 
wife of Mr. William Hutchinson, being convicted 
for traducing the ministers and their ministry in the 
country, she declared voluntarily her revelation 
that she should be delivered and the Court ruined 
with their posterity, and therefor was banished, and 
in the meanwhile was committed to Mr. Joseph 
Wilde, of Roxbury, until the Court shall dispose 
of her." 

At the conclusion of the trial, when she heard the 
verdict of banishment, Anne Hutchinson rose and 
turning to Winthrop said boldly: 

" I desire to know wherefore I am banished ? " 
and he replied with high-handed superciliousness : 

" Say no more ; the Court knows wherefore, and 
is satisfied." This question and reply are an epitome 
of the former's daring and the judge's lack of 
justice. 

Joseph Wilde was the brother of the Wilde who 
had been her bitterest enemy, and who had called 
her the "American Jezebel," so she had little to 
expect in the way of consideration and comfort 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 2^ 

until the "Court should dispose of her." But the 
banished woman had followers, and the Court found 
it expedient to issue an order that all '* those whose 
names are underwritten shall upon warning, given 
or left at their dwelling-houses, deliver .... 
all such guns, pistols, swords, powder, shot, and 
matches, as they shall be owners of, or have in their 
custody, upon pain of ten pounds for every default 
to be made thereof.'' 

This shows that the magistrates feared violence 
from those who believed like Mistress Hutchinson, 
and who loved and revered their teacher. 

Though in delicate health and full of sorrow, 
Mrs. Hutchinson, prisoner, was not let alone during 
her stay at Roxbury. Two more " examinations " 
were held, in which she admitted that she might 
have been in error upon some points, and expressed 
sorrow for having at any time censured the minis- 
ters, but holding fast to certain points of her the- 
ology. 

With a harshness that seems incredible her ac- 
cusers now sentenced her as a " liar," and she was 
"excommunicated" from the Boston Church. The 
Reverend Mr. Cotton, who had once been her friend 
and ally, admonished her for her grievous sins, and 
two or three days afterward she was ordered to 
leave Massachusetts by the end of March. 



26 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

On the 28th of that month Anne Hutchinson 
set forth upon her journey to Aquidneck, Rhode 
Island, where she hoped to commune with God and 
her fellow beings according to the dictates of her 
conscience. Many Bostonians followed her, and 
amid the forests of the Rhode Island shores she 
found for a little while a peaceful life with her hus- 
band, her children, her friends, and the brave, wise 
Roger Williams, who was one of the first to teach 
that men should be free to worship God according 
to their various creeds. 

But even here she who had been driven forth and 
bidden to trouble no more the land of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay Colonists was not safe from her old 
persecutors, who still feared that a new and dan- 
gerous sect might arise in their neighborhood, and 
who sent zealous ones to once more snatch the 
brand from the burning. Many of these visitors 
continued their examinations, and admonitions, and 
spiritual advice. Mrs. Hutchinson, whose husband 
had died, determined to go with her family into the 
Dutch colony of the New Netherlands, where the 
magistrates did not care quite so much about what 
the colonists believed. 

She chose a bad time, however, for Governor 
Kieft, the Dutch Governor, had by cruel treatment 
aroused the Indians to a sullen resentment, and not 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 2/ 

long after the arrival of Anne Hutchinson and her 
little colony savage hostilities broke out. 

Anne Hutchinson had planted her settlement in 
the solitude of what is now called New Rochelle. 
Here in her rude cottage she was far from human 
aid ; but she trusted alone to Divine protection now ; 
among men she had met with nothing but injustice 
and persecution. A stream in the vicinity where 
her cottage stood still bears the name of Hutchin- 
son's river, and we may imagine how as the evening ; 
shades closed in upon them, the settlers would 
gather around their leader, who read from the 
Scriptures and exhorted them to continue fast in 
the faith she had delivered to them. As the candle- 
light shone and flickered on her strong face, with 
its lines of struggle and of sorrow, and the deep, 
dark eyes were uplifted in a passionate appeal for 
strength and patience, she seemed to the band of 
men and women who had followed her to this re- 
mote spot divinely inspired. Far from the moles- 
tations of their English brethren, but surrounded 
by dangers from the natives, and not near enough 
to claim the protection of the tolerant New Nether- 
landers, in whose colony they had settled, the life 
of the Hutchinson Colony was set amid hidden 
perils. 

But Anne Hutchinson, the banished exile, the 



28 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

excommunicated teacher of new doctrines, was as 
little afraid of the wilderness and the Indians as 
she had been of the power of the Massachusetts 
Court and the Boston Church. 

The country lying between Connecticut and the 
New Netherlands, now New York, was almost un- 
explored at this time ( 1642). No towns or villages 
dotted the desolate strip of land that bordered Long 
Island Sound. Governor Kieft's massacres had 
aroused the fury of the wild tribes with whom wise 
old Peter Stuyvesant had established friendly rela- 
tions. Suddenly, when the New Netherlanders 
were unprepared and unsuspecting, an army of fif- 
teen hundred swarthy warriors swept over Long 
Island, killing, burning, torturing all the settlers on 
Manhattan Island, carrying their savage warfare 
to the very gates of the fort at the Battery. Fire 
and blood marked their terrible progress, terror 
spread over Manhattan, and it seemed as if the 
natives had wrested from the white intruders their 
old dominion. 

Far out across the Harlem River, in the solitude 
of what is now called Pelham, Anne Hutchinson's 
weak settlement of sixteen souls was at the mercy 
of the merciless Indians. The chief who had owned 
the land of this section according to tribal laws, had 
sent an Indian who professed the utmost friendli- 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 29 

ness to the New England settlers, to find out the 
strength or weakness of the colony. According to 
the custom, no doubt, of the head of the Colony, the 
messenger was treated with the hospitality and 
kindliness that was a part of Anne Hutchinson's 
religion to show to the ''stranger" who should 
come "within her gates." But the Indian spy was 
the messenger of death, for that night the colony 
was attacked and every one of that ill-fated settle- 
ment perished by club or tomahawk. Anne Hutch- 
inson and all her children with one exception per- 
ished in the flames of her cottage, the cries of the 
massacred mingling in her dying ears with the sav- 
age cries of the fiendish murderers. The little 
girl of eight years, who escaped, was sent back by 
the Dutch to New England, where to-day many of 
her descendants live. 

It was the custom of the Indians to take the name 
of the persons they had killed, and Wampage 
proudly called himself " Anne's Hoeck " after the 
massacre, which is ground for the belief that the 
great chief himself was her murderer. A neck of 
land at Pelham, New York, bears to this day the 
name of " Anne's Hoeck " or " Anne's Hook." 

The brave woman's death was the end of the 
theological tragedy of early Boston, but it was the 
beginning of that religious freedom we have to-day. 



30 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Mistaken as she undoubtedly was in her methods, 
and extreme as she was in her behefs, her methods 
were in no wise unlawful and her beliefs were sin- 
cere, and many of them beautiful. Over two cen- 
turies and a half have passed since the martyr of 
religious intolerance turned for protection to the 
kindly Dutch, two centuries and a half have passed 
since she "sealed her faith with her blood" under 
the cruel hand of Wampage; yet to-day it is her 
judges that are judged and stand condemned by 
the decree of their posterity. 

There is little known about this remarkable 
woman's daily home life. No anecdotes have 
drifted down concerning her. Before she had 
reached the threshold of her new home in Boston 
her persecution had begun, for Symmes had already 
warned the magistrates against her. 

The story of her life is full of a deep meaning. 
It shows that violence and cruelty are the traits 
of inferior intellects, and that those who are pure 
in heart and steadfast in purpose are really the rul- 
ing spirits of the world, even though they die in 
upholding their principles. 

The names of Symmes, Houghton, Sewell, and 
Winthrop, and the weak Cotton, lie under a cloud of 
infamy risen from the cruel trial and unjust con- 
demnation of a pure-hearted, dauntless-spirited 



ANNE HUTCHINSON 3 1 

woman, who was driven forth from their borders and 
sent to her death by their persecution. The name 
of the persecuted exile Hves to-day in history as 
that of Anne Hutchinson, the heroine and the mar- 
tyr of the earhest struggle for intellectual and relig- 
ious freedom in the American colonies. 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 

Early in the seventeenth century there was liv- 
ing in Ravistock parish in the county of Plymouth, 
in Wales, a young fisherman, who. in his boyhood 
had been apprenticed to the captain of a fishing 
schooner that plied between the Welsh coast and the 
far-off fishing banks of Newfoundland and New 
England in America. This young fisherman, whose 
name was William Pepperell, completed his term 
of service as apprentice at twenty-two years of age, 
and determined to emigrate to the New England 
settlement on the coast called the Isles of Shoals. 
No doubt, young William had been in this region 
when apprenticed to the Welsh captain, and the 
safe harborage for small vessels when the win- 
ter storms were prevalent, as well as the abundance 
of the dunfish (a very superior variety of cod, and 
greatly valued by epicures), attracted him to this 
remote group of bleak little islands where the winds 
and waves made melancholy moan through the long, 
bitter New England winters, and where the Ne- 
wichewannocks were ever likely to swoop down with 
whoop and tomahawk if affairs did not go accord- 
ing to their liking. 

32 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 33 

Here William Pepperell, the Welsh fisherman, 
took up his abode, however, with a man by the name 
of Gibbons, from Topsham, England, and invested 
his earnings in some fishing boats which were let out 
on shares, the two young men staying ashore to look 
after the curing of the fish and to attend to the sale 
of them to merchants for southern and European 
markets. 

William Pepperell used often to sail across to 
Kittery Point, where he bought the necessary 
domestic supplies, and where he could buy new 
boats or repair damaged ones at the dock of John 
Bray, the shipwright, who was doing a tidy busi- 
ness and had already become a large landowner. 
It was at the shipwright's house that the island fish- 
erman first saw and loved Margery Bray, a lassie 
of seventeen summers, who was not proof against 
the young Welshman's love-making, despite that 
it was made in broad Welsh and that the shipwright 
himself desired some further guarantee of his 
daughter's comfortable support than William Pep- 
perell was yet ready to give. Margery was faith- 
ful, however, and the young Welshman was success- 
ful, and when his first vessel set sail for a foreign, 
port John Bray consented to the marriage, and they 
were wedded. The young couple took up their 
residence at Kittery Point at this time, Mr. Bray 



34 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

presenting his son-in-law with the tract of land on 
which the afterwards famous Pepperell Mansion 
was built. Here in this house was bom to William 
and Margery (Bray) Pepperell, on the 27th of June 
in the year 1696, a son who was called William, and 
whose birthday was to become an historic date in 
New England annals. 

As little William Pepperell grew in years and in 
physical proportions, his father was growing in 
wealth and importance in the neighborhood. His 
fishing fleet had increased to a very great extent. 
Hundreds of workmen were engaged in building 
the vessels that carried the lumber of his forests to 
the distant marts of London, and also in building 
vessels for foreign merchants, who found they could 
supply themselves with sea craft from the docks of 
the Piscataqua at a very much lower price than else- 
where. A flourishing trade had been established 
with the West Indies, from which ports cargoes 
of sugar, coffee and molasses were brought back in 
exchange for the lumber, lamp oil, codfish and furs 
with which they were laden on the Piscataqua banks. 

With the accumulation of wealth came military 
and civic honors. Pepperell Fort or Castle, as it 
was called, was a stronghold from which William 
Pepperell, the richest merchant in New England, 
wielded as captain of the militia, and later, as lieu- 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 35 

tenant-colonel, military authority. As Justice of 
the Peace and Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, 
the Welsh fisherman-merchant became an influence 
widely felt throughout the province. Young Wil- 
liam in early boyhood learned the use of a firelock 
and something of military service, for the garrison 
and fort had to be constantly in readiness to offer 
stout resistance to the fierce and sudden attacks 
made by the Indians, who at the time of the child's 
birth were at war with the whites, and who for 
years afterwards kept up savage and intermittent 
hostilities. While learning how to read and write 
and cipher from the village schoolmaster, he was 
also learning something of military discipline from 
his father, for one of his duties was standing guard 
at the fort when he was only fourteen or fifteen 
years old. Besides attending the village school he 
had a private tutor, who taught him the art of sur- 
veying land, a very necessary accomplishment when 
one remembers that his father's estate covered an 
area of one hundred thousand acres ; the art of nav- 
igating a ship, and a considerable amount of geog- 
raphy, both of which branches of knowledge were 
befitting the son and heir of a wealthy ship mer- 
chant who had many cargoes upon many seas. 
His handwriting was not only legible, but beautiful, 
and the few bits of manuscript that have escaped 



36 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

the ravages of time and unscrupulous antiquaries 
show that if the rudiments of grammar had been 
neglected, exercises with the goose quill had been a 
stern requirement. For, from the dates, one finds 
little William at ten years old copying his father's 
letters, keeping his accounts, and actually helping to 
write the Justice's docket. At an unusually early 
age he became clerk in his father's store, and was 
brought into daily contact with the principal set- 
tlers on the bank of the Piscataqua, for everybody 
traded with Pepperell, and so the boy learned all 
about trading and financiering, and, what was of 
greater value, how to read the minds and charac- 
ters of the men about him — perhaps the most nec- 
essary part of a business man's education. 

In our own times a lad scarcely would be intrusted 
with even the smallest details of a large foreign and 
domestic trade, and indeed it was a most unusual 
case even in the old colonial days, when the forms 
of both business and social life were both simple 
and direct; but the two Pepperells, father and son, 
were extraordinary types of mind and character. 

While the boy was acquiring a knowledge of the 
details of commerce, he was also living in an atmos- 
phere that fostered in him military ambition and 
heroic desires. One can easily imagine with what 
eager pride he watched the military parades of his 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 37 

father's company; how his heart thrilled at the 
boom of the cannon at the fort, and at Great Island ; 
how he dreamed of one day avenging the murdered 
victims and captives that had fallen prey to the 
cruelties of lurking savages almost within a stone's 
throw of his home; how his boyish soul was filled 
with a desire to do battle for the weak and helpless 
against the strong and cruel, and how he longed 
to be old enough to wear the scarlet coat of the 
King's soldiers and march away under the King's 
banner, conquering and to conquer. And all this 
was natural in those times when the ministers 
preached with sentinels posted all about the meeting- 
house doors and the worshipers inside knelt to 
pray with their hands resting on their guns, and 
mothers soothed their babies with some such mel- 
ody as : 

"Hushaby, baby. 

Daddy is near, 

His sword and his firelock 

The red men all fear; 

Hushaby, baby, 

Daddy is near ! " 

As young William Pepperell advanced in years, 
that branch of the great business which drew the 
firm into pecuniary relations with England was in- 
trusted to his care, while the elder Pepperell su- 
pervised the trade and the fishing interests. This 



38 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

contact and intimate acquaintance with the public 
men of Boston gave the young merchant an easy 
and courtly manner, which soon made him a social 
favorite and put him in the way of political and 
military advancement. He had scarcely completed 
his twenty-first year when he received the commis- 
sions of Justice of the Peace and captain of a com- 
pany of cavalry. 

He was soon promoted to the ranks of major and 
lieutenant-colonel, and at thirty was commissioned 
colonel, which placed him in command of all the 
militia of Maine. ^ At very nearly the same time 
— 1726 — he was chosen representative from Kit- 
tery, a position of considerable power, and in 1727 
he received the following notice of still another 
appointment : 

" Sir : I am directed by the Honorable Lieutenant-Governor 
and Council to acquaint you that you are elected and appointed 
a Councillor or Assistant for the ensuing year, and that 
your attendance at the Council board is desired as soon as 
may be. "Your humble servant, 

"J. WiLLARD." 

The letter is dated ''Boston, June ist, 1727." 
It is interesting to note that this appointment was 

^Although the Province of Maine was now under the 
jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the soldiers 
enlisting from that locality were said to be from Maine. 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 39 

renewed for thirty-two successive years, during 
eighteen of which he served as President of the 
board, which goes to show that the honor accorded 
this young man of thirty-one was not misplaced. 

Colonel Pepperell had become fascinated by the 
charms of Mary Hirst, the daughter of a prominent 
merchant of Boston, and the granddaughter of 
Judge Sewall, of York. The young lady must have 
possessed a great deal of charm, for the diary 
of Parson Moody of York, afterwards known 
as the unfortunate " Handkerchief Moody," con- 
tains the confession that he was completely bewil- 
dered by that young lady's attractions. It is not sur- 
prising that the handsome, dashing young officer 
with his wealth and rank should have outrivaled 
the melancholy-minded young schoolmaster, and 
that in a courtship in which gold rings and a large 
hoop figured conspicuously, the young Colonel won 
the fair Mary Hirst, the wedding being solemnized 
on the 1 6th of March, 1723. 

Colonel Pepperell's brother Andrew having died, 
the firm name had been changed to " William Pep- 
perell's," so that when he brought his York bride 
home to the Pepperell Mansion, it was on an equal 
business footing with his father that he began his 
married life. In 1730 Governor Belcher of Massa- 
chusetts appointed Colonel Pepperell Chief Justice, 



40 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

and the new-made justice, who wished to fit himself 
for his legal duties, sent post haste to London for a 
small law library. He must have qualified himself 
well, for he held the ofiice to the day of his death, 
and it is said of him that " being intrusted with the 
execution of the laws, he distributed justice with 
equity and impartiality.'* 

The same promptness with which he fitted him- 
self for whatever duty devolved upon him^ made a 
great deal of his success as a soldier, and was a key- 
note to his character. He not only dared to under- 
take difficult tasks, which shows courage, but he 
always set to work to find the surest way of accom- 
plishing such tasks thoroughly and intelligently, 
which shows judgment. 

The elder William Pepperell died February 15th, 
1734, leaving besides his namesake and son, five 
daughters, to each of whom he bequeathed five hun- 
dred pounds, and half of the household furniture on 
the death of their mother. Those daughters were 
Mary, who was three times married, her last hus- 
band being Reverend Benjamin Prescott of Dan- 
vers ; Marjory, who was married twice ; Joanna, the 
wife of Dr. George Jackson; Miriam, married to 
Andrew Tyler of Boston; Dorothy, who married 
first Andrew Watkins, and who contracted a second 
marriage with Joseph Newmarch; Jane, who mar- 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 4I 

ried Benjamin Tyler, and afterward became the 
wife of his brother, William Tyler. 

Judge Pepperell received very strong religious 
impressions at the time of his father's death, and 
soon afterward connected himself with the church. 
He entertained the visiting clergy at his house, and 
the great Whitefield was hospitably entertained at 
the Pepperell Mansion during his wanderings in 
the New World. To Colonel Pepperell and Mary 
his wife four children were bom, only two of whom 
lived to maturity — Andrew, whose handsome per- 
son and graceful manners made him his parent's 
idol and a favorite in Boston society, and Elizabeth, 
who was quite a belle in the seaport metropolis, 
where, in spite of Puritanism, the young people man- 
aged to enjoy a sort of chastened gayety. Elizabeth 
Pepperell formed a marriage with Nathaniel Spar- 
hawk, May I St, 1742, and lived in Kittery near her 
father's mansion. Andrew, the Colonel's only sur- 
viving son, became his father's partner early in 
1744, so for two generations the firm of the Pep- 
perells was increased to its immense proportions 
under the joint management of father and son. 

It was in the same year, 1744, that an event 
occurred that brought Colonel William Pepperell 
from local prominence to national fame. 

England had been involved in a war with Spain 



42 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

and had gained some important victories in which 
New England had shared. Spain was driven in her 
extremity to call upon her ally, France (always with 
England a rival for supremacy in the American 
colonies), to help her fight their joint enemy, and 
early in October a government schooner of Massa- 
chusetts arrived in Boston from England, bringing 
despatches to all the governors, stating that within 
ten days after her departure war would be declared 
between France and the mother country, and orders 
also from the Admiralty to all naval commanders 
on the coast to prepare for the impending war. 

All New England was now in a state of wild 
excitement, for war with France meant war with 
their near neighbors, the Indians of Canada. 

Governor Shirley, who had succeeded Belcher, 
wrote to Colonel Pepperell to " see that his com- 
panies be in readiness to relieve any neighboring 
places in case there should be any occasion for it.'* 
The commander of all the Maine militia had sent 
this characteristic letter to all of his captains: 

" I hope that He who gave us breath will give us the cour- 
age to behave like true-born Englishmen. 

" Your friend and humble servant, 

"" W. Pepperell." 

And in the terrible conflict that followed so soon, 
the brave fisher-soldiers of Maine more than ful- 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 43 

filled the hope of their gallant commander who 
signed himself their " friend and humble servant." 

France declared war March 15th, 1744, and Eng- 
land's declaration of hostility came a fortnight later. 
The French garrison at Louisburg, taking advan- 
tage of the priority of France's declaratioji, attacked 
Nova Scotia and marched a number of Englishmen 
prisoners into the stronghold of Louisburg. 

At the extreme and southern end of Cape Breton 
the French had built a fortified town which was 
almost entirely encircled by a wall of masonry whose 
ramparts were from thirty to thirty-six feet in 
height. This wall extended all around, except on 
the sea side of the town, while a ditch eighty feet 
wide made a circuit about two and a half miles in 
extent. Medieval moats and drawbridges with an 
encircling battery of thirteen 26-pounders made up 
the defenses of the little city, that was deemed proof 
against attack by land or sea, and which was called 
the " Little Gibraltar." 

By the treaty of Utrecht, signed in 171 3, Cape 
Breton was ceded to France, while Nova Scotia was 
assigned to Great Britain. Cape Breton stands on 
one side of the entrance to the gulf and river of St. 
Lawrence, while Newfoundland, thirty leagues dis- 
tant and directly opposite, stands guard over the 
shining river that receives the waters of the great 



44 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

lakes. As some historian has said, Cape Breton and 
Newfoundland stand *' like two sentinels " to guard 
the waters of the Gulf and Lakes. In the present 
state of affairs it was natural that the fighting should 
begin between the two islands, the property respec- 
tively of the warring nations, France and England. 

Both nations were engaged in the fisheries on the 
Grand Banks, which were within a few hours' sail of 
Louisburg. The fur trade of the French must pass 
through the channel, as well as all the European 
supplies sent to French and Indian Canadians in 
exchange for th 2 magnificent fur skins of the north- 
west region. The English colonies sent ship timber 
for the British navy by this route, and if Louisburg 
in time of war remained in possession of the French, 
the trade between Great Britain would be waylaid 
by French vessels and the English colonial fishing 
interests completely destroyed. 

Governor Shirley sent Colonel Pepperell to enlist 
the good will of the Penobscot Indians, but they 
declared they would not fight against their brothers 
of St. Johns and New Brunswick. This was indeed 
a very bad state of affairs, and the Colonies fully 
realized their danger. Louisburg must be taken. 
But how ? That was the question. The Americans 
knew of its feudal-like and well-nigh invulnerable 
fortifications. One officer, Vaughn, a daring fellow 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 45 

from New Hampshire, suggested marching into the 
walled town on its sea side over the snowdrifts 
which, the Colonials had heard, were packed hard as 
solid rock for a hundred feet, but the idea was con- 
sidered rather impractical, as it depended entirely 
upon the wind and weather. 

Governor Shirley was anxious that an expedition 
against the French fortress should be sent out at 
once, but it was necessary to act with the utmost 
caution in the matter. The Members of the General 
Court were requested to take an oath of secrecy 
about what the Governor proposed to do, and this 
silence might have been kept had not a good old 
deacon, who was a member of the Assembly, been 
overheard praying one night for Heaven's blessing 
on the enterprise. The boldness of the project 
astonished everybody, and the question was referred 
to a committee, who reported against it. A petition 
signed by prominent merchants of Boston and 
Salem, was next presented to the Legislature, and 
the committee to whom it was referred this time 
reported favorably. 

A majority of one, after two days' discussion, 
decided in favor of the expedition, and the martial 
spirit of the Governor was at fever heat. 

The question as to who should take command 
of the troops was a vexed one, but the popularity, 



46 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

the ability, the prominence, courage, and judgment 
of Colonel William Pepperell soon decided the 
matter, and he was appointed Lieutenant-General 
of the hundred vessels that were to convey forty- 
three hundred New England soldiers to the scene 
of military operations. Colonel Pepperell hesitated 
at first in accepting, but among the many friends 
with whom he advised, Whitefield, the great English 
preacher, who was at the time visiting at Pepperell's 
mansion, bade him "go with a single eye, and he 
would find his strength proportioned to his neces- 
sity." It was this eloquent divine, too, who gave 
the motto for the flag, " Nil desperandum, Christo 
duce," and thus it was that the valiant New England 
soldiers, fishers, and farmers, set forth like crusaders 
to storm Louisburg. 

Commodore Peter Warren received orders mean- 
while from England to sail with his West India 
fleet and join in the Louisburg siege, so that the 
men and oflicers of the expedition felt encouraged 
to believe that the hazardous undertaking might 
be successfully accomplished in much less time than 
they had hitherto expected. 

The American army disembarked at Canso, April 
29th, 1745. At eight o'clock the following morning 
they reached their landing place, Gabarus Bay, and 
the French, who strangely enough had not expected 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 47 

any such attack and had sent no spies out to 
reconnoiter Cape Breton, were panic-stricken. 

No time was lost in commencing the siege of the 
stronghold of Louisburg, which was one of the most 
remarkable military feats ever accomplished by 
soldiers of any country. 

The American troops landed and encamped almost 
within cannon range of the city's walls, and the 
siege was actually begun on the first day of May. 

The French, who had always considered them- 
selves safe from the assault of invaders, must have 
been wonderfully surprised at the sudden appear- 
ance of New England's soldiers, and when on the 
very first day of the Americans' encampment their 
grand or royal battery, which was supposed to 
make any attack ineffectual, was taken and its guns 
turned upon the town, they were thrown into an 
almost paralytic state. The next day both General 
Pepperell and Commodore Warren demanded the 
surrender of the city, but Duchambon, the French 
commander, who had plucked up his spirit by this 
time, haughtily declined. Day after day the Ameri- 
cans threw cannon ball and shells into the be- 
leaguered town, which was now almost without 
ammunition, and day after day the valiant French- 
men held out with the walls of their houses falling 
about them, the smoke enveloping them, the din 



48 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

and roar of cannon shaking the strong ramparts, 
that must soon yield to the fierce bombardment. 
Outside the city's walls a band of fishermen who 
had never before seen regular war, under the com- 
mand of an officer who had had no military train- 
ing except that acquired in militia service and 
skirmishes with Indians. Inside the walls a band 
of beleaguered citizens with little ammunition but 
brave hearts. 

The conflict was one worthy of the days of med- 
ieval warfare and of a poet's commemoration. 

But there came a day when the besieged could 
hold out no longer, when Governor Duchambon 
might have said, like Sir Guy of Linteged of the 
legend : 

"Sword, thy nobler use is done, 
Tower is fallen, shame begun ! " 

for Commander Warren's fleet stood in and 
anchored, and six hundred of Pepperell's command 
stood drawn up on deck, while the troops on shore 
were ready for a combined assault. There were 
breaches in the strong walls, there were deep flaws 
and gaps in the ramparts. Men, women and chil- 
dren rushed about the streets in wild lamentation and 
frantic grief. Duchambon knew all was lost; he 
sent a flag of truce to the allied commanders and 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 49 

asked for conditions. With a generosity that was 
as beautiful as it was chivalrous, the victors con- 
sented to the most favorable terms, and the gallant 
French garrison marched out with the honors of 
war to the sound of drum beats, and with the colors 
of France flying. 

On the 17th of June, after a siege of forty-nine 
days, Pepperell and Warren marched into the 
fallen city, the former receiving the keys of the for- 
tress. By the terms of the capitulation six hundred 
and fifty veterans of France, thirteen hundred mil- 
itiamen of the province, seventy-six cannon and mor- 
tars, and the famous port itself passed into the hands 
of the English. Pepperell gave a grand banquet to 
celebrate the event, and as soon as the news reached 
New England and Great Britain there were illum- 
inations and general rejoicings. "London itself 
blazed with bonfires, and the cities of the kingdom 
sent up addresses to the King," who straightway 
promoted Commodore Warren to be Admiral, also 
appointed him Governor of Louisburg and Cape 
Breton, and created General William Pepperell a 
baronet of the realm — an honor never before con- 
ferred on a native American except in the case of 
the southern Sagamore who was made Lx)rd of 
Roanoke. 

William Pepperell was now Sir WilUam^ with a 



50 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

coat-of-arms, in which three pineapples were repre- 
sented, referring presumably to his West Indian 
trade. The new baronet also received authority to 
raise a regiment in the British line, with the further 
privilege of appointing his own subordinate officers. 
On the 1st of June, 1746, a year after the cap- 
ture, Sir William and Admiral Sir Peter Warren 
arrived in Boston on the ship Chester, and were 
received with acclamations of joy by the people. 
On the 4th of July, attended by a great number 
of officers and gentlemen, Sir William set out for 
his seat at Kittery Point, where Lady Pepperell 
and his daughters were impatiently awaiting his 
arrival. His progress was almost royal, for he who 
had always been their beloved friend and neighbor 
was now a hero whose fame had been acknowledged, 
and whose military services had been rewarded by 
his Majesty across the great ocean. Truly this was 
a proud day for old Kittery. Cavalcades met them 
at every town from Lynn to Portsmouth, where, a 
troop of horses leading the van, Louisburg officers 
following with music and colors flying, Whitefield's 
flag in the advance, perhaps, the Council, Sheriff 
and a long train of gentlemen bringing up the rear, 
he was escorted to the Governor's house, where din- 
ner lay waiting, and a great dinner it was, no doubt. 
It is hard to realize to-day that such a gay pageant 




Sir William Pepperell. 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 5 1 

ever paraded through the sleepy, grass-grown streets 
of the old town, but Portsmouth was a great port 
in Colonial days. 

And a,fter all this military success and social 
splendor the newmade baronet was ready to resume 
his old associations and, as he expressed it, " to turn 
farmer " again. He had proved his daring in under- 
taking a perilous enterprise which, if it failed, would 
bring disaster upon the Colonies and ruin upon him- 
self ; he had proved also his prudence, his patriotism 
and his indomitable perseverance, and now he was 
ready and willing to go back to the simple life of a 
Colonial gentleman. His position as President of 
the Council, Chief Justice of the Bench, Colonel in 
the Royal Army, and Baronet, made a larger way 
of living necessary, and Pepperell Mansion now 
became a scene of baronial hospitality. Costly mir- 
rors and paintings adorned the carved wainscotted 
walls. The oaken staircase in the great hall, lined 
with family portraits, was so wide that six ladies, in 
the wide hoops and farthingales of that period, 
could trip down the stairs abreast, without danger 
to satin petticoats or brocaded trains. Massive sil- 
ver shone on the sideboards of the dining hall ; old 
and costly wines filled the cellars; deer stalked 
through the wide domains of his park; a retinue 
of servants attended to his wants. He rode about 



52 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

in a family coach that bore the "pineapples" of 
the Pepperell arms on its sides, and was rowed in a 
magnificent barge by a black crew dressed in uni- 
form, when he went abroad to attend to official bus- 
iness or to enjoy his neighbors' hospitality. And 
all of this feudal style was cherished partly because 
of his son Andrew, the beloved heir to the title and 
great wealth. Andrew's romance with Hannah 
Waldo had a tragic ending. Although both families 
urged the marriage, which was greatly and mutu- 
ally desired, Andrew from some unknown reason 
would delay the wedding day from time to time, 
until at last the young lady took her revenge by 
refusing to marry him on the day set when the 
guests had arrived and all but the bride were at 
hand. 

Soon after Miss Hannah married a young man 
by the name of Fluke, and two months later Andr,ew 
Pepperell died of typhoid fever. 

Sir William's grief over the death of his only son, 
upon whom all his hopes were set, was terrible. 
During the illness, which was from the first hope- 
less, he sent out pathetic appeals to the Boston 
clergy, saying " Pray! Pray ! Pray for us ! " 

But the Angel of Death did not pass over the 
house of the American baronet, and on the ist of 
March, 1751, Andrew Pepperell died, and broken- 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 53 

hearted Sir William wrote to a friend : " Have pity 
upon, have pity upon me, for the hand of God hath 
touched me." 

When the French and Indian war broke out in 
1755 the old hero of Louisburg would again have 
taken an active part but for Governor Shirley's 
jealousy, which made him give commands to other 
officers rather than to Pepperell. He wrote pathet- 
ically to Captain Peter Kenwood : " Governor Shir- 
ley would not let me go against the French last year 
and this, and now I think I am too old." 

Shirley, however, was recalled to England in 
1756, and, upon the death of Lieutenant-Governor 
Phipps, Sir William was made "de facto" Gov- 
ernor until the arrival of Governor Pownall. The 
Council Had appointed Sir William Pepperell com- 
mander of Castle William in Boston Harbor and 
of all the military forces of Massachusetts, with the 
rank of Lieutenant-General — and these officers 
were of very great honor in war time. 

In 1758, July 25th, Louisburg, which had been 
ceded back to the French, was again captured by 
British arms, and this must have been joyful news 
to Sir William, who had always sorrowed over the 
relinquishment of his hard-won trophy. The vet- 
eran of 1745 saw that the flag under which he had 
fought was to wave in triumph over France's pos- 



54 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

sessions in America, and though broken in health 
and inconsolable for the loss of his son, he was 
ready, like Simeon, as Parsons, his biographer, 
remarks, to say : " Now lettest thou thy servant de- 
part in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." 

On the 6th of July, 1759, just two months before 
the victory of Quebec, Sir William Pepperell died 
at the Pepperell Mansion. Along both banks of the 
Piscataqua, whose waters had borne his first pros- 
perity, flags drooped at half mast, while the solemn 
peal of the church bells of neighboring towns and 
the boom of the minute guns from the batteries 
mingled with the muflled drum-beats announced 
the passing from earth of a great man. Born the 
son of an uneducated fisherman, he, by force of 
genius and force of character, raised himself from 
humble station to elevated rank. 

It is remarkable that this fisherman merchant of 
Kittery, who had no soldierly training, was the 
leader of the most extended and difficult military 
expedition as yet attempted by the American Col- 
onies, before he had reached middle age. 

Gradually he laid aside the garb of the fish-mer- 
chant for the garments of civil office, the gown and 
wig of the Justice gave place to the scarlet coat and 
the cocked hat of the King's officer, and one can 
imagine William Pepperell, the sailor-boy, trans- 



SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL 55 

formed into the be-laced and be-ruffled Sir William 
Pepperell, Baronet of the realm and Lieutenant- 
General of the Royal Army, gold rings on his fin- 
gers, diamond buckles on his square-toed shoes, 
bowing low to the most polite of Dukes and Lords, 
and kissing the hand of King George with the grace 
of a born courtier, while all London echoes the 
praise of the hero of Louisburg. Truly it is a 
pleasant picture, and .one that recalls all the old gal- 
lantry of Colonial days, when America was King 
George's most loyal daughter. 

To-day the name of Pepperell is extinct on this 
side of the Atlantic, and the handsome old mansion 
has become the abode of humble fishermen. His 
grandson, William Sparhawk, took the name and 
title of Pepperell and sailed for England, being a 
loyalist, where some of the descendants of the first 
Sir William Pepperell are to-day. 

The descendants of Mary Pepperell, aunt of Sir 
William, are numerous in New England under the 
names of Frost, Prescott, and other representative 
New England families. 

One of Sir William's bequests was a bell to the 
town of Pepperell, since lost, which bore on its rim 
his name and these lines: 

"I to the Church the living call 
And to the Grave I summon all." 



56 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

His name has passed from the records of both 
countries that gave him honors, and his wealth and 
lands were long ago confiscated when his descend- 
ants remained faithful to Great Britain, but the 
fame of the hero of Louisburg still lives in two 
continents, and England and America join in proud 
and grateful memory of Sir William Pepperell, the 
first and last American Baronet. 



HANNAH WESTON 

"Steady^ boys, steady! Up! Up! There she 
goes ! Hurrah for the Liberty Pole ! " 

A crowd of men, women and children were gath- 
ered together in an open space near the waterside 
of the little village of Machias, on a certain Saturday 
morning in the year 1775, to watch the planting of 
a very tall pole that towered high above the house- 
tops and tree-tops of the village, and was plainly 
visible for some distance down the river. 

" Hurrah ! Hurrah for the Liberty Pole ! Hur- 
rah! Hurrah!" The shout was taken up first by 
one voice and then another until a resounding chorus 
filled the air, for news had just come that the 
farmer-soldiers of Lexington had beaten the 
Britishers in a fair fight, and every heart in Machias 
thrilled with joy and pride. 

" Look, neighbors," said an old man in the 
crowd suddenly. " There comes the King's 
schooner with the provisions that Captain Ichabod 
Jones promised should be sent us. The King's man 
aboard her will not join in your * hurrahs/ I war- 
rant you." 

57 



58 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

**Who cares for the King's man? Let them 
come! " cried a young man known as Jerry O'Brien. 
As he spoke, the schooner, with two sloops under 
her convoy, dropped anchor and a few moments 
later Captain Moore, her commander, came ashore. 
"What's that?" he inquired, pointing to the pole. 
There was silence for a moment. Then Jerry 
« O'Brien's voice rang out. " 'Tis a Liberty Pole, 
sir.'^ 

"It must come down," said the Englishman 
haughtily. " Who raised it ? " 

" The people of Machias, sir." 

" In the name of the King, whom I represent, it 
must come down," ordered Captain Moore. 

" In the name of the people of Machias, it will 
stand," retorted young O'Brien. These bold words 
produced a curious effect. The villagers who had 
a moment before been so valiant in their hurrahs, 
were now somewhat frightened by this outburst of 
defiance, while the young English officer appeared 
to be swayed by conflicting emotions. His face 
paled and flushed by turns as he stood for a 
moment irresolute; then, as if brought to a sudden 
determination to give an object lesson in British 
authority, he said slowly : " If it is no^ taken down 
within twenty-four hours I shall be obliged to fire 
upon the town," and without further words. Cap- 



HANNAH WESTON 59 

tain Moore and his officers rowed back to the Mar- 
garetta. 

The crowd dispersed silently, for every man felt 
that matters had now taken a very serious turn. 

Captain Ichabod Jones, who had arranged with 
the English Admiral Graves to bring provisions 
to the settlement on condition that a cargo of wood 
and lumber should be sent back in the sloops for 
the British troops in Boston, now called the men 
of the town together and asked them to vote 
whether or not the wood and lumber should be 
shipped back to Boston. Captain Jones was a mer- 
chant in Machias and a man of strong influence 
among the people. The very severe winter which 
had just passed had reduced the villagers to a con- 
dition of great want; there was a scarcity of many 
of the necessary articles of comfort, so that the ques- 
tion of refusing to send back the promised lumber 
and wood was a serious matter, for in such a case 
the sorely needed provisions that lay stored in the 
Margaretta would, of course, be withheld by Cap- 
tain Moore. Most of the men voted to comply with 
the English Admiral's condition. A few, however, 
were bitterly opposed to lending any assistance to 
the avowed enemies of the Colonists and stoutly 
voted against sending chip or splinter to the King's 
soldiers in Boston. Among these dissenters Jerry 



6o AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

O'Brien, the spokesman of the morning, was the 
boldest and the firmest. Finding that it was the 
desire of the majority to postpone a final decision 
for some hours, and feeling sure that the time was 
now come for prompt resistance, O'Brien called 
together the little handful of men who shared his 
views, and proposed to them to take matters in hand 
themselves without further consulting the more 
timid citizens, who would be sure to join them when 
the decisive moment arrived. 

"I'll tell what my plan is, friends," said the 
intrepid Jerry, after a moment's silence, " and then 
you may say aye or nay to it according to your 
mind. This Captain Moore has given us till Mon- 
day to decide whether or no we will take down the 
Liberty Pole, as you know. Well, why not * take 
time by the forelock,' as the old saying goes, and 
take him prisoner before Monday? What say you, 
lads ? I grant you 'tis a bold venture, but the times 
are desperate and need desperate remedies. The 
thing can be done if stout hearts and steady hands 
will undertake it. Well, is it yea or nay ? " 

"Aye, aye," answered a dozen voices as the men 
gathered closer about O'Brien, who was unanimously 
voted the leader of the enterprise which he had pro- 
posed, and which they felt he was fitted to carry 
out. 



HANNAH WESTON 6l 

"And now since we are ready to follow you/* 
said a young fellow by the name of Foster, " 'tis but 
fair to know your plan." 

"And so you shall," replied O'Brien. "It is 
this: To take this Captain Moore, who proposes 
to fire upon the town Monday next, a prisoner in 
the church to-morrow and show him and his royal 
master that Maine haymakers can fight for their 
rights as valiantly as Massachusetts farmers." 

" 'Tis a fine plan, Jerry, but how can it be accom- 
plished ? " asked one of the men. " If we could get 
the men from Pleasant River and Jonesboro to join 
us there might be some chance, but Jonesboro is six- 
teen miles away " 

" We must send trusty messengers to Josiah Wes- 
ton in Jonesboro this very day. There is time to 
get there now before night — who will go for help ? 
We can ill spare more than one man — which one of 
you will go ? " 

" I will," cried a voice, as a stalwart young fel- 
low stepped forward. "I can follow the trail and 
get there in good season, if I start at once." 

" Then be off without delay," said O'Brien. " Go 
straight to the house of Josiah Weston and bid him 
bring men and ammunition, for we are sorely in 
need of both. Tell him if we fall short of bullets 
we'll fight with pitchforks. And now lose no time. 



J 



62 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

for time is precious to-day, but go and God speed 
you." 

Without further word the messenger, with a 
silent nod of his head, turned from the little group 
and plunged into the forest. 

" Come, my men," said O'Brien, " there is much 
to be done ; remember, every man of you must go to 
service to-morrow morning and be on his guard. I 
will sit in the pew behind Moore, and when the 
recruits have surrounded the church^ I will give the 
signal. If our plan succeeds we'll man the Mar- 
garetta with stout Machias sailors who will show 
what haymakers can do at sea; if we fail — we will 
each lose a head, mayhap ! " 

" Better lose our heads than make no stand to 
keep our liberties," said one. " But we will not 
fail," and with these words that were more confi- 
dent, perhaps, than his heart, the speaker and the 
rest of the plotters dispersed, fearing that a too pro- 
longed interview might be observed and cause 
suspicion. 

As night drew on a few of the most trusted vil- 
lagers were taken into the confidence of O'Brien 
and his men, who did not disguise the fact that they 
were on the eve of a desperate undertaking. With 
no trained soldiers and a very scant supply of 
ammunition, a few hardy farmers were going to 



HANNAH WESTON 63 

seize the King's officers and to venture an attack 
upon a man-of-war flying the flag of Great Britain. 
There was one chance for success against a hun- 
dred of failure, ^ and on this one chance hung the 
Hves of the leaders of this exploit, for if they 
escaped the bullets of the Margaretta's crew they 
would, in the case of defeat, be tried for treason 
against the Crown and would be hanged or shot as 
traitors. 

Meantime, the messenger to Jonesboro had 
reached the little settlement, and his appeal for help 
had met with a prompt response from the men of 
the place, who assembled at the house of Josiah 
Weston to talk over the plan of the morrow's attack 
and from' which point they started upon the long 
march to their distressed neighbors in Machias. 
The men were eager to join in the adventure, and 
the women bade farewell to fathers, husbands, and 
brothers with heavy hearts but cheerful faces. 

As Josiah Weston stood in the doorway of his 
humble cottage and said good-by to his wife, Han- 
nah, and his sister, Rebecca, none of the three 
dreamed that before they should meet again each 
one of that little family party would have enrolled 
his and her name in the long list of historic patriots, 
and that one of them would have done a deed that 
would be told in song and story to succeeding gen- 



64 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

erations of American boys and girls as long as the 
word heroine remains in the English language. 

But there was no thought of heroism or fame in 
the minds of any of the three that day ; no thought 
of anything except the danger threatening their 
country and their neighbors in Machias, who were 
about to strike a bold blow against English tyranny 
and for American liberty. 

As the recruits passed out of sight down the road 
Hannah Weston sighed. Husband and brother were 
gone to join O'Brien, whose intended attack she 
believed to be an almost desperate venture. 

"What will they do for ammunition, Hannah?" 
asked the younger woman. " 'Twas only yesterday 
that I heard one of the men say that there was not 
enough powder left to shoot a partridge, and the 
bullets are gone too. Mrs. O'Brien, so the messen- 
ger from Machias said, melted her pewter teapot 
to run some only a day or two ago/* and Mistress 
Rebecca shook her head dolefully. 

" Melted her teapot for pewter bullets? *' repeated 
Hannah Weston, a new thought flashing through 
her brain. " Do you wait here, Rebecca, and get 
the supper. I am going out for a little while," and 
Hannah hastily put on her bonnet and shawl and 
hurried out of the cottage. 

" What can she be thinking about to start off 



HANNAH WESTON 65 

a-visiting when Josiah and Sam have gone to get 
themselves shot or taken prisoners by Captain 
Moore, and never a civil word of explanation about 
her errand ! '* 

But notwithstanding Mistress Rebecca^s curiosity 
and vexation, she set about getting the supper as 
cheerfully as she could, for, after all, Hannah was 
sure to do the right thing, and in good time she 
would hear all about her mysterious visits. 

The broiled salmon that Sam had brought in a 
few hours before and the haunch of venison that had 
been roasting before the kitchen fire were smoking 
on the table, and the rye cakes were done to exactly 
the right shade of brown when Rebecca spied her 
sister-in-law coming through the gateway. Peer- 
ing through the gathering twilight, the girl saw 
that Hannah carried in her arms a bag of something 
that appeared both bulky and heavy. 

" Why, whatever have you got there ? '* she asked 
in a voice that expressed querulous surprise. 

"Bullets!" said Hannah triumphantly, as she 
emptied the bag of its contents. Out there tumbled 
and clattered pewter mugs, platters, saucepans, and 
all sorts and sizes of spoons before the astonished 
and round-eyed maiden. 

" Quick, Rebecca ! " continued Hannah, "we must 
melt these and run bullets for the men at Machias." 



66 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

" Machias ! " gasped the girl. " Why, Machias is 
sixteen good miles away ! " 

" Never mind, they must have ammunition ; if 
there be not time to melt them, these pewter dishes 
must go as they are ! " 

"Who is to take them?'* 

" There is the trouble, Rebecca ; I tried to find a 
man who would undertake the journey, but not a 
man was to be found ! " 

" Then you have had .your pains for nothing,'' 
said Rebecca, "and I could have told you as much 
if you had spoken your mind before you went after 
all these pots and pans." 

" If no one else can be found, Fll take them ! " 
said Hannah calmly. 

The girl's face flushed hotly. She paused a 
moment, then lifted her head and said with a little 
break in her voice : " If you go, why — why — I will 
go too. I can carry the food and the hatchet to 
cut away the bushes, for there is no real road and 
we'll have to follow the trees that the men said they 
would 'spot' for a path to come back by — if they 
ever come back ! " 

"That's a brave girl! That was spoken like a 
Weston! And now we must get to work." 

By the time the first streaks of gray were show- 
ing along the eastern sky the two women were ready 



HANNAH WESTON 67 

to set out upon their journey. The pewter platters 
and spoons were secured in Hannah's strongest pil- 
lowcase, which made a burden of forty pounds to 
be borne over a distance of marsh and forest but 
little traveled save by the Indians and the wolves. 

Shouldering the pillowcase of material for am- 
munition, Hannah Weston, followed by Rebecca, 
who carried a small hatchet and a basket of food, 
set forth upon her perilous enterprise, with that 
confidence in God's protection that animated the 
women of those dark days with courage and upheld 
them with fortitude. 

To the neighbors who had watched them depart, 
and who had tried to dissuade Hannah from her 
purpose, she had answered : " The men need these," 
pointing to the pillowcase. " The only man who 
passed through here yesterday is now hiding in the 
woods. I feel that we can find the way — ^at least 
we can try." 

"'Tis only geese that stray so far" croaked 
Goody Fosdick as she waved her kerchief to the 
two determined women whose figures were disap- 
pearing down the road where the white light of the 
morning lay chill and cheerless. Such a journey 
even at the present time would scarcely be safe for 
two unprotected women, but a hundred and twenty- 
five years ago it was an undertaking of so much 



68 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

peril that nothing but calm judgment and calmer 
courage could have made it possible. 

It was necessary to clear a path at frequent inter- 
vals, and the masses of tangled weeds and briers 
rendered progress so slow that the day was far 
advanced before they had reached more than half 
of the journey's length that lay before them. As 
the evening shadows began to close in upon them 
the brave travelers clung closer to each other and 
tried to quicken their steps, for the fear they dared 
not to voice was growing upon them — they had lost 
their way. 

Now and then the hoot of an owl or the whining 
cry of a wolf spurred them on to renewed efforts, 
but the bag of pewter seemed to grow heavier with 
every step, and in the growing darkness they 
stumbled repeatedly over the rocks and brambles. 
At last they were compelled to sit down. Rebecca 
was almost fainting from fatigue and Hannah, 
whose courage had stimulated the younger girl to 
unwonted exertions, was now beginning to fear the 
consequences of a night's exposure in the woods 
and its attending dangers. 

** Rebecca," she said, assuming a far more cheer- 
ful expression of countenance than she felt the situa- 
tion justified, " sit here while I go forward a lit- 
tle way and see what lies before us. I feel sure that 



HANNAH WESTON 69 

we will soon find our way out of this. We have 
avoided the river course, so there is little to fear 
from the Indians, who are friendly towards the set- 
tlers, and when I return in a short while, you will be 
enough refreshed, perhaps, to make the rest of the 
way. Be of good cheer, and remember that God 
reigns in the wilderness and desert as well as by the 
fireside." 

With these words, Hannah took up her precious 
burden and went forward alone. As she wandered 
on she found that her forebodings were realized, 
for no sign of the landmarks for which she was in 
search could be found. The weary Rebecca had 
fallen asleep from exhaustion, and lay with her head 
pillowed upon a moss-covered stone, happily uncon- 
scious, at last, of loneliness or danger. 

" I will go on a little farther," said Hannah to 
herself bravely. " It may be that if I can but reach 
the top of yonder hill I may be able to see the 
river road which must surely bring us to Machias." 
So saying she toiled onward, and at length reached 
the crest of the rising knoll toward which she had 
bent her failing footsteps. Looking downward, she 
saw stretched before her the river, and not far in 
the distance a house. Her heart gave a great bound, 
for she knew that the humble dwelling lay on the 
outskirts of Machias. 



^0 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Hurrying back, she aroused the sleeping Rebecca, 
" Wake up, wake up ! " she cried joyfully, but the 
girl would only lift her head, to fall back again in 
utter weariness. 

Clearly it was useless to attempt to go on until 
Rebecca should have a rest, so the older woman took 
from the basket some of the food and prepared as 
palatable a meal as the place and circumstances 
would admit. A fire was kindled on a great flat 
rock, for there was no longer any fear of possibly 
hostile Indians discovering them, and before its 
warmth Hannah sat down, weary and footsore, but 
with a sense of victory in her soul. 

After the slumberer had awakened from a long 
nap, and the supper had been eaten, the travelers 
took up their burdens and in the course of several 
hours, for they were now so tired that they could 
scarcely creep, they reached the cottage which Han- 
nah had seen from the hilltop. Here they rested 
until morning, for the kind inmates declared that 
they were fit for nothing but their beds. 

Next morning the news flew about the neighbor- 
hood like lightning, and when the wayfarers were 
ready to start once more upon their journey every 
woman for two or three miles around was there to 
hear the story over again, and to give them God- 
speed. 



HANNAH WESTON 7I 

The sun was high in the sky when the two women 
made their way into the Httle town of Machias, which 
wore a very busthng, important expression. 

" What, have you not heard the news ? " asked a 
woman who was hurrying towards the harbor. 
•■* The Margaretfa was captured this morning by 
brave Jerry O'Brien and his men, God bless them — 
and they say the young EngHsh captain is Hke to die, 
from a shot fired by Sam Weston." 

" Captured ? Then we are too late ! " exclaimed 
Hannah ; " but stay, tell us about it ; were any of our 
men hurt? " 

" Not to speak of," answered the woman. 
" 'Twas a great day yesterday for Machias," she 
continued. " Captain Moore went to church in 
the morning, and while he was looking through 
the window that is on the river side he spied some 
men coming across the river on log rafts. Well, 
he pretended not to notice them, but just went on 
listening to the parson, when all of a sudden there 
was a noise, a crash, and up he leaped like a flash 
and, springing over the seats 'twixt him and the 
window, was out of it and making for the schooner 
afore Jerry and his men could fairly get on to their 
feet. In a moment there was such a clatter as was 
enough to wake the dead. Women shrieked, the 
parson jumped down from the pulpit, and Jerry and 



*J2 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

his men chased the EngHshman with all the speed 
they could. But he was aboard the Margaretta and 
off down the river before they were well started on 
the chase." 

"And then what? Did they not pursue him?" 
asked Hannah. 

''As fast as they could get aboard the lumber 
sloop," was the reply. *' The schooner went with all 
her speed, but the sloop followed her faster, and at 
last they came alongside of each other, and then 
they boarded her and took her. Jerry's brother was 
the first man over the rail, but 'twas Sam Weston's 
shot that struck Captain Moore — the poor young 
gentleman will die, they say. Well, 'twas his own 
fault, meddling with pole-raising and the like — but 
be you on the way to hear the news? " 

*' We came to bring this — this ammunition to the 
men," said Hannah, " but we have had our pains for 
nothing." 

At this moment a crowd of men were seen com- 
ing toward the group of women, while a cheer rose 
upon the air. 

" Hurrah for Hannah Weston and her pewter 
bullets ! " was the cry that was taken up on all sides, 
as Hannah and Rebecca stood dazed by the din of 
voices and scarcely able to understand this demon- 
stration. 



HANNAH WESTON 73 

Then O'Brien and Foster stepped forward. " Mis- 
tress Weston/' said Jerry, who was always the 
spokesman, " we have heard of your brave deed and 
in the name of the people of the town we have come 
to thank you and this young woman here, who 
shared your danger." 

"We but did what we thought it right to do," 
said Hannah in some embarrassment, "and indeed 
there is small cause for thanks, since we came too 
late to serve you." 
^ " Nay," answered Jerry. "This pewter is in the 
nick of time, for I warrant you before many days be 
passed the English will be upon us again. I, for one, 
say let them come and welcome ! What daring has 
done once, daring can do again. And Mistress Wes- 
ton, I promise your bullets shall do good work when 
our visitors come ! " 

And history will tell you that Jerry was right 

Well, though the fighters gave much praise for 
that midnight journey through the woods, scant 
recognition came from other quarters. 

A merchant presented Hannah and Rebecca with 
twelve yards of " camlet," which was divided 
between them and made into two gowns. This was 
a scant pattern for two gowns, but the fashions of 
our great-grandmothers' days were very simple. 
Girls of our times would turn up their noses at such 



74 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

a gift, perhaps, but Hannah and Rebecca were 
greatly pleased and wore their frocks proudly, and 
for a hundred years their children, grandchildren 
and great-grandchildren kept bits of the famous 
camlet gowns, handing down from one genera- 
tion to another scraps of the narrow petticoats and 
short-waisted bodices as their most cherished heir- 
looms. 

Hannah Weston, who was a granddaughter of 
the famous Hannah Dusten, was born in Haver- 
hill, Massachusetts, on the 226. day of November, 
1758, and died on the 12th of December, 1856, living 
very nearly a hundred years. Her father, " Captain 
Samuel Watts, gentleman," received his title of 
" Captain " by the royal commission of King George 
the Second on the 4th day of May, 1756, under the 
hand of Governor Wentworth, and the Seal at Arms 
of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. 

During the ninety-eight years of her life this 
heroine of Machias had seen much of toil, sorrow 
and privation, but neither toil nor hardship nor sor- 
row quenched her brave spirit or hardened the sym- 
pathetic nature that made this woman always brave 
to endure and ready to help and comfort when dan- 
ger threatened or sorrow came near. One of her 
children was lost in the fire that made the home of 
her early married life a heap of dust and ashes, and 



HANNAH WESTON 75 

perhaps it may have been the memory of this grief 
that made her the tender friend of all children. 

Where sickness was, there, too, was Hannah Wes- 
ton, nursing, cheering, comforting, proving once 
more that the poet was right — "the bravest are 
the tenderest." 

Slim of nature and of medium height, she pos- 
sessed a great deal of physical as well as moral 
strength. At the advanced age of ninety-seven the 
old lady knit a pair of stockings for a fair, card- 
ing the wool, spinning the yarn, and knitting them, 
without the aid of glasses. In her old age many 
strangers came to her to hear the old Revolu- 
tionary tales she remembered and related so well 
and so clearly. Perhaps, as the shadows of her 
long life deepened around her, the scenes of her early 
life came back to her vision with strange distinct- 
ness, and more clearly than any, that long night when 
she carried forty pounds of pewter for bullets 
through fen and forest to help the Machias hay- 
makers take the Margaretta. 

Since the middle of the last century the grave 
of this historic woman has lain neglected and 
unmarked in the little sea coast village of Jonesboro, 
Maine, where she lived and died, but within the last 
few months her descendants from all parts of the 
United States have joined their efforts with the peo- 



"jd AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

pie of the remote town, and at last have erected a 
fitting monument to her memory. 

Standing before this tribute from the living to the 
long-forgotten and lately-remembered dead, the 
verses of an old poem come, like an old memory, 
unbidden to the mind : 

"The mothers of our Forest Land — 
Stout hearted dames were they, — 
With nerve to wield the battle brand 
And join the border fray. 

" Our rough land knew no braver 
In its days of care and strife — 
Aye ready for severest toil. 
Aye free to peril life ! 

"The mothers of our Forest Land, 
They sleep in unknown graves, 
And if they'd borne and nursed a band 
Of ingrates and of slaves, 

" They'd not been more neglected ; 

But their graves shall yet be found, 
And their monuments dot here and there 
The dark and bloody ground." 



CAPTAIN JOHN PAUL JONES. 

On a stormy afternoon in the year 1759 the vil- 
lagers of the Httle fishing hamlet of Arbigland, on 
the north coast of Solway Firth, Scotland, were 
gathered together in anxious groups along the shore 
to watch the progress of a small fishing boat that 
was bravely struggling to get into the shelter of the 
harbor. 

As the frail craft came nearer, her crew, which 
was made up of two — a man and a boy — was dis- 
tinctly visible. The man was doing what sailors call 
" trimming the boat " by sitting on the weather rail. 
The boy was making the fight, steering, handling 
the sheets, and commanding. 

Among the watchers there was one person who 
appeared to be especially interested in the boy in the 
boat. This gentleman was a ship-owning merchant 
from Whitehaven, at the time the principal seaport 
on the Cumberland coast of England, and he had 
come to Arbigland to pick up seamen for his new 
brig, the Friendship, which was ready to sail to 
the coast of Virginia in the Colonies. His name was 
James Younger, and he was a Lowland Scotchman 
by birth. 

77 



yS AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

As the northeast gale grew fiercer and the Httle 
boat tossed about in the teeth of the wind, the ship- 
owner shook his head. 

" She can't weather it," he said, as he turned 
away. An old fisherman standing by heard the 
remark. 

*' That's my boy John conning the boat, Mr. 
Younger; he'll fetch her in." 

It was old John Paul, the gardener of the Honor- 
able Robert Craik, a county squire of the neighbor- 
hood, who spoke, and his judgment in such matters 
was well known, for besides tending Mr. Craik's 
garden the old man had been for many years a suc- 
cessful fisherman. 

When a little while after the boat drew up along- 
side and was fastened, the Whitehaven merchant 
made haste to compliment the young sailor on his 
coolness and skill, and to the surprise of both father 
and son he then and there offered to send little John 
Paul as master's apprentice in the fine new vessel 
just about to sail for Virginia. 

Old John was flattered and young John was wild 
with delight at the prospect, so it was soon settled 
between them that Mr. Younger's offer was to be 
accepted. 

A few days later the Friendship sailed from 
Whitehaven with little John Paul aboard as a 



CAPTAIN JOHN PAUL JONES 79 

master's apprentice. Thirty-two days afterwards she 
anchored in the Rappahannock river, near the 
present site of the town of Urbana in Virginia. 

So it happened that the son of an humble Scotch 
gardener started upon that career which was to be 
one of the most wonderful in the naval history of 
the world. 

So it happened that the twelve-year-old boy 
began his seafaring life on the blue water which 
was to be the stage of conflict and victory for the 
future hero of the ocean. 

Being a sailor is not an easy thing now, but in 
1759 it was a very hard thing indeed. Most 
boys of twelve years who go to school and live in 
comfortable homes can have no idea of the hardship 
of a sailor boy's life — a life of struggle with the 
winds and tides, a life of strict discipline, stern 
command and prompt obedience, rough work and 
coarse food — a hard life, but the sailor boys loved 
it then and they love it now. 

One of John Paul's elder brothers, a long while 
before this, had emigrated to Virginia and had there 
been adopted by a Scotchman of the name of Will- 
iam Jones. It chanced that when the Friendship 
dropped anchor in the Rappahannock she landed a 
very short distance below the plantation of this 
William Jones, so that little Paul found the brother 



8o AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

whom he had never seen before, almost immediately 
on his arrival in the new, strange country. William 
Jones took so great a liking to the master's appren- 
tice that he offered to adopt him also. But sturdy 
John Paul, the sailor boy, showed now the same 
determination and steadfastness of purpose that was 
in later life one of his chief traits of character. It 
was very pleasant to roam over the great plantation 
and exchange yarns with the negro slave-children, 
perhaps — pleasant to cruise about the Rappahan- 
nock in the plantation sloop, pleasant to ride across 
country with his elder brother, and to go opossum 
hunting and coon hunting with the *' hands " at night 
when the work was done; but Paul did not forget 
his resolve. He had made up his mind to follow 
the sea, and he could not be tempted to change his 
purpose. He thanked Mr. Jones, but declined the 
offer of adoption, and when the Friendship sailed 
off little John Paul sailed with her. 

For the next ten years the young seaman con- 
tinued in the merchant service, each year gaining 
greater skill and experience. 

He was now in his twenty-seventh year, and it is 
not only a remarkable fact, but a lesson to every boy 
who has ambition, that this humbly-born sailor lad, 
who had had no schooling, no teacher, and, indeed, 
very little child life, was at this time as well versed 



CAPTAIN JOHN PAUL JONES 8 1 

in naval history and tactical theories as any naval 
officer of his age in the British navy. He was, 
besides, proficient in French and Spanish and had a 
natural grace of manner that made him the peer of 
those young gentlemen who had enjoyed the advan- 
tages of a college education and whose lives had 
been passed in court circles. 

William Jones had died in 1760, leaving the Vir- 
ginia estate to John Paul, if his brother died without 
children, on the condition that he should take the 
name of Jones. 

William Paul Jones was now dead, and by the 
terms of the will, to which the young heir consented, 
John Paul, now a captain in the merchant service, 
became Captain John Paul Jones^ Esquire, a Vir- 
ginia planter. This happened in 1773. For two 
years Captain Jones lived the pleasant, free life of a 
colonial planter, leaving old Duncan McDean, the 
Scotch head farmer, or overseer, to attend to the 
business of the tobacco crops and other plantation 
affairs. 

His tastes had always led him to prefer the society 
of cultured men and women rather than to be among 
the seafaring men who were to be found at the 
tavern and coffee house, and John Paul Jones had 
by his indefatigable study fitted himself to take a 
place in such society. 



82 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

The clouds from which the " lightning of Bunker 
Hill '* was to flash were gathering thick and fast. 
Early in the spring Captain Jones, with his two 
slave-boys, Scipio and Cato, went to New York in 
the plantation sloop, and while there he heard the 
news of the battle of Lexington. 

This was on April 19th. Under date of April 27th, 
1775, Jones wrote a letter to his friend, Mr. Hewes, 
copies of which were sent to Jefferson, Morris and 
Livingston, in which he suggested the wisdom of 
" armament by land and by sea," and in which he 
offered his services should Congress make "pro- 
vision for a Naval force." The second Continental 
Congress met on the loth of June, and a Naval com- 
mission was at once appointed. Ten days later this 
commission was authorized "to invite John Paul 
Jones, Esquire, Gent., of Virginia, Master Mariner," 
to give his service in the matter. From this moment 
John Paul Jones became the leading spirit of the 
commission and by his foresight, his practical work 
in preparing for the conflict as well as by the naval 
tactics he afterward employed, he earned and 
deserved the title of "Founder of the American 
Navy." 

But there were many disappointments before him. 
In the first National navy list John Paul Jones was 
placed a first lieutenant. After his important serv- 



CAPTAIN JOHN PAUL JONES 83 

ices this seems unjust, and many of his friends 
openly said that he should be Captain. " Let it go," 
said Lieutenant Jones. " Time will make all things 
even." And time certainly did. 

On the 226. of December, 1775, Paul Jones, who 
was the sixth on the list, was first to receive his com- 
mission. He was ordered to take command of the 
Alfred. Obeying this order, he flung out the first 
American flag on a man-of-war. This was the 
" Pine-Tree and Rattlesnake " emblem, not the 
Stars and Stripes. With him were Scipio and Cato, 
the two negro boys, and an Indian boy by the name 
of Jeremiah, know on board the ship as " Red 
Cherry." 

For two years Captain Jones was active in the 
naval service, and during this time took so many 
prizes that his name was already well known to the 
enemy as well as to the patriots of the country and 
the cause he was fighting for — America and Inde- 
pendence. 

In 1777, June 14th, Congress passed two resolu- 
tions : " That the Flag of the United States of 
America be Thirteen Stripes, alternate red and 
white; that the Union be Thirteen Stars in a blue 
field; representing a new constellation." Also 
"That Captain John Paul Jones be appointed to 
command the ship Ranger/' 



84 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Paul Jones saw a meaning in this event. " That 
flag and I are twins," he said. "We cannot be 
parted in Hfe or death ; so long as we can float, we 
shall float together. If we must sink, we shall go 
down as one." 

It is a pretty story that is told of how the first 
American flag, the Ranger's flag, was made. Down 
in old Portsmouth, where the Ranger was launched, 
a party of girls gave a " quilting party " for the pur- 
pose of making a flag for Captain Jones, for which 
he had given them very particular directions. The 
stars were cut from the wedding dress of Helen 
Seavey, who had just wedded a young officer of the 
New Hampshire Line, and the other girls cut slices 
off their best silk gowns for the field and stripes of 
the pennant which was to win a renown that would 
reflect honor upon the fair hands that fashioned it. 
Helen Seavey, Mary Langdon, Caroline Chandler, 
Augusta Pierce, and Dorothy Hall (niece of the 
Ranger's second lieutenant) are the only names left 
to us of the historical " quilting party." What girl 
to-day would not be proud to trace back to one of 
those maidens for a far-off* grandmother! 

The Ranger was ordered to take the news of Bur- 
goyne's surrender to France, where our American 
commission was sitting with the object of gaining 
the aid of the French. If our French friends had 



CAPTAIN JOHN PAUL JONES 85 

not given us their help, we might not have whipped 
the EngHsh when and as we did. With hard work, 
trying duty, and terrible gales to fight, the crew of 
the Ranger found time for amusement, and Charlie 
Hill, the youngest midshipman, made up a song 
which was sung in the forecastle long after Revolu- 
tionary times: 

" So now we had him hard and fast, 
Btirgoyne laid down his arms at last 
And that is why we brave the blast, 
To carry the news to London. 
Heigh-ho ! Car-r-y the news ! 
Go ! Carry the news to London ! 
Tell old King George he's undone. 
Heigh-ho ! Carry the news ! " 

The most important part of the Ranger's career 
was her exploits on the west coast of England, 
where she completely destroyed the shipping of the 
British at Whitehaven. On the 23d of April, the 
day after the descent upon Whitehaven, Captain 
Jones, with the Ranger j stood across the Irish Chan- 
nel. Hearing that the English ship, the Drake, the 
guardship at Carrickfergus, was out after him, Jones 
determined to wait for her. The world knows the 
story of his famous victory, how in reply to the 
Drake's challenge : " What ship is that ? " the Ran- 
ger's captain said : " The American Continental 
ship, Ranger, Come on. We are waiting for you." 



86 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Scipio and Cato and " Red Cherry," as the Indian 
Jerry was called, were in this first great victory of 
the new sea-power, the American navy. The young 
commander now tried to get a larger ship, but had 
to ask this of King Louis XVI of France — always 
America's friend. The favor was granted, the King 
giving him the ship Duras, whose name was changed 
to Bon Homme Richard, in compliment to Benja- 
min Franklin, who wrote under the name of " Good- 
man Richard." 

The Bon Homme Richard gained one of the 
most remarkable victories known in history. She 
and her squadron took the English ship Serapis and 
her consort with a force very much inferior to the 
enemy's. A curious thing happened in this bloody 
fight. The Bon Homme Richard took fire from 
the Serapis and was sunk by the ship she conquered. 
So fierce was the struggle that at one time the Eng- 
lish commander, Pearson, asked through the storm 
of shot and shell if Jones had struck. Back came 
the answer, that has become famous all over the 
world, '' I haven't begun to fight yet." 

That was the spirit of John Paul Jones, and his 
crew was with him, though Landais of the French 
ship Alliance behaved treacherously. Never was 
there a more gallant fight on both sides. Once an 
English officer asked of Pearson, '* Has she struck? " 



CAPTAIN JOHN PAUL JONES 87 

" No," was the reply, " but we have." Brave Dick 
Dale, Jones' first lieutenant, was the first man over 
the rail of the doomed Serapis. The fight was over, 
but the Bon Homme Richard was sinking fast, 
and Captain Jones had to move his men into the con- 
quered ship. The flag made by the Portsmouth 
*' quilting party" went down flying at the mast of 
the brave ship — the only ship on record that went 
down a conqueror ! 

The Duchess De Chartres, the richest lady In 
France, had given to the young American Captain 
the watch of her grandfather, the Duke of Toulouse, 
and with that grace that was born in him, Jones had 
said : " I will consult your watch to time my victo- 
ries, your Grace." 

After the battle he wrote to the Duchess : " The 
enemy surrendered at ten forty-five. I looked at 
your watch to fix the moment of victory." John 
Paul Jones was a courtier as well as a hero. 

After the war with England was over the 
Empress of Russia made him a Vice Admiral of her 
Empire. Before that Louis XVI had made him 
Chevalier of France, the only foreigner ever so hon- 
ored in that country, so that in spite of many early 
disappointments and the jealousy of many of his 
brother officers, John Paul Jones reaped a glorious 
reward for his labors. 



88 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Broken down in the prime of life, he resigned from 
the Russian service and went to Paris, where he died 
of lung trouble on the iSth of July, 1792, at the age 
of forty-five. He was found lying with his face 
downward and holding in his hand the watch given 
by America's friend, the Duchess de Chartres. 

Paul Jones had many faults, but he was a faith- 
ful friend and a true patriot. Had he lived, he 
would have been Admiral of France, for he was 
much beloved by the French people. He died in his 
boots and struggling. A sailor at twelve years old, 
a vice admiral of an Empire's navy at forty-three, 
Chevalier of France, Patriot of America, he will live 
always as the " Ocean-hero " of the world, the Cham- 
pion of Freedom, the Founder of the American 
Navy. 



ISRAEL PUTNAM 

One of the most wholesome characters in Amer- 
ican history is that of Israel Putnam, the farmer- 
general of Revolutionary days, and the boys* hero 
for all time. 

It is pleasant to think of his cheerfulness, his 
sturdiness, his quick-witted foresight, his practical 
ability — for Israel Putnam was born in an atmos- 
phere of morbid superstition and Puritanism that 
was not likely to foster the characteristics that 
Nature gave him. 

In one of the old Colonial houses at the foot of 
Hathorne Hill in what was once known as Salem 
Village, Massachusetts, but has since been incor- 
porated as the town of Danvers, there was born 
January 7th, 17 18, a son to Joseph and Elizabeth 
(Porter) Putnam. This infant son was the twelfth 
child in the Putnam family, and though the parents 
were in fairly comfortable circumstances, there were 
no very bright prospects ahead for this last of a 
dozen youngsters, all of whom must be clothed and 
shod and fed and brought up decently and in order 
according to Puritan rule and doctrine. 

89 



90 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

When the child was a month old he was taken to 
the meetingfhouse on Watch House Hill, and bap- 
tized by the Reverend Peter Clark, who christened 
him " Israel " in honor of his mother's father, Israel 
Porter. 

Salem Village was in early Colonial days a group 
of plantations or farms in the immediate vicinity of 
the town of Salem, but in later years this suburb of 
the historic old city was called Danvers. The dark 
shadow of the witchcraft terror still hung heavily 
over Salem and Salem Village at the time of little 
Israel Putnam's birth. The tragedy of 1690 had been 
played out to its terrible end only twenty-eight years 
before, and the gruesome tales of that strange time 
were whispered around firesides on winter nights, 
when the wailing of wind from the sea, and even 
the moving shadows on the fire-lit walls, made the 
grown-up story-tellers pause and turn pale sometimes 
as the children cowered about their knees. 

It is a pleasant thought, too, that Israel's father, 
Joseph Putnam, was one of the few who were 
wise enough and brave enough openly to oppose 
the foolish and cruel fanaticisms of the Reverend 
Samuel Parris and many other prominent citizens 
of Salem who took a part in prosecuting and perse- 
cuting helpless old women in the days of the witch- 
craft delusion. So fearless and honest was Joseph 



ISRAEL PUTNAM 9I 

Putnam, that even those of his near blood, Sergeant 
Thomas and Deacon Edward Putnam, his half- 
brothers, censured and distrusted him, while the dis- 
favor of his kinsfolk vented itself in such bitter prej- 
udice that his life was imperiled. For six months 
he lived in daily danger of being accused of being 
in league with the " witches," and kept his firelock 
ready for use and his best horse saddled, so that in 
case of attempted arrest he might be prepared for 
defense or flight. 

Israel Putnam was descended on his father's side 
from the ancient family of Putnam, or Puttenham, 
in England, his ancestor John emigrating from 
Astum Abbotts, Buckinghamshire, in 164 1. On his 
maternal side he came down from William 
Hathorne, or Hawthorne, who came from Wilt- 
shire, England, in 1630, and became a soldier, legis- 
lator and judge in the New World. Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne, the novelist, another direct descendant of 
this progenitor, has left a description of their com- 
mon ancestor that almost brings the stern old Puri- 
tan back to life again, as the "grave, bearded, 
sable-cloaked, steeple-crowned progenitor, who came 
so early with his Bible and his sword, and trod the 
unworn street with such a stately port, and made so 
large a figure as a man of war and peace." 

With all these surroundings, with the shadows 



92 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

of early Puritan fanaticism hanging like a chill mist 
that no sunshine could lift from the somewhat iso- 
lated seaport settlement, it seems strange that little 
Israel should have escaped the taint of a morbid 
fancy or the gloom of superstitious tradition. But 
there was a strong, brave, cheerful spirit in the lad, 
and a healthy body and sound mind are the best 
antidotes to superstition and melancholy. Nature 
had given these two best gifts to the boy, who, 
though a very poor student, learned all that Nature 
could teach boys, and was at an early age the cham- 
pion in every sort of outdoor sport. 

One of his biographers (Livingston) tells an 
interesting story of his fearless daring. Climbing 
out too far on the limb of a tree, while after birds' 
nests one day, the limb broke, and as he came tum- 
bling down he was caught by a lower branch, where 
he hung by his clothes, head downward, while his 
frightened companions stood gazing up at him, 
fascinated by the danger of the situation. The 
branch upon which he hung in mid-air was too high 
up to be reached by any of his companions, but 
Israel's quick wit found a way out of his dilemma 
that was itself decidedly risky. One of the boys had 
a gun, and to him the swinging Israel shouted: 
" Shoot the branch and break it." The boy hesi- 
tated, but young Putnam was growing more impa- 



ISRAEL PUTNAM 93 

tient every moment. " Shoot ! " he insisted. " Til 
take the risk." And so he was Hberated at last, com- 
ing down without any broken bones, but a multitude 
of bruises, which did not keep him from cHmbing 
the very same tree the next day. Now this is not the 
kind of story that members of the Audubon Society 
would consider exactly proper, for robbing birds' 
nests, we all know, is a sport that deserves immediate 
punishment, but the truth must be told, and Israel, 
we are informed, not only escaped a well earned 
punishment, but finally got the bird's nest. Later 
on, however, the chivalrous side of his nature showed 
itself, and there is a pretty story of his defense of a 
neighbor's daughter, who was sneered at by a big, 
burly boy twice his size, because her parents were 
known to be very poor. The taste for bird's-nesting, 
we may be sure, was gone by this time. 

Farming was just the life that seemed best suited 
to this vigorous, healthy, young man, and many a 
story is still told in Salem Village (now Danvers) 
of his strength and daring in taming a vicious bull 
that was a terror in the neighborhood, and of feats 
of strength that were remarkable for one of his 
years. Before he was of age he really had charge 
of the farm left by his father, and in 1738 he received 
his definite share of the estate. Here, in a field near 
his birthplace, he built a house for himself, to which 



94 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

he brought his bride, Hannah Pope, whom he mar- 
ried when he was twenty-one years old. In the 
rough farmhouse the young husband and wife began 
their married hfe, and here their first child, named 
Israel for his father, was born in 1740. 

In the same year Putnam, who had heard a great 
deal about the rich lands of Connecticut, moved with 
his wife and child to that region, where in partner- 
ship with his brother-in-law, Pope, he established 
himself. These two young men were really pioneers 
in this locality, for " Mortlake," the region in which 
they settled and which was in 1752 annexed to the 
town of Pomfret, was wild and unsettled at this 
time. 

The sale of this land to the young men was made 
under Governor Belcher of Boston, and the amount, 
nearly six thousand pounds, was made payable in 
bills of credit on the province of Massachusetts. 
Within two years Putnam had bought Joseph Pope's 
share of the land and had paid the whole indebted- 
ness to Governor Belcher. 

The Connecticut farm soon began to repay him 
his labor, and the young farmer not only planted 
crops, put up stone walls, sawed timber for farm- 
buildings, and cared for the beasts of burden on the 
place, but also planted and grafted a number of fruit- 
trees, introducing, among some new varieties, a very 



ISRAEL PUTNAM 95 

luscious and delicious winter apple called the " Rox- 
bury Russet," which he had brought from his old 
home in Salem Village. A great many of the coun- 
try people, who knew very little about his military 
career, were always loud in their praise of Putnam's 
" Russet," which they thought, perhaps, entitled him 
to perennial memory among his apple-growing, 
cider-making neighbors. 

It was here, too, that his name became famous as 
the hero of the great wolf hunt of 1742, in which the 
Connecticut farmers for many miles around joined, 
the tradition of which is still one of the favorite 
winter-night fire-side tales in the region of Pom- 
fret. The farmers of the neighborhood had for two 
or three winters suffered heavy losses among their 
flocks from the visits of a very sly but bold she- 
wolf, and were quite at their wits' end as to what to 
do, for every effort to catch her had failed. Israel 
Putnam had lost seventy of his sheep and goats, and 
a great many lambs and kids had been wounded. A 
few nights before this, her latest and most successful 
raid, she very nearly had been caught, barely escap- 
ing from a steel trap in which she had been forced to 
leave her claws. A slight snow had fallen, and in 
returning to her lair she had left tracks that led to 
her capture, for all along the trail one paw-print was 
shorter than the other three. This showed her 



96 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

route and proved her identity. Israel Putnam 
and the other farmers determined to pursue her, 
agreeing to hunt alternately in pairs. On reach- 
ing the Connecticut River the hunters were annoyed 
to find that she had turned in the opposite direction, 
so they had to turn back and follow the trail toward 
Pomfret. All night long they followed the clawless 
footprint, until they arrived within three miles of 
the Putnam farmhouse, where her den was dis- 
covered. The news spread like wildfire, and a great 
many men, armed with rifles and carrying materials 
for smoking her out of her hiding-place, hastened to 
her lair, which was among the crags and boulders of 
a steep hill. Here for twelve hours vain attempts 
were made to dislodge Mistress Wolf, who had evi- 
dently penetrated to a safe distance and did not mind 
smoke. Putnam's own bloodhound was sent in, but 
came out frightened and wounded, and could not be 
induced to risk a second encounter. It was now ten 
o'clock at night, and Israel Putnam declared he 
would go into the den and shoot her and bring her 
out himself. The rest of the hunters begged him 
not to undertake such a perilous venture, but the 
young Massachusetts hunter was not in the habit of 
changing his mind. He calmly took off his coat and 
waist-coat, tied a rope around his legs so that he 
might be pulled back when he gave the signal, which 



ISRAEL PUTNAM 97 

was a kick; lighted some strips of birch bark for a 
torch, and crawled into the mouth of the hillside 
cave. The opening was only two feet square, and 
the surface of the stones was coated with ice, which 
made progress within these narrow limits very dif- 
ficult. The overhanging roof of rock came down so 
low that he was obliged to crawl on his hands and 
knees, at the same time keeping hold of the torch. 
In its flaring light he presently distinguished two 
fiery eyes staring at him. The gnashing of her teeth 
and her savage growls grew louder and louder as he 
approached, and seeing that it would be folly to risk 
an encounter without a gun, he gave a vigorous kick. 
The hunters hearing the fierce growls thought he had 
been attacked, and forthwith jerked the rope back 
so violently that his shirt was dragged over his head 
and his back badly scratched. He had been face to 
face with the foe now, and he was eager for the fray, 
so arming himself with a gun loaded with buckshot 
he again entered the beast's den. Just as she was 
about to spring on him he fired, gave the " kick " 
signal, and was pulled out. Waiting for the smoke 
to clear away, he for the third time entered the rocky 
passage. All was now still. He touched the pros- 
trate creature with the torch and found her dead. 
Grasping her by the ears, he signaled to be drawn 
out, and in a little while emerged from the cave, 



98 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

dragging the dead wolf with him. This was really 
a very wonderful feat of strength as well as courage, 
and from that hour Israel Putnam was a local hero. 
The dead wolf was dragged to a house about a mile 
distant, and down that icy hillside, through the dark 
woodland, the little procession made a sort of jubilee 
of that midnight torch-lighted journey. 

In after years, when he became a hero in the 
French and Indian Wars, and a famous general in 
the American Revolution, the story of the wolf hunt 
in the Connecticut woods was told around camp- 
fires, as enthusiastic soldiers affectionately rehearsed 
the exploits of their beloved " Old Wolf Putnam,'* 
a name he carried throughout his military career, a 
name that stirs a throb of pride in the heart of any 
boy reader of American history. 

It seems a singular coincidence that the crest of 
the Putnam or Puttenham coat-of-arms is a wolf's 
head. It would be interesting to trace some wolf 
story back to the first of the name and race who 
took that animal's head for his heraldic device, would 
it not? 

After this episode the even tenor of farm life, with 
its sowing and reaping, its springtide and harvest, 
was uninterrupted until the year 1755, which was 
to turn the current of his life toward new expe- 
riences and a definite end. 



ISRAEL PUTNAM 99 

In the year 1755, the. conflict between England 
and France, known in history as the Seven Years* 
War, brought new dangers upon New England 
farmers, who until that time had scarcely realized the 
situation in which they were placed. The Seven 
Years' War was the fourth that had been waged 
between England and France, and the warfare that 
took place in the American Colonies was called the 
French and Indian War, though really a phase of 
the European conflict called the Seven Years' War. 
Each country, England and France, was jealous of 
her supremacy in the Colonies, and the French in 
Canada had won the revengeful Indians as allies 
against England. This enmity of the wild and 
savage tribes so nearly within their borders was a 
source of the greatest danger to the farm settlements 
throughout New England. When the hostilities 
between England and France at last culminated in 
a declaration of war in 1755, there was a call to 
arms. Israel Putnam joined the band of Connec- 
ticut volunteers who started on the long and difficult 
march to Albany, where they were to meet the other 
Colonial forces which were to assemble at that 
point. 

The Commander-in-Chief in that campaign, Gen- 
eral Edward Braddock, had planned four expedi- 
tions. One was against Fort Duquesne, one against 

L. ©F C. 



lOO AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

the French in Acadia, one against Fort Niagara, and 
one against Crown Point. It was towards Crown 
Point that the Connecticut volunteers were advanc- 
ing. At Albany the Indian allies under Hendrick, 
the brave Mohawk chief, joined the provincial sol- 
diers, for William Johnson, who negotiated all the 
affairs between that tribe and the Royal government 
in England, was in command of the Crown Point 
expedition, and he was both loved and trusted by the 
Mohawks, who readily followed him as leader. 

The Connecticut farmers, in their homespun 
clothes, their firelocks, hatchets, belts, cartridge 
boxes and blankets, made up in courage and daring 
what they lacked in military experience, and very 
soon proved to the contemptuous English that " a 
mob of countrymen," as they were sneeringly 
described, might be a very formidable foe. While 
waiting at Fort Lyman's, afterwards called Fort 
Edward, General Johnson heard from his Mohawk 
scouts that the French were advancing to Crown 
Point, so he decided, after a council of war, to ask 
the different Colonies for reinforcements, for he 
knew it would require a much larger force than he 
then had to resist an attack from the trained soldiery 
of the French. In response to his appeal the Gen- 
eral Assembly of Connecticut convened in special 
session, and it was resolved that that Colony should 



ISRAEL PUTNAM lOI 

send fifteen hundred more men, which were to be 
formed into two regiments, known as the Third and 
Fourth, of nine companies each, and Israel Putnam 
was commissioned Second Lieutenant of the Sixth 
Company in the Third Regiment. 

Perhaps Governor Fitch and the members of the 
Assembly had heard the wolf story, and thought that 
a man who would go alone three times into the den 
of a vicious animal, would be the right sort of a 
fighter; at any rate, the appointment was made, 
though Putnam did not receive the commission until 
after the battle of Lake George had been fought, in 
which he saved the regiment from annihilation by 
Baron Dieskau's French and Indians. Putnam and 
the gallant Lieutenant Nathan Whiting made a re- 
treat, but were able to send a murderous fire at the 
enemy even while they retreated. Dieskau halted, 
and Johnson ordered the Americans to throw up a 
barricade of wagons, trunks of trees, everything, in 
short, that they could pile up, and from this rude 
entrenchment the battle was continued. A complete 
rout of the French followed, and so the battle of 
Lake George, which had promised defeat, ended in 
a victory for the '' mob of countrymen." The dis- 
gusted French returned to Ticonderoga. Shortly 
afterward the Assembly's regiments arrived, and 
with them a remarkable man in the form of Robert 



102 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Rogers. An immediate friendship sprang up be- 
tween Putnam, who was now a Second Lieutenant 
in the Third, and Rogers. The latter was sent by 
Johnson to reconnoiter Crown Point. This was the 
first of a great many expeditions of this sort, and 
Putnam was one of the daring men who followed 
Rogers, who was shortly after made commander of 
what was called the Provincial Rangers, whose duty 
it was to serve in a corps independent of the main 
army. The " Rangers " had very dangerous work 
assigned them, and were selected for certain quali- 
ties, among which daring, judgment, coolness, a 
quick wit and a knowledge of woodcraft were essen- 
tial. Israel Putnam, who ** heard quickly, saw to an 
immense distance,'* and whose voice was "strong 
and commanding," according to his grandson's — 
Judge Judah Dana's — description of him, was 
especially fitted for warfare in which a wily savage 
foe was to be fought, so it was very natural that he 
at once became one of " Rogers' Rangers," in which 
he rendered distinguished service. 

It was during the unfortunate march toward 
Ticonderoga, that General Abercombie had most 
unwisely ordered, that the most exciting incident of 
our hero's life occurred. This was in the year 1758, 
and Israel had been promoted to the rank of Major 
by the General Assembly at Hartford. Young Lord 



ISRAEL PUTNAM IO3 

Howe, at that time Brigadier-General, was the fav- 
orite of American Provincials and British Regulars, 
and a strong friendship had been established between 
the gallant young nobleman and the blunt, fearless, 
honest Connecticut Ranger who had so often proved 
his valor and his discretion. Although there had 
been a treaty of capitulation signed between the 
French and English at the latter's defeat at Fort 
William Henry, this treaty was now declared null, 
for the French and Indians had broken its terms by 
" murdering, pillaging and captivating " the English 
whenever and wherever they could. Therefore 
General Abercrombie felt that no scruple of military 
honor held him bound to maintain the peace the 
enemy had violated. On the 15th of July, 1758, an 
army of fifteen thousand men set out for Ticon- 
deroga. It was on the route that the brave young 
nobleman was killed. Encountering a body of 
French unexpectedly, there was confusion among 
the ranks. 

Humphreys, the historian, tells us that when the 
firing began Lord Howe turned and said : " Put- 
nam, what means that firing? " " I do not know, but 
with your lordship's leave will go and see," replied 
the former. ** I will accompany you," rejoined the 
gallant young nobleman. In vain did Major Put- 
nam attempt to dissuade him. " My lord, if I am 



I04 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

killed, the loss of my life will be of little conse- 
quence, but the preservation of yours is of infinite 
importance to this army." The only answer was, 
" Putnam, your life is as dear to you as mine is to 
me. I am determined to go." 

The two officers immediately made a rapid move- 
ment forward, and although the skirmish ended in 
victory for the English, there was gloom over all, 
for the brave young Howe was the first to fall in 
the hot encounter. 

The next day the march towards Ticonderoga 
was resumed. Montcalm's defenses were skillfully 
built, and it was a mistake to have attacked such a 
stronghold at that particular time, but Abercrombie 
had been deceived, and so the unfortunate attack was 
made. " The scene was frightful," says Putnam in 
his Montcalm and Wolfe. " Masses of unfortunates 
who could not go forward and would not go back; 
straining for an enemy they could not reach, and 
firing on an enemy they could not see ; caught in the 
entanglement of fallen trees; tripped by briers, 
stumbling over logs, tearing through boughs ; shout- 
ing, yelling, cursing, and pelted all the while by bul- 
lets that killed them by scores, stretched them on 
the ground or hung them on jagged branches in 
strange attitudes of death." And through this 
dreadful carnage Putnam's daring stimulated the 



ISRAEL PUTNAM IO5 

provincials to renewed heroism, some of them 
actually forcing their way to the foot of the wooden 
wall. But heroism could not prevail against the 
overwhelming odds, or break down the fortifica- 
tions made doubly strong by Nature and by art. 
After nearly two thousand of their soldiers lay dead, 
the English were obliged to retreat, and this was the 
disastrous end of General Abercrombie's attack on 
Ticonderoga. 

Major Putnam was now again in the ranging 
service. It was at this time that he was captured 
by the Indians through the carelessness of Rogers 
himself, who, believing there were no traces of the 
enemy about, indulged in firing at a mark on a 
wager. Putnam's life was very nearly the price paid 
for this amusement. The reports of the fowling 
pieces were heard by a party of ambushed French 
and Indians numbering about four hundred and 
fifty. In the conflict which followed, Caughnawaga, 
a powerful chief, sprang upon Putnam, who led the 
front column of the rangers and engaged in a hand 
to hand fight. Putnam's gun missed fire, and 
Caughnawaga, brandishing his hatchet over him, 
forced him to surrender. Dragging his victim into 
the forest, where he lashed him to a tree, the chief 
then returned to the battle. The tree to which the 
Major was tied stood between the fires of the Eng- 



I06 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

lish and the enemy, and it was almost a marvel that 
he escaped the rain of bullets that crossed each other 
as they whizzed by from opposite directions in line 
with the tree to which he was tied. Balls struck the 
tree, some passing through the sleeves and skirts of 
his coat, yet not one pierced the body of the brave 
ranger. 

Sometimes a young Indian would come to the 
captive and amuse himself by throwing his toma- 
hawk at his head, and once a petty French officer 
leveled a fusee at his heart; the thing missed fire, 
and his cowardly tormentor struck him a terrible 
blow in the jaw with the butt end of his gun and 
then left him. 

The English were too strong to be forced, and the 
enemy retreated. Putnam's captors then untied him, 
loaded him with luggage, stripped him of coat, vest, 
shoes and stockings, and marched him in this cruel 
fashion over many a painful mile until they halted 
for a rest. After some consultation the prisoner 
was led into the depths of the forest, stripped and 
bound to a tree. He fully realized what this meant, 
for he knew Indian methods too well not to know 
that his captors intended to roast him alive. As they 
piled dry brush and fuel round him in a circle, 
chanting what was meant for a funeral dirge, he 
prayed for strength to die bravely, and made a mute 



ISRAEL PUTNAM IO7 

farewell to all he loved on earth. The fires were 
kindled, but a sudden shower quenched the flames, 
but they soon rekindled it into a fierce circle of 
flame. At this moment, when his fate seemed sealed, 
a French officer rushed through the crowd of shriek- 
ii^§"> gesticulating savages, and, making a path 
through the flaming brands, unbound the prisoner. 
It was the commanding officer of the allies, who 
heard through an Indian that Putnam was to be 
burned. Through the horror of this dark story this 
Indian's friendliness is the one gleam of humanity, 
and it is pleasant to think that he who bore the 
tidings to Molang was a chief who had once been a 
prisoner of Putnam's, and who had received from 
his captor very kind and generous treatment. 

Gratitude, the redeeming trait of the savage char- 
acter, touched the chief's heart, and at all hazards 
he determined to save the American's life. When 
Major Putnam was sent with other English and 
Colonial prisoners to Montreal, he received special 
kindness through the influence of another prisoner, 
Colonel Peter Schuyler of New York, for whom the 
French had great respect, on account of his wealth 
and military rank. Two weeks later he was 
exchanged on Colonel Schuyler's request that the 
" old man who could do no good here or anywhere 
else " should be allowed to go home with him. 



I08 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

If the French officials had known that this "old 
man" was only forty years of age and one of the 
most distinguished soldiers of the American forces, 
they would probably have held him prisoner until 
the end of the war, but luck and Colonel Peter 
Schuyler worked together for his liberation. 

Colonel Schuyler placed in Major Putnam's care 
a Mrs. Howe and her children, who had been pris- 
oners and sold to a French officer by the name of 
Saccapee. It is very pleasant to read how he led the 
little ones by the hand, carrying them in his arms 
over the swampy grounds and streams of water ; how 
he divided his food with the widowed and the 
fatherless, his strong, gentle nature delighting in 
aiding and protecting the weak and helpless. 

One can easily imagine what joy there must have 
been in the Connecticut home at Pomfret when the 
released prisoner, the scarred veteran, the loving 
husband and father, at last rejoined his family. A 
new baby stretched out its tiny hands to welcome 
the parent she had never seen ; four young daughters 
and a sturdy son hung upon the words of the hero- 
father who had come back almost as one from the 
dead. 

But there was one shadow that darkened the hap- 
piness of reunion, for Daniel, the older son, had died 
on the very day that his father was rescued from the 



ISRAEL PUTNAM IO9 

Stake by Molang, August 8th, 1758, a date of twofold 
memory, thenceforth, in the family calendar. 

The year 1759 ^^^ the plans for a triple cam- 
paign matured, Ticonderoga, Crown Point and 
Quebec — the last expedition under General James 
Wolfe — being the points of attack decided on. Suc- 
cess attended each of these ventures. Ticonderoga 
was taken at last, and Crown Point had been aban- 
doned before the glorious victory at Quebec, which 
cost the lives of the heroic Wolfe and the dauntless 
Montcalm. 

By water as well as by land the English continued 
to win victory after victory, and it was Putnam's 
daring and wit that helped to achieve success on 
more than one occasion. It was he who really took 
a warship in the St. Lawrence when the English 
were in great anxiety, their armed vessels being 
behind. Putnam, who saw that General Amherst, 
the English commander, was in great distress of 
mind, went up to him and said, " General, that ship 
must be taken." 

"Aye," replied Amherst, "I would give the 
world if she were taken." 

" I'll take her," said Putnam. This remark must 
have sounded very curious from a land officer. 

Amherst smiled. " How? " was his reply. 

" Give me some wedges, a beetle [a large wooden 



no AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

mallet], and a few men of my own choice," said 
Putnam. Amherst compHed with this modest 
demand, though very probably he thought it a most 
foolish undertaking. That night Putnam and his 
chosen men went in a boat under the vessel's stern, 
and it was but a moment's work to drive the wedges 
into the little crack between the rudder and the 
ship. Then he and his men rowed back through 
the darkness. 

Next morning she was adrift, her sails flutter- 
ing helplessly about. Very soon she was blown 
ashore, where she was easily taken the next day by 
a thousand men, whO' in fifty bateaux moved rapidly 
forward to board her. On the same day another 
warship of the French, the Ottawa, was taken also. 

Montreal finally capitulated, and half of the con- 
tinent changed from French to English ownership. 
Canada was conquered. George the Third was now 
— 1762 — at war with Spain. Charles III of Spain 
and Louis XV of France had joined forces to stop 
the growing power of England, which had lately 
gained much territory in America. This agree- 
ment between Charles and Louis was called the 
" Family Compact," because both of these kings 
belonged to the House of Bourbon. After conquer- 
ing Canada, the English attacked and captured the 
island of Martinique, and then the West Indian 



ISRAEL PUTNAM III 

islands, and the next step toward the possession of 
the entire New World was an attack upon Havana, 
which belonged to Spain, an ally of France. In the 
March o,f 1762 a fleet of two hundred vessels sailed 
from England and reached the east end of Cuba 
in June. Forty of these vessels were armed ships 
of war. Besides the fleet, the Earl of Albemarle 
commanded eleven thousand soldiers. Reinforce- 
ments were expected from the North American 
colonies, but these were not yet arrived. 

Connecticut responded to Great Britain's call for 
men, and agreed to furnish twenty-three hundred 
able-bodied and effective men. Phineas Lyman was 
appointed by the Assembly Major-General of the 
forces. Next to Lyman's name on the list is that of 
"Israel Putnam, Lieutenant-Colonel of the First 
Regiment." 

On August nth Havana surrendered, and it is 
interesting that Colonel Israel Putnam brought back 
with him from the conquered city an Orderly Book, 
in which was inscribed a daily record from August 
28th to October i6th, 1762, of all that was required 
of the American troops in Havana after the sur- 
render. One entry is of special interest, for it shows 
that these Puritan Provincials were ordered to show 
respect for the religion of the inhabitants. When 
Colonel Putnam returned home he brought with 



112 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

him a negro slave whom he had rescued from a 
cruel Spanish master. The Spaniard was beating 
poor Dick most unmercifully with a bamboo cane, 
when Putnam rushed forward and wrested it from 
his hand. As a consequence he was obliged to 
escape as quickly as possible to one of the English 
ships at the wharf, for an angry mob had gathered 
to wreak vengeance upon the foreigner for his rash 
interference. Dick followed his deliverer and begged 
so piteously to go aboard, that Putnam consented, 
and the faithful negro became his faithful servant for 
life. At his death the bamboo cane was bequeathed 
to Dick, who, for many years after his master had 
gone to his last reward, used to hobble about the 
streets of Brooklyn, Connecticut, leaning proudly on 
*' Massa's cane." 

The next eighteen months were passed peacefully 
on his farm, but in the Legislative records of Con- 
necticut, dated March, 1764, one may read that 
" This Assembly doth appoint Israel Putnam, Esq., 
to be Major of the forces here ordered to be raised 
in this Colony for his Majesty's service against the 
Indian natives, who have been guilty of perfidious 
and cruel massacres of the English." When there 
was fighting on hand Putnam's name was always one 
of the first to be called to the front. Pontiac, the 
powerful chief of the Ottawas, had sent war belts to 



ISRAEL PUTNAM II3 

the Indian tribes far and near, and had made allies 
of very nearly all the tribes between the Allegheny 
Mountains and the Mississippi River, besides the 
Senecas, one of the Six Nations. Atrocities fol- 
lowed, and it was in General Bradstreet's expedition 
against these enemies that Putnam and the Connec- 
ticut soldiers served. This was his last military 
service until the outbreak of the American Revolu- 
tion. The war against Pontiac ended in 1764. 

During the years that followed, from 1764 to 
1772, the soldier-farmer led a peaceful and prosper- 
ous life, though the shadow of death had twice dark- 
ened his household. A daughter died within two 
months of his last home-coming, and in the follow- 
ing spring he lost his dearly loved wife, Hannah, 
who left an infant of three months. It was this 
latter affliction, Livingston, his latest biographer, 
suggests, that caused him to become deeply religious, 
and six weeks after his wife's death he became a 
member of the Congregational Church. 

Putnam had always been somewhat democratic in 
principles, so that when the question of the Stamp 
Act was raised he, with the rest of the Colony, sent 
a memorial to England stating "Why the British 
Colonies in America should not be charged with 
* Internal Taxes.' " Foolish George III and his un- 
wise advisers, in spite of the signs of discontent, 



114 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

went obstinately on in their course of unjust inter- 
ference and imposition, and the hated Stamp Act 
now was passed by Parliament and received the as- 
sent of the King. When the news of its enactment 
reached America there was a storm of wrath. While 
north and south the voices of the people were raised 
in protest, Putnam, who had joined a secret society 
of workingmen called the '' Sons of Liberty," was 
taking a leading part in Connecticut. In the papers 
of the New York Historical Society there is a letter 
from a British officer, who wrote : " By advices from 
Connecticut matters are arrived at greater lengths 
than in any other province, having already provided 
themselves with a magazine for arms, ammunition, 
etcetera, and 10,000 men at the shortest warning for 
opposing the Stamp Act, all under the command of 
a Connecticut man called Col. Putnam, one that has 
received his Majesty's money, having been employed 
during the war as a British Colonel.'* When the 
Stamp Act was repealed there was general rejoicing 
that the breaches between Crown and Colony had 
been healed. 

In 1767 Colonel Putnam married Madam Gardi- 
ner (Deborah Lothrop Gardiner), the widow of 
John Gardiner of Gardiner's Island, New York, by 
which marriage he won new social dignity. 

The Colonel was so popular and his new wife so 




Israel Putnam. 



ISRAEL PUTNAM II5 

agreeable that their hospitaHty was greatly over- 
taxed. So much so that with Yankee thrift he 
moved his estabhshment to Brooklyn Green and 
hung out a sign: " Public Entertainment." The sign 
had the figure of General Wolfe in full uniform, and 
is to-day one of the most interesting relics in the 
rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society at Hart- 
ford. Besides being host of the village inn, Colonel 
Putnam was further honored by being voted bell 
ringer of the Meeting, at "the price of three 
pounds." A curious bit of history this seems in the 
light of our present ideas of social distinctions, but 
life in 1772 was a very simple affair indeed, we may 
infer. The relations between the Colonies, and 
especially the town of Boston, and England were 
of course very much strained after the affair of the 
Boston Tea Party and the Boston Port Bill. General 
Gage, under whose command Putnam had fought in 
the French and Indian War, was now Military Gov- 
ernor, and twenty ships of the line and twenty regi- 
ments were being held by Great Britain in readiness 
to send across the sea if submission was not very 
soon made. 

All the Colonies did what they could to show 
their sympathy with the Bostonians, and Colonel 
Putnam came up from Connecticut with a flock of 
one hundred and twenty sheep for the citizens in 



Il6 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

case things came to such extremities that they suf- 
fered for food. On the Common, where the British 
headquarters were, the bluff, blunt American officer 
met Lord Percy, General Gage, and many officers 
with whom he had been a brother at arms. 

The Britishers warmly welcomed their old com- 
rade, and joked him about coming down to fight. 
One officer asked him if he did not believe that an 
army of 5000 British veterans could march through 
the whole continent of America. " No doubt, no 
doubt," replied Putnam, " if they behaved civilly and 
paid well for everything they wanted; but if they 
should attempt it in a hostile manner (though the 
American men were out of the question), the women 
with their ladles and broomsticks would knock them 
all on the head before they got half through." 

Under all this jesting there was serious meaning, 
and the English soon found out the Connecticut 
farmer and soldier was not far wrong. Putnam and 
his son Daniel were plowing in a field when a mes- 
senger brought the Colonel word that the British 
had fired on the militia at Lexington, killing six men, 
and were on their march into the country. 

Israel Putnam did not stop to unyoke his team, 
but mounted a horse and started out to give the 
alarm. He was ordered by Governor Trumbull to 
go straightway to Boston. Eighteen hours later he 



ISRAEL PUTNAM II7 

was In Concord, having ridden in that time a hun- 
dred miles. 

Returning to Connecticut, the Assembly appointed 
him Second Brigadier General, only two officers 
ranking him. From this moment began an unin- 
terrupted term of signal service to his country. 
Washington recognized in him a bold leader, and 
the younger officers looked up to the veteran of the 
French and Indian War with respect and admiration. 
About the Battle of Bunker Hill there has been 
much controversy in regard to the commanding offi- 
cer in that engagement. " There seems to have been 
no specific direction in regard to the general com- 
mand in the Charlestown Peninsula, in case of an 
engagement there with the enemy, issued by General 
Ward," writes Livingston, the latest biographer of 
Putnam. " His orders to Prescott," continues this 
writer, " related only to the special duty of building 
and defending the redoubt itself. Patriotic interests, 
However, outweighed military technicalities. Put- 
nam was preparing to go on the field to exercise by 
virtue of his rank such authority as the pressing 
emergency might demand." It was in this glorious 
defeat, as we may call the Battle of Bunker Hill, 
that the noble young Warren was killed. This 
young hero ranked Putnam, but he had declined the 
command, leaving that officer the ranking officer. 



Il8 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

But through the din and roar and blood and agony 
of that fierce battle there were here and there in- 
stances of remembered love and comradeship be- 
tween those who were now engaged in conflict. 
Major Small, a British officer, was alone and sur- 
rounded by a body of American soldiers who were 
leveling their guns at him, when Putnam rushed in 
and striking up the muzzles of their guns with his 
sword called out : " For God's sake, my lads, don't 
fire at that man. I love him as I do my brother ! " 
While General Abercrombie, who was being borne 
from the field mortally wounded, gasped, " If you 
take Putnam alive, don't hang him^ for he's a brave 
man ! " 

Washington, who formed a strong and lasting 
friendship for Putnam, used frequently to consult 
with him. One day Putnam, who was inclined to 
be rather fidgety, kept walking back and forth, look- 
ing out of the window. 

" Pray, General Putnam," said the Commander 
in Chief at last, "pray be seated. We wish your 
advice in regard to this plan." 

" Oh, go ahead and plan your battle," was the 
reply. '' I williight itT 

" Old Put," as he was affectionately called by his 
men, could not spell as well as a first-grade public 
schoolboy to-day. He used to write official letters 



ISRAEL PUTNAM IIQ 

beginning "Dear Majir," and "Ginral," but those 
to whom these epistles were addressed knew that 
every word, no matter how it was spelled, was to be 
trusted, for bravery, honesty, and exactness were 
the three chief traits of this man's character. 

On the 17th of May, 1790, he was seized with an 
illness which ended his life two days later in Brook- 
lyn, Connecticut, where he lies buried beneath a 
tablet slab. 

He had lived to see peace established and the inde- 
pendence of his country assured. He had tasted the 
fruits of a useful life and had enjoyed the respect, 
affection, and admiration of a nation. 

Though Massachusetts may claim Putnam as a 
son of her soil, Connecticut has an equal claim upon 
his character, for his deeds of daring enriched her 
annals and add^d fame to her roll of patriots. 

Dauntless in courage, true in spirit, Christian in 
living, simple in manner, loyal in friendship, he will 
live forever in the history of America as one of 
her immortal heroes of national liberty. 



MOLLY PITCHER. 

Old Monmouth Court House in New Jersey, 
where the famous battle of Monmouth was fought 
in the year 1778, preserves many stirring tales of 
Revolutionary days among its yellowed records. 
Tales of the " Pine Robbers," who spread terror and 
destruction along the Jersey coasts, and who made 
the farmers in the neighborhood live very anxious 
lives — tales of those old days when British Tory and 
American Patriot were at feud in house and home 
as well as on the bloody battlefield. 

But among these stories of long ago none stirs 
the blood with a warmer thrill of admiration than 
that of brave Molly Pitcher, whose heroism on Mon- 
mouth field has found a lasting record in the pages 
of American history. 

Some time toward the middle of the eighteenth 
century there came to America from Germany an 
emigrant by the name of John George Ludwig, who 
settled in the colony of Pennsylvania. Here — in the 
town of Carlisle, probably, though the exact locality 
of her birth is not positively known — there was born 
to John George Ludwig, October 13th, 1744, a little 
blue-eyed daughter, whom he called Mary. 



MOLLY PITCHER 121 

Little Mary grew up tall and strong and healthy, 
with the fair complexion and red hair of her Ger- 
man ancestors, and a good deal of their love of home 
and country. The Ludwigs being poor, Mary 
became a servant girl in the family of Dr. William 
Irvine, an Irish gentleman who was living in Car- 
lisle. This Dr. Irvine, who had come to the Colonies 
as surgeon on board a British man-of-war, after- 
wards became an officer in the Continental or Amer- 
ican Army. He was one of the most zealous of the 
patriots, and it was due to his influence that many 
of the colonists of Pennsylvania were aroused to a 
spirit of independence and a realization of the ne- 
cessity of asserting and defending their rights. This 
was no easy task, for a great number of these colo- 
nists belonged to the Society of Friends, a religious 
sect that was opposed to war upon any conditions, 
and also because most of the proprietary owners 
were in favor of the Crown. 

It is on account of General Irvine's nationality, 
perhaps, that the earlier historians of the Revolu- 
tion supposed Mary Ludwig to be Irish — a mistake 
set right by recent investigation. 

It was while in General Irvine's household, no 
doubt, that " Molly," as she was familiarly known, 
first learned to love the country of her birth, and 
there was sown the seed of that patriotism and loy- 



122 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

alty that was one day to make the humble servant 
girl a soldier and a heroine. 

In July of the year 1769 Molly left the roof of 
her master and became the wife of a barber by the 
name of John Hays. Whether or not Molly fired 
her barber with warlike ambition is an open ques- 
tion, but at any rate Hays was commissioned gun- 
ner in Proctor's First Pennsylvania Artillery, on the 
14th of December, 1775, changing the peaceful occu- 
pation of cutting off hair with shears to the more 
exciting one of cutting off heads with cannon balls. 
With a loyalty bom of devotion and unselfishness, 
Molly determined to follow her husband; so when 
Gunner Hays marched off with Proctor's First, 
Molly marched with him. 

Through the din of battle, the heat of summer 
and the cold of winter, the gunner and his faithful 
wife followed the fortunes of the American army, 
but it was not until the retreat of our forces at Fort 
Clinton that Molly's first deed of daring became a 
byword in tent and camp. 

Finding that it was necessary to leave the enemy 
in possession, Hays started to fire his gun as a part- 
ing salute to the British. In the rush and confusion 
of the moment he dropped his lighted match. There 
was no time to lose, and there was danger of being 
captured, so he did not stop. Molly, who was behind 



MOLLY PITCHER 1 23 

him, seized the match from the ground, ran to the 
gun, touched it off, and then scampered down the 
hill as fast as her legs would carry her, to join 
the soldiers. This happened some months before 
the famous battle of Monmouth. 

Down in Monmouth, meanwhile, the people were 
busy defending themselves from the attacks of the 
" Pine Robbers,'' and never dreamed that there 
would ever be any fighting in their midst. 

The murmur of the sea on the one side and the 
murmur of the pine forests on the other made a 
melody of nature that shut out the distant roar of 
warfare, and so the tramp, tramp, tramp, of the 
British army that suddenly aroused them must have 
been a very great surprise. 

The arrival of a French fleet, with the gallant 
young hero, Lafayette, had startled Sir William 
Howe, who was at that time holding Philadelphia 
in siege. Sir William and his red-coated officers 
had been having a gay time in the old Quaker city ; 
there had been balls and dinners and a great carni- 
val during the winter, and when Dr. Franklin, who 
was with the American Commissioners in France, 
heard of all this gayety, he remarked shrewdly: 
" Howe has not taken Philadelphia, but Philadel- 
phia has taken him/' 

W^hen the French fleet landed, and he knew that 



124 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

France had acknowledged America as an independ- 
ent government, Howe began to think Hke Dr. 
Franklin, perhaps. 

Preparations were made to raise the siege of 
Philadelphia at once, and Sir Henry Clinton suc- 
ceeded to the command of the British army, with 
orders to go to New York by water. This plan of 
route was changed, however, and so it came about 
that the line of march was through the Jerseys, and 
so it happened that old Monmouth became the scene 
of conflict. The line of the British baggage wag- 
ons was twelve miles long, and the sandy roads 
made its progress slow. 

When Washington heard of Clinton's changed 
route he determined to march forward and head 
him off. 

Arriving at a little place called Allentown, the 
English commander found the American force at 
his front. He pushed on, and on the 27th of June 
encamped at Monmouth Court House on rising 
ground that was hemmed in on all sides by woods 
and marshes. General Washington, after grave 
deliberation, decided to risk the fight, and, although 
the battle was hotly contested and indeed almost 
lost three separate times, the American army was 
victorious. That memorable Sunday, the 28th of 
June, 1778, was the hottest day of the year. The 



MOLLY PITCHER 1 25 

heat was so great that the soldiers were ordered to 
take off their coats, yet through the heat and dust 
and smoke and blood, Molly, the gunner's wife, car- 
ried water to her husband and the soldiers on the 
field, all day. The little spring from which she 
fetched the water was at the bottom of the hill, and, 
instead of a pail, she brought it in a pitcher. This, 
most probably, was the origin of her name, " Molly 
Pitcher," among the soldiers, a name that from that 
day has become historic. 

There had been a fierce charge of the enemy's 
cavalry on Hays' gun, and just as she was returning 
with a refreshing draught for the almost perishing 
men, she saw her husband fall mortally wounded. 
Rushing forward she heard an officer say, " Wheel 
back the gun ; there's no one here to serve it." 

Checking the blinding rush of tears, Molly threw 
down her pitcher and seized the rammer of the gun. 
** I'll fire it," she said, and taking her place beside 
the dead gunner's cannon she filled his place during 
the rest of the day. The story of the brave deed has 
been told in verse: 

"'Wheel back the gun/ the gunner said, 
When like a flash before him stood 
A figure dashed with smoke and blood, 
With streaming hair, with eyes aflame, 
With lips that falter the gunner's name, 



126 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

' Wheel back his gun that never yet, 
His fighting duty did forget? 
His voice shall speak though he be dead, 
/'// serve my husband's gun ! ' she said. 
Oh, Molly, Molly, with eyes so blue, 
Oh, Molly, Molly, here's to you! 
Sweet Honor's roll will aye be richer. 
To hold the name of Molly Pitcher I " 

The next day General Greene sought for Molly, 
and had her up to General Washington, who praised 
her for her courage and who presented her then and 
there with the commission of sergeant in the Con- 
tinental Army. As the half dazed Molly stood before 
the great general in her soldier's coat and cap, cheer 
after cheer for " Sergeant Molly Pitcher " went up 
from ten thousand throats. It must have been a 
stirring scene — stately Washington and the blood- 
stained, smoke-begrimed figure of the gunner's wife, 
who was now an officer and forever a heroine — a 
scene that must to-day thrill the heart of every boy 
and girl who reads the story of American history ! 

" Next day on that field so hardly won, 
Stately and calm stands Washington 
And looks where our gallant Greene doth lead, 
A figure clad in motley weed — 
A soldier's cap and a soldier's coat 
Masking a woman's petticoat. ^ 

He greets our Molly in kindly wise. 
He bids her raise her fearful eyes, ^ / 



MOLLY PITCHER \2J 

And he hails her there before them all, 

Comrade and soldier whate'er befall, 

And since she has played a man's full part, 

A man's reward for her loyal heart ! 

And Sergeant Molly Pitcher's name 

Be writ henceforth on the shield of fame." 

The battle of Monmouth was the only battle of ] 
the Revolution in which every one of the thirteen 
Colonies was represented, so Sergeant Molly's is a 
matter of national as well as local pride. 

For eight years she did her humble part in the 
great struggle, and when the war was over she went 
back to her old home in Carlisle, where she engaged 
employment as a nurse and where in later years she 
kept a little shop. 

One can easily imagine how Sergeant Molly's 
shop was a favorite place for the boys and girls of 
the town to gather on winter nights, when she 
would sit behind the counter and tell them about 
that dreadful winter at Valley Forge where Wash- 
ington's brave men suffered from cold and hunger ; 
or on summer evenings how the children would 
cluster about the veteran's knee and beg to hear 
again the story of Monmouth. 

To the soldiers she was always " Captain " Molly 
— and the French officers and soldiers admired the 
woman soldier so much that whenever she passed 
their lines her sergeant's cocked hat would always 



128 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

be filled with French coins. As she grew old Molly- 
grew garrulous, and she was very fond of rehears- 
ing these old stories of her soldier life. 

She made an unfortunate second marriage, tak- 
ing for a husband a worthless scamp of a fellow by 
the name of McCauley or McKnolly, who lived on 
her sergeant's half pay and her hard earnings. 

By an especial act of the State Legislature she was 
given a pension of eighty dollars a year. This act 
was passed on the 27th of February, 1822. She 
died in 1823. 

In 1877 the people of Cumberland erected a mon- 
ument to Sergeant Molly's memory. The inscrip- 
tion reads: 

"Molly McCauley, 

Renowned in History as Molly Pitcher 

The Heroine of Monmouth. 

Died January, 1823, Aged 79 years. 

Erected by the Citizens of Cumberland County 

July 4th, 1876." 

There is more than a thrilling story in this 
woman's life, there is a lesson of endurance, loyalty 
and courage, and more — the lesson of a life not 
spoiled by praise and popularity. 

" Oh, Molly, Molly with eyes so blue, 
Oh, Molly, Molly, here's to you! 
Sweet Honor's roll will aye be richer. 
To hold the name of Molly Pitcher ! " 



NATHAN HALE. 

The brief history of the life and death of Nathan 
Hale, the boy martyr of Connecticut, is the very sad- 
dest story of our Revolutionary War; but the record 
of those twenty-one years bears a message to every 
boy of American birth, for it is a record of purity of 
purpose, unselfish devotion to country, and death- 
less courage. 

On the 6th of June, 1755, there was born in the 
little town of Coventry, Tolland County, Connecti- 
cut, a boy baby whose hold on life seemed so slight 
that he was not expected to live. This boy was 
Nathan Hale, the sixth child of Richard Hale and 
his wife, Elizabeth Strong Hale. Despite the proph- 
ecies of doctors and nurses, however, little Nathan 
lived, though he was during childhood a frail little 
fellow, giving but small promise of the physical 
strength and beauty for which he was afterward 
noted. 

A strong love for out-of-door sports and athletic 
exercises was the chief factor, no doubt, in develop- 
ing the fragile child into a youth of uncommon 
vigor of mind as well as body, for young Hale 

129 



130 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

soon showed an ambition to excel in his studies as 
well as in his games and sports. 

His grandfather, who was a physician, and his 
great-grandfather, who was a clergjonan, were both 
college-bred, having been graduated from Harvard, 
so Nathan's fondness for books came by right of 
heredity, as did the strong fiber of Puritan thought 
and character that was a part of his personality. 

The Hales came down by descent from the Hales 
of Kent, England, whose coat-of-arms consists of 
three broad arrows feathered white on a field of red 
— a device strangely suggestive of the pure young 
life so swiftly ended by a violent death. Mr. and 
Mrs. Hale had decided that the ministry was the pro- 
fession for which their son seemed especially fitted 
by nature and inclination, so they placed him under 
the care of the Reverend Mr. Huntington, one of 
the most eminent Congregationalist divines of his 
time, and under that good man's direction young 
Hale prepared for Yale. So diligently did the youth- 
ful pupil apply himself to his tasks, and so earnest 
was his tutor, that at the age of sixteen Nathan Hale 
was ready to enter college. He was graduated from 
Yale in 1773 with the highest honors of the Univer- 
sity, and carrying with him the respect arid affection 
of the faculty as well as his associates. Indeed, his 
gracious and gentle manners won the love of those 



NATHAN HALE I3I 

who knew him best and gained for him an entrance 
into the most aristocratic circles of New Haven 
society. Immediately after leaving Yale he taught 
school at East Haddam, and in 1774 he was ap- 
pointed the first preceptor of the Union Grammar 
School at New London, Connecticut, an institution 
where boys were prepared to enter Yale. 

Few lives seemed more peaceful than that of 
the young schoolmaster, who was, meanwhile, mak- 
ing ready to become a preacher of the Gospel of 
Christ. How little did he dream that the lesson 
and the sermon he was to leave to the world would 
be the sacrifice of a life in the service of his country ! 
When the news of the battle of Lexington reached 
New London, there was great excitement among 
the people. A meeting was called at once, and it 
was the voice of the young schoolmaster that rang 
out with those stirring words that still echo down 
the corridors of time: **Let us march immediately 
and never lay down our arms until we have obtained 
independence!" This was the first time that Amer- 
icans had heard the call to arms in a public assem- 
bly, and the call came from Nathan Hale, who was 
so soon to seal his faith with his blood. That must 
have been a dramatic scene in the town hall of 
New London that day. One can imagine the stern 
looking men gathered in anxious knots, all heart- 



132 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Stirred by the strange news, yet scarcely knowing 
just how to express the thought in their minds, 
when the slender figure of Nathan Hale, his gentle 
face aglow with enthusiasm, his fair hair making 
a golden halo about the white brow, stepped for- 
ward and dared to utter those burning words. The 
next morning he was back in the school-room, where 
he prayed with the boys as was his custom, and 
where he resumed the course of his daily work; 
but from the moment that he said : *'Let us march !" 
a new purpose had come into his quiet life. Destiny 
was bearing him forward with long strides now — 
unto the end. Very soon after, he enrolled as a 
volunteer, and was shortly after appointed a Lieu- 
tenant in Colonel Charles Webb's regiment. Going 
to Boston, Lieutenant Hale took part in the siege 
of that city, and was brevetted Captain for gallant 
conduct. 

The year 1776 was a hard one on the soldiers 
of the Continental Army. On one occasion the men 
determined to go home at the expiration of their 
time, for there was no money to pay them. With 
the unselfishness that was always a characteristic of 
Hale, he offered to give them his month's pay if 
they would consent to stay and fight for the cause 
he so ardently loved. 

When the British evacuated Boston, a greater 



NATHAN HALE I 33 

part of the American army went to New York, and 
it was there that the youthful captain of Webb's 
regiment performed a deed of daring rarely equaled 
in the records of the great American war. 

Th^re was a terrible lack of food among our men, 
not enough tents to shelter more than a third of 
them, and almost no provisions for clothing them. 
The affairs of the Continental Army were as bad 
as possible. At this time there was anchored in 
East River, New York, a British sloop, lying under 
the protection of the man-of-war Asia^, and this 
sloop contained provisions. Gaining permission 
from his commanding officer. Captain Hale under- 
took the capture of this sloop, an undertaking of 
the greatest danger. He managed, however, to in- 
fuse his own spirit of daring into a few of his 
comrades, and with a handful of trusty followers 
he embarked in a whaleboat at midnight and made 
directly for the sloop. Darkness favored the dan- 
gerous venture and Hale and his men drew up along- 
side without being seen by the Asia or the sloop. In 
a moment he and his men had boarded the sloop, 
taken the sentries and guards prisoners, and were 
bearing off the prize! Cheer after cheer greeted 
the brave fellows — who were no doubt " marines " 
— as they hove in sight, and the provender on board 
was immediately distributed among the half starv- 



134 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

ing American soldiers. Soon after he was made 
captain of a company of Connecticut rangers which 
was known as ^'Congress's Own." 

There are conflicting statements in history con- 
cerning the latter part of Nathan Hale's army life. 
According to some authorities he took part in the 
battle of Long Island and in Washington's famous 
retreat across the East River from Brooklyn. It is 
certain, however, that he was with the troops in 
New York when the British raided Long Island. 

It was at this time that Washington found it 
absolutely necessary to get accurate information, if 
possible, concerning the plans of the English, also 
a knowledge of the exact number of their forces. 
At the house of Mr. Robert Murray, on Murray 
Hill, he, therefore, called a meeting of officers to 
talk over the state of affairs and to form some plan 
by which such information might be obtained. The 
officers listened in silence to his plan, which was to 
send some trustworthy, bold man across the lines 
to find out the facts it was necessary to know. It 
would be necessary in order to accomplish this most 
dangerous commission, to go in disguise. Every 
man in that group knew the meaning of those words. 
Every cheek paled. If the venture failed and the 
messenger was captured, by the rules of warfare he 
would certainly be executed as a spy. The word 



NATHAN HALE 1 35 

Spy is a horrible word to an honorable man. No one 
volunteered to risk a death of shame. For some 
moments there was a hush in the room. Then a 
voice broke the silence: *'I will undertake it, sir," 
and the voice was that of young Nathan Hale, who 
was just up from a sick-bed. A thrill of admiration 
pulsed through every heart, followed by one of 
dread. It was but a boy, a stripling, who had offered 
to risk a young life that was full of promise for the 
cause of American liberty. The older men did all 
they could to dissuade him, but Nathan Hale was 
firm in his resolve. "Gentlemen," he said calmly, 
"I owe my country the accomplishment of an object 
so important and so much desired by the commander 
of our armies. I know of no mode of obtaining the 
information but by assuming a disguise and passing 
into the enemy's camp. I am fully aware of the 
consequences of discovery and capture in such a 
situation. I wish to be useful, and every kind of 
service for the public good becomes honorable by 
being necessary." 

That same night he left the camp at Harlem 
Heights dressed in the brown garments and broad- 
brimmed hat of a school-teacher seeking employ- 
ment. He was accompanied as far as Norwalk by 
Sergeant Hempstead and his faithful servant, Ansel 
Wright, who arranged to have a boat awaiting him 



136 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

there on the twentieth of the month, when he ex- 
pected to return. His charm of manner soon won 
the confidence of the people he met on the way, and 
in this disguise he entered the British Hues, where 
he made drawings of the fortifications on thin paper, 
which he concealed between the layers of the soles of 
his shoes. He also secured the complete plans of the 
British campaign, which he wrote out in Latin and 
hid in the same way. Everything seemed to favor 
his hazardous undertaking. He had reached Nor- 
walk, where he was to find the boat ready for him 
the next morning, and the young officer was serene 
in the thought that he was out of danger at last. 

Spending the night at a farmhouse, he went the 
next morning to breakfast at a little wayside inn, 
"The Cedars," kept by a widow, and which was 
known as the "Widow Chichester's." During the 
meal a man entered the room, looked steadily at the 
guest, and then left. Nathan Hale, who suspected 
no danger, finished his meal and then hurried off 
toward the beach. A boat was approaching, and he 
expected to find Hempstead and Wright awaiting 
him. As he approached he recognized the boatmen 
as British marines, and turned to fly. "Surrender or 
die!" called a voice, and he was seized and taken 
aboard. He knew then that the man at Widow 
Chichester's had betrayed him, and that his fate 



NATHAN HALE I 37 

was sealed. When taken before General Howe at 
the house of James Beckman he was searched. The 
papers were found in the soles of his boots, and he 
was convicted as a spy. 

The Provost-Marshal, Cunningham, into whose 
hands the young American prisoner fell, was a brutal 
man. He ordered that Nathan Hale should be 
hanged at sunrise the following morning. He was 
confined under a strong guard in the large green- 
house of the Beckman mansion, which stood on the 
present site of Fifty-first Street and First Avenue, 
New York City — a spot that should be revered by 
every American citizen. 

Hale asked to be allowed to write letters to his 
mother and to Alice Adams, his promised wife. 
The request was granted, but Cunningham tore 
up the letters before his eyes. He asked for a 
minister of God and the Bible, but both were re- 
fused him. Afterward Cunningham excused him- 
self by saying he destroyed the letters because he 
did not want the Americans to know they had a 
man who could die so bravely. It is due to Howe 
to state that Cunningham acted independently in 
this matter. In the early Sabbath morning of Sep- 
tember 22d, 1776, Nathan Hale was hanged as a spy. 
With coarse brutality the Provost remarked : ''Make 
your dying speech." Hale had been praying. He 



138 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

lifted his eyes upward and said in a clear voice : "I 
regret that I have but one life to lose for my coun- 
try." 

Sobs burst from those who heard him, and in a 
rage Cunningham called out : "Swing the rebel off !'* 
The order was obeyed, and so died the boy martyr, 
for martyr he was. 



HAYM SALOMON. 

It is not often that a child grows up bearing out 
in his deeds and actions the significance of the name 
that was given him by his parents at birth. 

The name "Haym" means, in the Hebrew, "Life," 
and is frequently used by Israelites of all nations. 
To a little Polish Hebrew boy, who was born in the 
year 1740, this name was given, and Haym Salomon 
grew up to typify its beautiful meaning in his rela- 
tions with those around him. 

The persecutions and cruelties suffered by many 
generations of his unhappy race had developed in 
him, as in all of his people, a peculiar talent for all 
branches of trade and commerce, and an equally 
peculiar and passionate love of that freedom and 
justice from which tyranny and prejudice had al- 
ways debarred the Israelites, or Jews. So we find 
that not long after coming to America, the home of 
his adoption, Haym Salomon had amassed a large 
fortune. From the little shop in Front Street, in 
Philadelphia, Haym Salomon, the Jew broker, car- 
ried on a traffic that extended from the great ports 
of the distant East to the shores of France, Italy, 

139 



140 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Spain and America. Like Antonio, the Merchant of 
Venice, a great part of his "fortunes were at sea," 
yet still there was no man in Philadelphia who could 
at that time command such sums of money as Haym, 
the Jew. In spite of his business as a merchant and 
broker, Haym Salomon was a man of a great deal of 
consequence apart from the influence he naturally 
exerted as one of the richest men in the city. He 
was an intimate friend of the famous Kosciuzko 
and of Pulaski, on whose staff he served, and he 
was the esteemed friend and adviser of Robert Mor- 
ris, who owed to his advice much of the success that 
attended his financial ventures. 

When in 1775 the Colonies were aroused to a 
sense of the injustice done them by the mother 
country, no heart in America beat with a stronger 
throb of patriotic devotion than that of the Polish 
Jew broker. As early as that year he became ob- 
noxious to the British government, and was taken 
prisoner and confined in that loathsome prison called 
the Provost, in New York, where so many brave 
Colonists suffered. But his patriotism first became 
generally known in 1778, when he was made pris- 
oner by Sir Henry Clinton. The charges brought 
against the Polish-American hero were that he had 
received orders from General Washington to burn 
the British fleets which lay in the harbor and to 



HAYM SALOMON I4I 

destroy the British storehouses, both of which he 
had, it was charged, attempted to do, to their "injury 
and damage." He was therefore tried for being a 
spy, and sentenced to death. The situation now 
seemed hopeless, because of the fact that he was 
generally known to be a confidential agent of the 
American patriots. Gold, the talisman of the Jew all 
over the world, in the shape of a large bribe effected 
an escape from the execution of the sentence of 
death. 

General Robertson, who had him taken as a 
spy, was induced by Lieutenant-General Hiester to 
allow the Jewish prisoner to be given into his 
charge, as the Hessian commander was anxious to 
make use of the Pole's knowledge of the French, 
Russian, Polish and Italian languages. This, Gen- 
eral Robertson finally agreed to do, and Haym 
Salomon was appointed to the position of purveyor 
for the ofilicers in the Commissary Department. In 
spite of the fact that his death sentence had been 
remitted, the Jew was still regarded with great 
suspicion by the British, and the money aid that he 
gave to a number of French who made their escape, 
together with his close association with some of the 
Hessian officers who were inclined to resign, at 
length placed him in great danger again. Discover- 
ing that the British guards were in pursuit of him, 



142 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

he eluded them and escaped from New York on the 
nth of August, 1778. The incidents of that flight 
would be interesting to all readers of American his- 
tory, but the Senate Report of the 31st Congress, in 
which his transactions with the American Govern- 
ment are recorded, merely states the bare fact, and, 
with the singular and rare modesty of the man that 
was one of his characteristics, Salomon himself tells 
little more. One can readily imagine the joy in the 
Front Street home in Philadelphia when its master 
returned after such dangers ; the beautiful and rev- 
erential thanksgiving rendered up to the God of 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in that home where the 
religious observances of the old Patriarchal day 
were kept untouched by time, unchanged by varying 
circumstances. 

But of all these things the fragmentary letters of 
Haym Salomon tell nothing, for the Jews do not 
talk much of their religious or their domestic life, 
and indeed, among this people, the two are so closely 
interwoven as to make but one. 

It was after Mr. Salomon's escape from an igno- 
minious death at the hands of the English and his 
return to his home in Philadelphia, however, that 
his most important services to the American cause 
were given. Most of the important negotiations 
with the foreign nations that were in sympathy with 



HAYM SALOMON 143 

the Americans were under the direct control of the 
wealthy Jew broker of Philadelphia, who also made 
considerable loans to Robert Morris, and to many 
noted American officers, among whom were Gen- 
erals St. Clair, Mifflin, Steuben, and Colonels Mor- 
gan, Shee, and others. 

This was a very trying time to the new-fledged 
republic. The cry of hard times went up all over 
the land, for there was very little money to be had 
or made while the country was still unsettled and 
bearing everywhere the marks and scars of war. No 
wonder was it that Haym Salomon, the benevolent 
as well as patriotic citizen, whose generosity was 
equal to his great wealth, should be a power in 
those days. 

Boys and girls of other creeds have, perhaps, a 
very false idea of the Jewish people as a race. While 
it is true that the Hebrew money-lenders often make 
loans at very high prices, and are drivers of close 
bargains, it must be remembered that they were 
forced into these avenues of money-getting by a 
course of persecution that shut them out from agri- 
culture and the professions. Trade only was open to 
them, and they became the wisest and the richest 
traders in the world. 

So it was that when the delegates to the Con- 
stitutional Congress were in Philadelphia without 



144 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

money or any way of getting it, Salomon the Jew 
stepped forward and relieved them from their un- 
happy and needful condition. But for his generous 
supplying of money and counsel, the illustrious dele- 
gation from Virginia — ^Lee, Bland, Jones, Mercer, 
and Randolph — would have been in the mortifying 
situation of not being able to pay their bed, board, 
and laundry bills. But in these emergencies the 
Front Street shop was always a place of help and 
refuge. 

Under the date of August 27th, 1782, the bril- 
liant James Madison, afterward President of the 
United States, writes to Mr. Edmund Randolph, 
from whom he appears to have received assistance: 

" I cannot in any way make you more sensible of 
the importance of your attention to pecuniary re- 
mittances for me than by informing you that I have 
been for some time a pensioner on the favor of 
Haym Salomon, a Jew broker." A month later 
Madison again writes: "I am relapsing fast into 
distress. The case of my brethren is equally alarm- 
ing." And again one week later he mournfully 
wails : "I am almost ashamed to acknowledge my 
wants so incessantly to you, but they begin to be so 
, urgent that it is impossible to suppress them. The 
kindness of our little friend on Front Street, near 
the coffeehouse, is a fund that will preserve me 



HAYM SALOMON I45 

from extremities, but I never resort to it without 
great mortification, as he obstinately rejects all rec- 
ompense. The price of money is so usurious that 
he thinks it ought to be extorted from none but 
those who aim at profitable speculations. To a 
necessitous delegate he gratuitously spares a supply 
out of his private stock." 

Is not this old letter a vindication of the Jew from 
the wholesale charge of avarice? 

But his service to his adopted country was not 
confined to helping the agents of the American gov- 
ernment. He was also the most confidential friend 
and adviser to the agents, consuls, and ambassadors 
who represented the Kings of those countries that 
were in sympathy with the American Republic. A 
considerable amount of specie was given by him for 
the use of the army and hospital of Rochambeau, 
and the Chevalier de la Luzerne, Marbois, and 
Consul-General de la Forest received from him 
large sums. These men were all agents of the 
generous-hearted, unfortunate King, Louis XVI of 
France, who did so much to help us. When Count 
de la Luzerne became Ambassador, he appointed 
Haym Salomon Banker of the French Government, 
and he was afterward made Paymaster-General by 
Monsieur Roquebrune, who was at the time Treas- 
urer of the forces of France in America. This office 



146 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

he executed without charging a single sou to the 
French government. So ardent was his patriotic 
feeling that he freely gave time, labor, money, with- 
out price. He maintained from his own private 
purse Don Francesco de Reden of Cuba, the secret 
Ambassador of the King of Spain, who was coun- 
tenancing the American Revolution, but with whose 
European dominions all intercourse was cut off. 
With a generosity unparalleled by any other in- 
dividual, Jew or Gentile, Haym Salomon endorsed 
a great portion of the bills of exchange for the 
amount of the loans our government got from 
Europe, of which he negotiated the entire sums, and 
he charged " scarcely a fractional percentage '* to the 
United States. It is a curious fact, too, that the 
American Government never lost one cent of the 
many millions of his negotiations, either by his mis- 
management or from the credit he made to others 
on the sales he made of these immense sums of 
foreign drafts on account of the United States. 

The amount of the loans advanced to the Amer- 
ican Government reached the sum of $600,000, 
and one historian states that the loan with its inter- 
est would now amount to more than $3,000,000. 
Yet the descendants of this truly good and patriotic 
man have never been able to get their claims settled ! 
In 1892 a long statement of this case was made in 



HAYM SALOMON 1 47 

Washington, under the title of a printed article 
entitled "Are Republics Ungrateful?" Certainly it 
would seem that the just answer, in regard to this 
case, would be "Yes." 

Worn out by his exertions for his beloved Amer- 
ica, and by close application to his own business 
interests, Haym Salomon died suddenly after a short 
and severe illness in the forty-sixth year of his age, 
on the 6th of January, 1785. 

The management of his estate now passed into 
the hands of strangers, all of whom became bank- 
rupt; the public documents containing his account 
with the government were destroyed during the at- 
tack made upon the City of Washington by the 
British in the War of 18 12, and the heirs of the 
most generous patriot of the American Revolution 
had no inheritance. 

When friends and neighbors were in trouble this 
alien Israelite was always ready to give help. When 
other commercial citizens and merchants began 
afresh their trading after the war, "the little Jew 
broker" freely gave of his wise counsel and was 
equally generous with the loan of money. To the 
heads of the National Bank, trading under the firm 
name of Willing, Morris & Swanick, he advanced 
the, at that time, large sum of 64,000 specie dollars 
without charging a cent of interest. 



148 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

So in his life he Hv^d out the beautiful meaning 
of his name, for he was the moving principle, the 
sustaining power, the vital force, of that band of 
patriotic Philadelphians who nourished, fostered, 
and guarded the newborn infant Republic in the 
"Cradle of Liberty.'' 



BETTY ZANE. 

There was a thrill and stir of excitement about 
the streets of old Williamsburg on a certain sum- 
mer's morning in the year of grace, 1716, for on this 
day, the i6th of June, a gay cavalcade of gentlemen 
were setting forth from the Capital of the "Old 
Dominion," as the Colony of Virginia was called, 
upon an adventurous quest. 

At the head of the booted and spurred cavaliers 
rode the Governor, Alexander Spotswood, a gallant 
gentleman who had fought under the famous Duke 
of Marlborough and had been dangerously wounded 
at the battle of Blenheim. From balconies, win- 
dows, and doorsteps leaned maids, matrons, and 
sweethearts, to wave adieux to the dauntless little 
band of thirty, who were about to undertake an 
enterprise of difficulty and of peril. 

As the horses clattered down the streets and the 
plumed chapeaux of the riders were lost to sight, 
the watchers turned away sadly and went about their 
usual occupations with heavy hearts, for these daunt- 
less Virginia cavaliers were setting their faces to- 

I4Q 



150 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

ward the purple rim of the Blue Ridge mountains — 
these mountains that guarded the secrets of that 
unknown western world beyond their grim and 
mysterious barriers. Nearly three months later, on 
the 5th of September, the travelers, after crossing 
the beautiful Shenandoah valley, gained one of the 
loftiest peaks of the Appalachian range, and on its 
summit drank a health to King George. Here for 
the first time stood men of the white race! The 
party then returned to Williamsburg, and Governor 
Spotswood established the "Transmontane Order 
of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe." To 
each of the gentlemen who had accompanied him 
he gave a tiny golden horseshoe set with precious 
stones. On these badges of honor ran this inscrip- 
tion : " Sic jurat transcendere montes." — " Thus he 
swears us to cross the mountains." These little 
horseshoes were presented by the Governor to any 
gentlemen who were willing to fulfill the conditions 
of the inscription, and so it was that the Knights of 
the Horseshoe opened the rugged path for those 
who, a half century later, were to settle the Virginia 
frontier, which at that time stretched westward to 
the great tract of land called Ohio. Fifty-four 
years after, in 1770, a solitary Virginian stood on 
a high bank of the Ohio River just above the mouth 
of Wheeling Creek, which was soon to be the scene 



BETTY ZANE I5I 

of a bloody conflict between two races and the 
abiding monument of a young girl's heroism. This 
young man was Ebenezer Zane, a native of Berk- 
eley County, Virginia, where he was bom October 
7th, 1747. 

Young Zane lost no time in building for himself 
a cabin, and then he returned to Berkeley for the 
family who were now to share his humble home. 
A wife, two brothers, and a younger sister made up 
the family party, in which some historians include 
also the father. Traveling in those days was both 
difficult and dangerous, so it was not until 1772 
that the Zanes started on their long journey west- 
ward. The clouds that were so soon to break in 
the storm known as "Dunmore's War" were al- 
ready hanging darkly over the frontier region 
where Ebenezer's log cabin stood, so it was decided 
that the women of the party should remain in 
Brownetown, Pennsylvania, while Ebenezer, Jona- 
than, and Silas pushed onward and took up their 
"rights" on the Ohio. After this was properly 
done the family was installed in the rough-hewn 
log cabin by Wheeling Creek, and Betty Zane began 
her new life, at the age of sixteen, as nearly as may 
be reckoned from the scant records. 

It was a spot of wild, rugged beauty where the 
Zane cabin stood. At the foot of a great bluff 



152 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

gurgled the clear waters of Wheeling Creek; hem- 
locks, maples, beeches, sycamores, and oaks cast 
their shadows along its banks and made leafy re- 
treats for the bird choristers in Nature's wonderful 
cathedral, the forest. 

Perhaps the little maiden was lonely now and 
then. What maid of sixteen would not have been 
in this far off frontier home? Perhaps she missed 
her school companions, for it is stated that Betty 
had been at school in Philadelphia, during the time, 
perhaps, that the Zanes were waiting in Pennsyl- 
vania for Ebenezer to come for them. It may be 
that she longed to be once more in the Quaker City, 
which must have appeared a very dazzling place 
indeed to the Berkeley County girl, but there is no 
hint of any of this in the curiously brief accounts of 
the girl heroine. 

Restlessness and discontent were not among the 
ailments of the girls of Revolutionary days. The 
fact of surrounding danger and the possibility of 
having to flee from their hardly-won homes at a 
moment's notice made them cling all the more 
closely to the rooftree and knit them all the more 
closely in the bands of family life and love. In the 
year 1764 the Six Nations of the great Indian Con- 
federacy in the American Colonies, after a pitched 
battle with the Colonists at Bushy Run in western 



BETTY ZANE 1 53 

Pennsylvania, in which they were defeated, had 
made a treaty, by the terms of which warfare for a 
time came to an end. These six nations were the 
Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, 
and the Tuscaroras. When four years later, in 
1768, it was decided to fix a definite line of bound- 
ary between the possessions of the Indian natives 
and those of the English colonists, the chiefs of 
the several tribes attended a congress or meeting 
called by Sir William Johnson, the King's Super- 
intendent of Indian Affairs. The meeting took 
place at Fort Stanwix, now Rome, New York, and 
the six great chiefs signed the paper of agreement 
by making their marks. 

It was English folly that at last broke the treaty 
of 1764, after ten years of peace; a blunder for 
which the colonists had to pay dearly. " Corn- 
stalk," the great Indian chief, had been killed by 
the whites, who suspected him unjustly, and the 
savages had begun a terrible war on the Virginia 
border. 

Lord Dunmore ordered Colonel Angus McDon- 
ald to go to the relief of the frontier settlers, and 
in 1774, under the superintendence of Ebenezer 
Zane, Fort Henry — at first called Fort Fincastle — 
was built. It was said that the famous General 
George Rogers Clarke planned this fortification, 



154 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

which was a parallelogram, with enclosures of 
pickets eight feet high and with blockhouses at 
each corner. The fort was built in an open space 
and its main entrance was through a gateway on 
its eastern side adjoining the straggling hamlet of 
Wheeling, which consisted of about twenty-five log 
houses. 

It was three years before the Wheeling Creek 
pioneers had to use their fort as a place of refuge 
and defense. 

One day in the September of 1777, Colonel Shep- 
herd, who was the military commander of Fort 
Henry, noticed signs of Indians in the neighbor- 
hood, and feeling sure that an attack would be 
made on the garrison, ordered the settlers to shut 
themselves in the blockhouses. The next morn- 
ing savages were observed in the cornfield outside 
the palisades, and Captain Samuel Mason was or- 
dered to take thirteen of the garrison force and 
drive them off. The little garrison force numbered 
only forty-two fighting men, several of whom were 
old men and boys. From the loopholes of the 
blockhouses the besieged saw Mason's men cut 
down one by one by musket ball or tomahawk, 
until not a white man of the little band of fourteen 
was left. They saw that a much larger force of 
savages was upon them than they had supposed. 



BETTY ZANE 1 55 

Mason and one man whom they had seen fall were 
only wounded, and they escaped by being hidden 
by the fallen timbers in the field, though they were 
unable to render the slightest aid, during the par- 
ticularly long week that followed. 

Reduced now to twenty-six defenders, and with 
a force of from 380 to 500 Wyandots hemming 
them in on three sides, — the creek on one side with 
its high embankment formed a little protection — 
the garrison was in a desperate plight. Yet they 
fought on day after day, always hoping for the 
help that did not come. Shepherd knew now that 
Simon Girty, the renegade, the traitor, the spy, 
was at the head of that savage horde, and he grimly 
resolved to die rather than surrender. Girty offered 
terms if he would yield, but the Fort Henry com- 
mander sent this word back by the bearer of the 
flag of truce : 

*Tell your leader, never to him! Not while there 
is one American to Hre a musket" Brave words of 
a brave man, for now only twelve men remained to 
fight nearly five hundred. 

And during this time little Betty Zane was run- 
ning bullets, as were the other women in the fort, 
and sometimes firing the muskets to relieve the 
weary men. Then, one day, the commander stood 
with white, tight-drawn lips before the dauntless 



156 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

band. The horrible truth must at last come out. 
The ammunition was nearly exhausted. In a few 
hours there would not be a ball for those brave 
hands to load with! What was to be done? Out- 
side the palisades, sixty feet from the fort, stood 
Ebenezer Zane's log house, and in it was a keg of 
ammunition. Who wou-ld dare risk death from 
bullet, tomahawk, or by the torture in the face of 
five hundred foes? 

Several men stepped out and offered themselves, 
but it was a hard matter to decide. Every man's 
life possessed a hundred fold value that day. 

While the volunteers stood in silence before their 
leader, Betty Zane laid her hand on the command- 
er's arm. **ril go!" she said, simply. 

"You!" he exclaimed in amazement. "Oh, no. 
You are not strong enough, nor fleet enough, 
Mistress Betty, besides " 

"Sir," said the brave girl, firmly, "it is because of 
the danger that I offer. If I, a woman, should be 
killed, 'twere not so great a loss as if one of these 
men should fall. You cannot spare a man, sir. Let 
me go!" 

And so the matter was settled. The gate was 
opened and swift as a deer sped the girl through its 
portals, beyond the pickets, toward the little log 
cabin. Courage is the virtue most admired by the 



BETTY ZANE 1 57 

North American Indian, and as the five hundred 
Wyandots saw the flying figure of the brave girl 
pass directly before them, not a hand was raised to 
bow or musket, not a man of them fired at Betty 
Zane. She passed into the cabin and seizing up 
the keg of ammunition, wrapped her apron about it, 
and then once more ran the gauntlet of the enemy's 
fire. And this time there was need for desperate 
haste, for the Indians guessed her burden and a 
shower of arrows and shot were sent after the flying 
figure. But the messengers of wrath and death 
fell harmlessly about her or broke vainly against 
the stout walls of Fort Henry, as Betty gained the 
entrance. The great gateway flew open and a 
dozen strong arms were stretched out to take the 
precious keg. Women wept and men sobbed as 
they realized that Betty Zane had saved the fort. 

The next morning at daybreak Colonel Mc- 
Colloch marched with a small force from Short 
Creek to the relief of the garrison. It was by 
leaping his horse across the precipice, at the foot of 
which Wheeling Creek ran, one hundred and fifty 
feet below, that he gained entrance to the fort. 



STEPHEN DECATUR. 

Within the hundred years that stretch between 
the exploits of John Paul Jones during the period of 
the Revolution and those of Admiral Farragut dur- 
ing the period of the Civil War, it has been justly 
remarked that the gallant figure of Stephen Decatur 
is the most conspicuous among the many heroes of 
the sea who founded and defended the American 
Navy. 

The Decatur family was of Dutch origin, the 
name de Kater appearing in the genealogical rec- 
ords of Holland, from which country one of the 
name emigrated to Bordeaux, France, early in the 
seventeenth century. This Amsterdam de Kater 
married a French lady of rank, and one of the 
descendants of this marriage, who was a ship-owner 
and privateer, was ennobled by Louis XV in 1733. 

From this titled ship-owner sprang our American 
Decaturs. The progenitor of the American family, 
Etienne (the French for Stephen), was also a sailor 
and privateer's man. He came to Newport, R. L, 
before the middle of the eighteenth century, and 
became an American citizen in 1753. In 1751 he 

158 



STEPHEN DECATUR 1 59 

married a widow, a Mrs. Priscilla Hill, whose 
maiden name was George. Shortly after, he died, 
leaving his widow with one son, Stephen Decatur, 
who became the father of the famous Commodore. 

This second Stephen grew up in Philadelphia, 
where he married Miss Anna Pine, the charming 
and beautiful daughter of an Irish gentleman. He, 
too, was a sailor, and during the Revolution com- 
manded merchant ships and privateers with brilliant 
daring and success. So patriotic were the other 
Decaturs that when the news came that Howe was 
advancing up the Chesapeake towards Philadel- 
phia, they immediately took up their belongings and 
sought refuge in a little place called Senepaxent, in 
Worcester County, Maryland, a few miles from the 
seashore. 

Here, in a two-story log farm-house, the third 
Stephen Decatur — the Stephen of this story — was 
born, Tuesday, January 5th, 1779. 

After Howe had evacuated Philadelphia the De- 
caturs returned to their former home. Stephen 
Decatur, the father, had by this time accumulated 
a considerable fortune by his privateering and other 
ventures, so shortly after the war was over he 
entered into partnership with Messrs. Gurney & 
Smith, merchants and ship-owners, and in com- 
mand of one of the firm's vessels, the Arielj made 



l6o AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

frequent voyages to Bordeaux and other European 
ports. These cruises were profitable to young 
Stephen Decatur, who possessed gentle birth and a 
handsome person, and had, besides, all the educa- 
tional advantages that an ample fortune could 
provide. 

He was a pupil of the Episcopal Academy of 
Philadelphia and also of the University of Penn- 
sylvania. 

At seventeen he entered the counting room of 
Gumey & Smith. 

The country was now at odds with France, and 
the French war soon followed. The depredations 
upon our vessels by the Algerians had caused Con- 
gress to order several frigates to be built. Gumey 
& Smith were the agents of the Navy Department 
in Philadelphia, where the famous ship United 
States was built, and to the young Decatur was 
given the charge of getting out the keel pieces for 
that vessel, so it happened that he was on board the 
ship he afterward commanded so valiantly, when 
she was launched, July loth, 1797; she was the first 
of the celebrated ships of the Navy of the United 
States to reach the water. 

When war broke out in 1797, the elder Decatur 
was commissioned a Captain in the Navy, and now 
young Stephen's desire to enter the service became 



STEPHEN DECATUR l6l 

almost greater than he could control. With a 
regard for his mother which was tender and chival- 
rous, he forbore to apply to his father or to the 
department. Old Commodore John Barry, who 
knew the boy's wild longing for the sea, applied for 
and secured a midshipman's warrant for the young 
man, which bore the date April 30th, 1798. Mrs. 
Decatur's consent was at last won, and "Midship- 
man" Decatur joined the United States. He was 
now nineteen years old. 

It was on this first cruise that Lieutenant James 
Barron and young Decatur, whom fate had so 
strangely linked together, both performed deeds of 
heroism. The former saved the ship from a disas- 
trous wreck by brilliant seamanship, while the mid- 
shipman rescued a man who had fallen overboard 
and who could not swim, by jumping after him 
and supporting him until both were picked up by 
boatmen. In less than a year young Decatur was 
provisionally promoted to the rank of lieutenant by 
Commodore Barry, and was regularly commissioned 
in that rank by President Adams June 3d, 1799. 

Lieutenant Decatur's second, third and fourth 
cruises in the United States and the Norfolk were 
uneventful, except that during recruiting duty in 
Philadelphia he fought a duel with the mate of an 
Indiaman who had insulted him, and whom he 



l62 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

warned he would not kill, but would shoot in the 
hip, which he did. This practice of dueling was 
common in those days, and almost all of the naval 
officers of that period had been "out," as it was 
called. 

The wickedness and folly of making trifling dis- 
putes the cause of fatal results sometimes was not 
recognized by our ancestors, who faced death so 
often, perhaps, that they did not fully appreciate 
the value of life. 

His fifth cruise was in the Mediterranean as first 
lieutenant of the frigate Essex, under Captain Will- 
iam Bainbridge, Commodore Dale's squadron. Dur- 
ing the cruise Decatur was involved in an unfortu- 
nate dueling affair, in which he was second to Mid- 
shipman Bainbridge, which resulted in the death of 
the midshipman's antagonist. Although Decatur had 
really saved young Bainbridge's life, for his adver- 
sary was a skilled shot while he himself was almost 
totally inexperienced as a marksman, the affair 
made a stir, and Decatur and Bainbridge were both 
sent home. Four months later he was placed in 
command of the Argus, and in September sailed 
again for the Mediterranean. In November he 
joined the squadron of Commodore Preble, and his 
command was transferred to the schooner Enter- 
prise. With this transfer began Decatur's real sea 



STEPHEN DECATUR 1 63 

career. Preble had orders to carry the war into 
Africa, where the Barbary States had been com- 
mitting the most insufferable depredations upon our 
merchantmen. The Mahomedan tribes of Tunis, 
Algiers and Tripoli really watched and sanctioned 
cruisers that were pirates, and strange to say most 
of the European powers bought safety from the 
Bey, the Dey, and the Bashaw, as the rulers of 
Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli were called, by paying 
them tribute. Now Commodore Preble was pre- 
paring to punish the infidels for depredations upon 
American ships, so it happened that just after De- 
catur took command of the Enterprise he fell in 
with the ketch Mastico, which was bearing a cargo 
of female slaves as a present to the Sultan of 
Turkey. Decatur captured the Mastico, with her 
seventy men. This victory was the forerunner of 
one of the most daring deeds ever done upon the 
water. 

The beautiful frigate Philadelphia, first com- 
manded by Decatur's father, had recently been taken 
by the Tripolitan pirates, and her gallant captain, 
William Bainbridge, was languishing in the Ba- 
shaw's prison. The Philadelphia had run upon a 
rock in an attempt to blockade Tripoli, so was an 
easy prey to the Corsair, who bore her off in 
triumph. 



164 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

This left Preble with only the Constitution and 
some brigs and schooners. The conquerors of the 
Philadelphia were refitting her for service, and 
Preble knew that when the campaign was renewed 
in the spring the case of the Americans would be 
desperate. The Philadelphia must be recaptured 
or destroyed. There was no other way out of the 
difficulty. Bainbridge had managed to get a letter 
conveyed to Preble, part of which was written in 
lemon juice, which, when exposed to the fire, 
reveals its message. Outwardly the letter was in- 
significant enough, but Preble was quick-witted. 
He held the paper before the flame of a candle and 
read the hint, which was to send out trusty officers 
and men and blow up the American vessel which 
lay covered by the guns of the fortress of Tripoli 
and those of the Bashaw's castle. 

Not an easy thing to do, but it must be done. 
Decatur volunteered to take the Mastico, which 
Preble had re-named the Intrepid, and bring back 
or destroy the Philadelphia, This was in 1804, 
when Decatur was twenty-five years of age. 

Preble accepted the offer, for he knew his man. 
From the harbor in Syracuse, on board the Con- 
stitution, he wrote the famous order to Decatur to 
take or burn the captured vessel that was lying 
guarded by 115 heavy, modem guns and by a gar- 



STEPHEN DECATUR 165 

rison of twenty-five thousand men. There were 
twenty-five war vessels besides on the TripoHtan 
side — nineteen gunboats, three crusiers and two row 
galleys — and Decatur had one little fifty-ton bomb 
ketch, filled with combustibles and a crew of eighty- 
four armed with cutlasses. In all history there was 
nothing to equal this venture. For a week the 
gallant band of tars were beaten back by wind and 
tide. They had insufficient food, the Intrepid was 
infested with vermin, and there was no proper 
shelter for the crew. On the evening of February 
1 6th the Intrepid gained the harbor of Tripoli. 
The Siren, which was to support the attack, was 
some distance away, but Decatur was afraid to lose 
the opportunity of a fair breeze and calm moon- 
light, so without hesitation he entered the harbor. 
At half-past ten they were hailed, and Salvatore 
Catalino, a Sicilian pilot, answered that they were 
traders from Malta, and wished to "ride by" the 
Philadelphia. To "ride by" means to attach the 
incoming vessel to the other's cables. This was 
done, but soon after the crew of the Philadelphia 
grew suspicious, and the wild cry of " Americanos ! " 
rang out. 

The ketch struck the broadside of the frigate 
with one bound. 

"Boarders away!" cried Decatur, and he and 



1 66 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Morris sprang for the chains. Morris was the first 
American over the rail. On they came, jumping 
through the gun ports. Preble had written : " It 
will be well to prevent alarm; to carry all by the 
sword," and though the alarm was already given 
the men of the Intrepid had determined to carry 
out the rest of the order. All was confusion. The 
Tripolitans were cut down before they knew just 
what had happened. Twenty were killed imme- 
diately. Then they broke and leaped overboard. 
Some ran below to meet a more horrible fate, for 
the cockpit, gunroom, berths, storeroom forward 
and berths on the berth deck had been fired by 
Decatur's men. The work was done so quickly that 
some of the Intrepid' s men below narrowly escaped. 
And now the bold tars must get back to the ketch. 
Decatur was the last man to leave the burning 
ship — the ship he would so well liked to have 
borne back in triumph, had it been possible ! Some- 
how the Intrepid stuck fast to the flame-wrapped 
frigate, when suddenly it was remembered that the 
stern line was still fast. Decatur and the other 
of^cers sprang on the taffrail and hacked with their 
swords until at last the line broke and the Intrepid 
leaped from the burning ship. Then there went up 
a cheer that split the night, and mingled with it 
were the sounds of cries, drums, trumpet calls, 



STEPHEN DECATUR 167 

alarms from ships, forts, and the town. Suddenly 
amid the din a flash shot skyward, lighting the sky, 
followed by a fearful crash! The deed was done. 
The beautiful Philadelphia had perished by the 
hands of those who loved her best. When Lord 
Nelson heard of this, he said : " It is the most bold 
and daring act of the age." Henceforth Stephen 
Decatur was one of America's heroes. He was 
immediately promoted to a captaincy. It was 
in a fight with these Tripolitans that his younger 
brother. Lieutenant James Decatur, was treacher- 
ously killed by a Tripolitan commander, who had 
surrendered to him. Decatur avenged his brother 
by slaying this Tripolitan in a hand-to-hand conflict 
afterwards, in which he very nearly lost his own 
life, however. When Preble was relieved by Com- 
modore Barnes, he turned the command of the 
Constitution over to Captain Decatur. That was 
glory, indeed! To be commander of "Old Iron- 
sides" at the age of twenty-five. 

In 1806 Captain Decatur married Miss Susan 
Wheeler, of Norfolk, Virginia, and this marriage 
was very happy, though not blessed by children. 

When the War of 1812 broke out Captain De- 
catur had command of the United States, and on 
the 25th of November of that year captured the 
British frigate Macedonian after a desperate fight. 



l68 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Long years before, he had said to Captain Car- 
den, the Macedonian commander, in reply to a 
statement that though the Americans were ''clever'* 
they could not stand against the English Navy: 
"The flag of my country will never be struck while 
there is a hull to man it from." Carden, no doubt, 
remembered this during that terribly contested 
battle. 

It was during this fight that ten-year-old John 
Creamer came up to the mast and begged for his 
name to be put on the muster roll. 

"Why?" asked Decatur. 

"Because I want some of the prize money when 
we take her," said the audacious boy, and Decatur 
got a midshipman's warrant for John when the 
action was over. 

In 1815 he was obliged to surrender the Pres- 
ident to an English squadron because his vessel had 
been badly injured before starting off, but as this 
was one defeat to a great many victories, the Navy 
department received him with open arms and many 
demonstrations when he appeared in Washington. 

Five days after the Treaty of Peace which ended 
the War of 1812, President Madison recommended 
a declaration of war against Algiers. Again 
Decatur had victory after victory, and finally com- 
pelled the submission of the Bey, the Dey and the 



STEPHEN DECATUR 169 

Bashaw. Through his efforts America had put 
down piracy. 

It was like him to answer the challenge of an 
Algerian vessel: ''Dove andante f ("Where are 
you bound?") with his accustomed defiance: ^'Dove 
mi place!" ("Where I please!"). 

It is a sad thing that this splendid man should 
have come to so tragic an end. Becoming involved 
in a quarrel with Commodore James Barron, who 
had been under suspension from the Navy, matters 
came to such a pass that a duel between the two 
officers occurred. In this affair, which so easily 
might have been averted, Stephen Decatur, the hero 
of the Intrepidj was mortally wounded on the 
22d of March at Bladenburg. As he fell, he re- 
marked, "I am mortally wounded, and I wish I had 
died in defense of my country." 

Barron, who was only slightly wounded, said, 
"I forgive you." A curious thing to say to a man 
he had killed. At ten o'clock that night Decatur 
died; honored, esteemed, loved by all who knew 
him best and an idol of the people. The President, 
the Cabinet, the Chief Justice and the Senate and 
House attended his funeral. Commodores Rod- 
gers. Porter, and MacDonough, of the Navy, and 
General Brown, of the Army, were among his pall 
bearers when he was laid away temporarily in the 



170 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

vault at Kalorama, the country seat of Joel Barlow. 
To-day he sleeps beside his parents in St. Peter's 
Cemetery, Philadelphia. 

He was an Episcopalian in faith and a regular 
church attendant. 

Brave, loyal, steadfast, tender and true, he has 
been fittingly called the "Bayard of the Sea." 



DOLLY MADISON 

There are few figures on the canvas of American 
history that stand out with such undimmed charm 
as that of beautiful Dolly Madison. Certainly not 
one of those kerchiefed dames of the early republic 
made her public and private life a better example 
of American womanhood to American girls of the 
succeeding generations than the bright-eyed Quaker 
girl-widow who became hostess of the White House 
in 1809. 

By the chances of a parental visit, it was in the 
Province of North Carolina, under the reign of 
King George the Third, that Dolly Payne was born 
on the 20th of May, 1768. 

By lineage and residence, however, she had good 
right to call herself a "child of Virginia," for her 
parents returned to their Hanover County planta- 
tion while she was but an infant, and it was at an 
old field school in Hanover that she learned her 
A B C's. Tripping along the woodland paths of 
her plantation home, coming close to nature and 
enjoying the simple, healthful pleasures of country 
life, the little Dolly passed her early childhood. 

171 



172 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Her grandfather, John Payne, was an English 
gentleman who came to Virginia and married Anna 
Fleming, a lady of Scotch birth, and who was de- 
scended, it is claimed, from the Earl of Wigton, a 
Scottish nobleman. Her father, John Payne, junior, 
married Mary Coles, the daughter of an Irish gen- 
tleman from Ennescorthy, County Wexford, Ire- 
land. This Mary Coles was on the maternal side 
descended from the Winstons of Virginia — a family 
noted for brilliant intellect and aristocratic lineage. 
Indeed, it is reasonable to suppose that much of 
Dolly Payne's conversational gift was a legacy from 
these Winstons. Her mother's cousin, Patrick 
Henry, the orator, was said to have inherited his 
talent from his brilliant mother, Sarah Winston, 
while another cousin, Judge Edmond Winston, was 
a local celebrity. 

Of the three strains of blood, English, Scotch 
and Irish, that flowed in Dolly Payne's veins, the 
Irish appears to have predominated. The rose-leaf 
complexion, the laughing blue eyes, the clustering 
curls of jet black hair, the quick wit, generous heart 
and persuasive tongue, — all these were legacies 
from the County Wexford ancestors; the gentle 
queenliness of bearing was an inheritance, from 
the high-bred, long-pedigreed Winstons, while the 
sound judgment and common sense, that was the 



DOLLY MADISON 1 73 

real source, perhaps, of her success, came to her 
from the sturdy Scotch branch of the family tree. 

The ** Cousin Dolly " for whom Dolly Payne 
was named was the lovely Dorothea Spotswood 
Daindridge, granddaughter of the famous Gov- 
ernor, Sir Alexander Spotswood of Virginia, and 
also descended from the Winstons. Curiously 
enough, this "Cousin Dolly" married two of Dolly 
Payne's mother's cousins — first Patrick Henry and, 
after his death, when her little namesake was nine 
years old. Judge Edmond Winston, making a be- 
wildering maze of cousins as they used to do, and 
still do, down in Virginia. 

Dolly Payne's father was a Quaker, so little 
Mistress Dolly wore her ashen-colored gowns down 
to her toes and the queer little Quaker bonnets and 
plain white kerchiefs prescribed for those of her sex 
by the decree of the " Friends," as they were called. 
But this sober dress was not to her mind, it seems, 
for we read that she wore a gold chain about her 
neck, under the folds of her kerchief — a sin she 
confessed to the old black ''Mammy Rosy," who no 
doubt scolded her for such an impropriety, and then 
petted her and consoled her with an extra allowance 
for some particularly longed-for dainty. 

It was on account of John Payne's religious 
belief that he set free his negro slaves, sold his 



174 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

plantation, and moved his family to Philadelphia, 
where he hoped to find more sympathy than was to 
be had from the Virginia cavaliers. The date of 
this event comes down to us through the diary 
of one of the Paynes' neighbors. Mistress Eliza- 
beth Drinker sets down under the date " July 9th, 
1783" this fact: "John Payne's family came to 
reside in Philadelphia." 

At that time Philadelphia was the metropolis of 
America. There were four thousand houses and 
thirty-two thousand inhabitants. The State House, 
the Old Court House, Christ Church and Car- 
penter's Hall must have seemed very grand to the 
Hanover County, Virginia, maiden, who little 
dreamed of the part she was to play in the social 
world of the new republic. 

Near the Governor's house, at Shockamaxon, on 
the Delaware, the "Treaty Elm," where William 
Penn, with a blue sash about his waist, held a coun- 
cil with the Indians, was still standing in those days. 
John Payne found his financial position much em- 
barrassed after the sale of the Virginia plantation, 
and was no doubt glad when a desirable suitor in 
the person of young John Todd, a Quaker also, and 
a rising lawyer, asked for the hand of Mistress 
Dolly. Mistress Dolly herself was not enthusiastic 
in the matter, but she finally yielded to her father's 



DOLLY MADISON 175 

desire and was married to Lawyer Todd on the 
7th day of January, 1790, in the Friends' Meet- 
inghouse on Pine street. No minister, no bridal 
veil, no bridesmaids at this wedding, no throwing of 
old shoes, nor any of the merry-making her gay 
nature would have liked, perhaps. 

Soon after John Payne died, leaving his widow 
so straitened in means that she had to take in 
some gentlemen to board. 

Three years later John Todd died of the yellow 
fever that swept over Philadelphia, and Dolly Todd 
was left a young widow in poor circumstances and 
with one child, — Payne Todd, — who was in after 
years to sadden and shadow her life. 

In about a year after John Todd's death Aaron 
Burr, who had been an inmate of Mrs. Payne's 
household, introduced the young widow to James 
Madison, who had already made a wide reputation. 

Mrs. Todd wrote to a friend in quite a flutter 
that Mr. Burr was going to bring "that great little 
Madison" to call upon her. 

The "great little Madison" called, and in the 
words of a biographer: "He came, he saw — she 
conquered." 

Shortly after Mrs. Washington sent for Dolly 
and questioned her about Madison's attentions, 
strongly advising the youthful widow to accept him 



176 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

as a husband. This advice being to the widow's 
mind, she did so at once, receiving the President's 
and Mrs. Washington's hearty congratulations. 
Dolly's sister had married George Steptoe Wash- 
ington, the President's nephew, so there was a 
connection in the two famihes. 

The second marriage was solemnized at "Hare- 
wood," the estate of her brother-in-law, in Virginia, 
September 15th, 1794. 

From Harewood they went to Montpelier, Mad- 
ison's home in Orange County, Virginia, traveling 
over a distance of a hundred miles by coach. 

Madison always spelled Montpelier without the 
double "1," so it seems fitting that biographers 
should do likewise. 

It was through his wife's influence that he was 
induced to hold his seat in Congress until the end of 
the Washington administration, which occurred in 
1797. With it ended Dolly Madison's life in Phila- 
delphia, for Madison did not come to take part in 
National affairs again until Jefferson became Pres- 
ident in 1 80 1, and in the meantime the seat of 
Government had been moved to the north bank of 
the Potomac River, and the Capital was called 
Washington in honor of ithe nation's chief, who had 
died in 1799. The man who had framed the Con- 
stitution of th€ United States and was known as 




Dolly Madison. 



DOLLY MADISON 1 77 

the "Father of the Constitution" was needed, and 
Jefferson appointed Madison Secretary of State. 
From this time began Dolly Madison's social reign 
in Washington. From that time she became a 
power to be reckoned with, in political games, for 
though she made no effort to mix in affairs of State, 
her influence was felt indirectly in matters of great 
importance. 

In 1809 Dolly Madison's husband succeeded 
Jefferson as President, and she realized her ambition 
by becoming the " first lady of the land." She was 
always equal to the occasion. When shy, awkward 
youths came to the White House, it was she who 
put them at ease. When editors of the opposition 
party grew most bitter, the President's wife was 
always unfailing in her undemonstrative courtesy 
and attention to their wives. In her drawing-room 
opposing elements met and she smothered away the 
friction with one of those rare smiles or a pleasant 
word. To have Mrs. Madison offer one her snuff 
box was enough to turn enmity to friendship. Even 
during the trying period of the war of 1812, when 
Madison was. torn to pieces by the peace party, she 
was the most popular person in the United States. 

The story of her cutting out Washington's por- 
trait from the frame, when the British were about 
to enter the Capital, is a pretty enough story, but it 



178 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

is not true ; she had the frame broken because it had 
to be unscrewed and there was no time to lose, but 
one of the servants actually did it. 

But, notwithstanding, she was a bit of a heroine 
to stay in the White House until the enemy was 
actually upon her. Madison had gone with the 
Cabinet from Washington, leaving orders that Mrs. 
Madison should remain until she received a mes- 
sage from him telling her to quit the city. 

This she did, staying until General Ross was 
marching on to Washington. Then she received a 
penciled note from the President, advising flight. 
A dinner party was to be given that very evening, 
and the British invaders found places set for forty 
guests, the meats smoking hot before the kitchen 
fire and the wines ready to serve when they entered 
the White House. They sat down, ate the good 
dinner, and then set torches to the public buildings 
of the city. Dolly Madison had saved some im- 
portant papers and what few valuables she could 
cram into her old-fashioned reticule. 

If President Madison, who though a great states- 
man, was no man of war, had showed her coolness 
and judgment, much of the ridicule to which he was 
exposed would have been avoided. 

But when peace came there were bonfires, balls, 
and rejoicing throughout the country. 



DOLLY MADISON 1 79 

The President's family was now established in 
Xy the Taylor Mansion, on the corner of Eighteenth 
Street and New York Avenue, and here Dolly Mad- 
ison dispensed liberal hospitality to the throngs of 
people who came to greet the head of the Govern- 
ment and to rejoice at the good news. 

Mr. James Blaine wrote of her: "She saved the 
administration," but that perhaps is too great praise. 

At all events, she held greater social and political 
sway than any other woman of our history. And 
through it all, she kept pure, and high, and unselfish. 
It is this that makes her life an example to the girls 
of our own day and generation. 

In the midst of her greatest social glory she had 
one great grief — her son — Payne Todd, the "Amer- 
ican Prince," who had his mother's charm but not 
her nobility. 

After Madison's two terms were over, he re- 
turned again to Montpelier, where he lived until the 
year 1836, when he passed out of the world in 
which he had left so lasting an impression. 

After his death Dolly Madison returned to Wash- 
ington, where the remaining twelve years of her life 
were spent in the house now owned by the Cosmos 
Club, but which is still called "Dolly Madison's 
home." 

Here the old lady, now in poverty, for Montpelier 



l8o AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

had been sacrificed to pay the gambling debts of her 
unworthy son — but still retaining her old tact — 
received attention from everybody who resided in 
or came to Washington. 

The nation settled a goodly sum upon her, gave 
her the " franking " privilege and voted her a " seat 
in the House." 

When she died her funeral was conducted with 
pomp that has marked no other American woman's 
last rites. The clergy, the Senate, the President 
and Cabinet, foreign diplomatic corps, judges of 
the Supreme Court, the officers of Army and Navy, 
and the Mayor and Corporation of Washington, 
attended. It was a pageant. In late years her body 
was removed to Montpelier. 

Dolly Madison died July I2th, 1849. She lies 
in a somewhat neglected spot within the shadow of 
the Blue Ridge Mountains, and reviewing her pure, 
brave, beautiful life-record and the courageous way 
she met the great grief of her life, we like to think 
of her words to a young relative, "Nothing in this 
world is of much moment, my dear." 

The soft Southern tongue is silent forever, but as 
Mrs. Fields has said of Lady Tennyson — "the mem- 
ory cannot be effaced of one lady who kept the 
traditions of high womanhood safe, above all pos- 
sible deteriorations of human existence.'V 



STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER. 

Lying on both sides of the River Prince Maurice, 
as it was called in the old days of Dutch rule, and 
now known as the Hudson River, stretched in 1777, 
the vast "colonic'* or estate of the boy Patroon, 
Stephen Van Rensselaer. Its seven hundred thou- 
sand acres of land had come down by inheritance 
from the times of Heer Director Killian Van Rens- 
selaer, who had reigned over all this territory like 
a prince or feudal lord, independent of all authority 
except that of the Dutch West India Company, 
which had undertaken to colonize that part of 
America which they called the New Netherlands, 
but which we know to-day as New York. 

The great Manor House of Rensselaerswyck, 
with its broad halls, its low ceilings, its tiled fire- 
places, and its stair wainscoting; its stores of fine 
table linen, massive silver and quaint delft ware 
from Holland across the sea, had been a sort of 
baronial castle, from which Heer Killian and his 
descendants had dispensed both hospitality and 
justice to the Indians who brought their furs to his 
doors, and to the hundreds of tenants who farmed 

181 



l82 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

his lands, fished in his streams, and plied their trades 
and crafts within the boundaries of Rensselaers- 
wyck, as the estate was called. 

Now, in 1777, young Stephen Van Rensselaer, a 
lad of thirteen years, was master of all these broad 
acres, for he was the last of the Patroons of the 
Dutch New Netherlands, now a colony of Great 
Britain, and called New York. 

There had been many changes since 1630, when 
the first lord of the Manor had held sway in the 
great, rambling, peaked-roof house. The flag of 
the Rensselaers no longer floated from its gables; 
the cannon that stood on the hill no longer boomed 
defiance nor proclaimed warfare from the fort. 
Albany, almost within its boundaries, was now 
quite a town, presenting an appearance of thrift and 
comfort. But in spite of all these changes, the 
tenants of Rensselaerswyck were still loyal to their 
little landlord, the "boy Patroon," Stephen Van 
Rensselaer. 

The Dutch are a people who cling to old customs, 
old manners, and old ways of living and thinking, 
and so it was that even in 1777 there was a great 
deal in the village of Albany to remind one of the 
days of Dutch rule, when the Patroon's word was 
law; days when a great-great-grandfather of 
Stephen, who was, like him, a boy Patroon also, 



STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER 1 83 

quarreled with sturdy Peter Stuyvesant, the "Di- 
rector" of the "Colonie," and in the struggle lost 
a part of Rensselaerswyck. 

Old Albany had been a peaceful enough burgher 
town in those days. The Dutch **Haus-vrouws" 
(housewives), with their dairying, poultry-yards, 
their neat little garden of tulips and pinks to weed 
and tend; their dyeing, spinning, weaving, and the 
endless knitting of scarlet-clocked stockings, went 
about in their bright petticoats and calico caps, 
quite contented with themselves and their simple 
but cozy homes. The honest, if a trifle slow, 
burghers, too, were perfectly satisfied if their fur 
trading prospered, if there were good catches of 
fish, and if the wood-chopping made good prog- 
ress, for these were the things that kept the men 
busy. 

On the whole, life in this Dutch village — for 
Dutch it was for generations after the English flag 
floated over it — was wholesome and pleasant. 

It is restful to think of those long, cold Winter 
nights, when the burghers and their wives and little 
ones slept warmly between their plump feather beds, 
turning over drowsily as the "klopper mann," or 
night watchman, shook his watch rattle at each 
door, as he passed, calling out the hour and the 
state of the weather. 



184 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

At the Manor House, of course, living was on a 
larger scale, with something of pomp and elegance 
as well as ample comfort, for the wealthy Patroon 
families held somewhat the places of princes among 
the people even after their real power was gone. 

So quiet was the life in Albany that the good 
burghers, as well as their highborn neighbors, 
received a rude shock when the news came one sum- 
mer day that Ticonderoga was taken, and the more 
dreadful tidings to them, perhaps, that the Indians 
were on the warpath. 

This was, indeed, enough to make every citizen 
of Albany turn pale, for the horrors of the mas- 
sacre of Schenectady, in the early times of the 
" Colonic," had been handed down from father 
to son, and all knew the terrors of Indian war- 
fare. 

In spite of the fact that New York was in man- 
ners, customs, and characteristics Dutch, though the 
flag of Great Britain had waved triumphantly, with 
the exception of one short interval, ever since that 
day in 1664 when old Peter Stuyvesant stood up 
with a face pale as death and said, as he saw the 
boat launched that was to carry the papers of capit- 
ulation to the Englishman commanding the besieg- 
ing fleet : "I had rather be carried to my grave than 
to have seen this day ! " — the people of Albany were. 



STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER 1 85 

in 1777, for the most part loyal to the American 
cause. 

The situation of the colonies seemed at this time 
almost desperate. Ticonderoga was taken; St. 
Clair was defeated, General Burgoyne, the English 
commander, was on his way to the Hudson, and 
the Indians were about to rise. Truly it was a time 
for even the bravest hearts to falter. 

Now, little Stephen Van Rensselaer, the thirteen- 
year-old boy Patroon, was too young, perhaps, to 
quite fully understand all that these tidings meant, 
but his boyish heart thrilled with a desire to do 
something for his country. 

*'I am just a boy," said the little Patroon to him- 
self, perhaps, as he gazed over the long stretches of 
wood and field and hill, with the blue waters of the 
Hudson running between. 

''And sometimes a boy can do something!" As 
he stood thinking, a tall, dignified-looking gentle- 
man rode up to the door of the Manor House and 
alighted. 

"Have you heard the news, nephew?" asked the 
gentleman, who was General Abraham Ten Broeck, 
Stephen's uncle and guardian. 

"Is it as bad as they say, uncle?" 

The General shook his head. 

"I am afraid it is; there is a great scarcity of 



1 86 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

food among our men and hungry soldiers cannot 
fight long." General Ten Broeck sighed as he 
spoke. 

**Uncle," said Stephen, suddenly, raising his head 
proudly, "I know that I am only a boy, and that a 
boy can't do much, but by descent I am still Patroon 
of Rensselaerswyck. And, uncle, I have a plan, by 
which, with your consent, we may help our soldiers 
a little.'* 

"How, nephew? Remember, the Manor House 
no longer rules the burghers. If the Colonies be- 
come independent you will no longer be a Patroon, 
even in name. We are fighting for a republic, 
boy." 

"I know, I know," said the lad, "and I had rather 
be the free citizen of a country of free citizens than 
to be a Patroon ten times over !" 

"Well said, Stephen," said the General warmly, 
"and now what is your plan?" 

"It is this, uncle; to ask the tenants of Rens- 
selaerswyck to give a portion of their grain, poultry, 
pigs and vegetables to our soldiers. Is it not a fine 
plan, and won't you give me leave, Uncle Ten 
Broeck?" 

General Ten Broeck stood silent for a moment, 
and then he said: "It is an excellent thought, and 
I will ask the tenants of Rensselaerswyck, in your 



STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER 1 87 

name, if they will do what you wish." So the 
matter was settled. 

Mr. Brooks, who in his "Historic Boys," is the 
authority for this incident in the child-life of 
Stephen Van Rensselaer, gives a graphic account of 
how the tenants responded to the boy Patroon's 
request by giving generously of their abundant 
stores to the half-starving soldiers who were 
bravely fighting for American independence. 

It is pleasant to think how every man of them 
in that old "colonic" of Rensselaerswyck brought 
their pork, sausages, cabbages, cheeses, smoked 
meats, and favorite "sauer kraut" to the Manor 
House to be packed off to General Washington's 
men ; and pleasant, too, to think of how the hungry 
soldiers must have given three lusty cheers for the 
jolly Dutchmen of Rensselaerswyck and the pa- 
triotic boy Patroon ! 

Perhaps, as Stephen sat quietly listening to his 
uncle and Dominie Westerloo talk over the news of 
the times, and heard them say what great changes 
would come if the Americans should conquer their 
freedom, he may have felt sometimes a vague regret 
at the thought of losing the power and influence 
that had come down from his ancestors, but he put 
away such thoughts, we may be sure, as unworthy 
of a patriotic boy who loved his country. 



1 88 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Mr. Brooks tells us, too, that Stephen persuaded 
his uncle and mother to allow him to give to the 
tenants who had helped to win the campaign of 
Saratoga by their supplies sent to the weakened and 
suffering soldiers, a portion of his vast estate, pre- 
senting each tenant, or farmer, with a title deed to 
the land he farmed. Now this was a very large 
amount of land to give away, but people were will- 
ing, in those days, to give up a great deal to show 
what they felt about American independence. So 
it fell out that Madam Van Rensselaer, and the 
good Dominie whom she afterwards married, and 
General Ten Broeck, all agreed that this was a fine 
and noble thing for the boy to do, and consented to 
having the title deeds made out to the Dutch farm- 
ers, who were overjoyed to find themselves landed 
proprietors. 

But in spite of war and fighting, boys had to 
have some knowledge of Latin and mathematics 
and history, so Stephen's mother and uncle and the 
Dominie talked the matter of schools and schooling 
over, as they sat around the polished mahogany 
table in the big dining-room of the Manor House, 
eating a good Dutch supper, perhaps, of soft waffles 
and chopped meat and chocolate, and finally de- 
cided that it was time for the boy to be sent where 
he would learn more than the Albany schools 



STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER 1 89 

offered. The College of New Jersey, as Princeton 
used to be called in those days, was quite a famous 
place of learning then, as it is now, so it was de- 
cided that Stephen should go there to prepare for 
Harvard. 

And what a great time there was, to be sure, 
getting ready for the journey ! Five other boys of 
Albany, whose fathers were men of wealth and 
position, were to go at the same time, so there was 
quite a traveling party made up to make the long 
and perilous journey from the banks of the Hud- 
son to the Jersey plains. So dangerous, indeed, 
was the trip, that the boys went under military 
escort, a thing to make every boy in New York 
State feel twinges of envy darting through his 
heart, no doubt, for where is the boy, or was there 
ever a boy, who would not have enjoyed the thrill- 
ing experience of going to school under such very 
romantic and exciting circumstances? 

New York was held by the British at the time, 
so there were all sorts of wonderful possibilities, 
and what was most wonderful of all, they met on 
that historic journey the stately Virginia Com- 
mander in Chief, Washington himself, who bade 
each boy do his best to become a true and loyal 
American citizen and make the most of his oppor- 
tunities in life. 



190 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

The walls of Princeton were scarred from the 
shot and shells of British guns, and sometimes 
lessons would be interrupted by the booming of 
cannon, but in spite of all these unusual surround- 
ings of school life Stephen Van Rensselaer made 
such good use of his time that he was soon ready 
to enter Harvard, from which he was graduated 
" with honor,'' just after completing his eighteenth 
birthday, in 1782. 

Returning to the Manor House, his life was 
quiet and uneventful until his twenty-first birth- 
day, which he felt was the beginning of real man- 
hood and its grave responsibilities, and which was 
celebrated by a great barbecue. Oxen, sheep, and 
little pigs were roasted whole over enormous beds 
of coals that lay in long trenches in the earth, and 
which had accumulated from great fires kindled 
days before and constantly replenished by trees 
felled for the purpose. Fowls, game of all sorts, 
the vegetables that the season offered and various 
good things from the larder, cellar, and kitchen of 
the Manor House were heaped in lavish profusion 
upon long tables set on the lawns and dispensed in 
hospitable portions to friends, neighbors, and ten- 
ants, who, for miles around, had come to drink a 
health to Stephen Van Rensselaer, now no longer 
the boy Patroon, but a citizen of free America. 



STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER I9I 

It was but natural that a young man commanding 
such wealth and influence should enter into public life 
at an early age. First a member of the Assembly, 
then a State Senator, he rose to the rank of Major- 
General in the militia, and when war was again 
declared against Great Britain, in 1812, he was the 
conqueror of Queenston Heights — in which en- 
gagement he showed great daring, though the 
soldiers under his command behaved badly, and the 
hard-won advantage was lost almost as soon as it 
was gained. 

General Van Rensselaer, who had been urged by 
his men to cross the Niagara between the frowning 
bluffs that lay on either side from Lewiston to 
Queenston, considered this a very important point 
to be secured by the Americans for a base of 
supplies and as a place for winter quarters. An in- 
sufficient number of boats to carry the soldiers 
over, however, caused such delay in getting the 
troopers across that the raw militia, of which about 
one-half of General Van Rensselaer's force was 
composed, grew panic-stricken and refused to 
fight. 

Their brave commander was so disgusted with this 
treacherous and cowardly conduct that he im- 
mediately resigned, feeling that the personal daring 
of the chief officer counted for nothing against the 



192 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

cowardice and selfishness of half an army. The 
attack upon Queenston Heights, in spite of its 
unfortunate termination, was one of the most gal- 
lant episodes of the war of 181 2, though historians 
agree that it was ill-judged and too hasty. 

Years after, when the Erie Canal was projected, 
General Van Rensselaer was one of its earliest and 
most earnest supporters, and the accomplishment of 
that great enterprise to which New York owes, 
to-day, so much of her vast commercial wealth and 
influence, was in a great measure due to him. 

But his name will be remembered best and long- 
est, perhaps, by the hundreds of boys who, through 
the instruction received at Rensselaer Polytechnic 
Institute at Troy, New York, have been fitted for 
the battle of life. This institution was established 
and endowed by Stephen Van Rensselaer, who for a 
long time had cherished the idea of giving to boys 
who were unable to pay for such advantages, a 
free education in all of the branches of physical 
science. 

With this noble end in view, he first established a 
course of lectures on subjects of familiar science, 
for which he paid out of his own pocket. 

These lectures aroused great interest in this line 
of thought. There were boys all around who were 
very eager to learn, but who were too poor to take 



STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER 1 93 

Up a scientific line of study. To these the Rensse- 
laer Polytechnic Institute was the door to success 
and distinction, and some of the most prominent 
men of science of New York owe their fame, pri- 
marily, to this good man's useful and noble charity. 
And so it seems as if every American boy must feel 
a peculiar interest in this boy who grew up and was 
a friend to boys. 

In 1839 General Stephen Van Rensselaer died, 
loved, honored and respected by all who knew him, 
and regretted by hundreds of young men who owed 
to his generosity their success in life. 

It was a brave thing to storm Queenston Heights, 
but in looking back over the seventy-five years of 
his life, it was a braver thing quietly to accept the 
changed conditions from' a privileged lord of the 
manor to the simple rank of citizen of a republic 
without regret — nay — willingly, freely, gladly. 

One likes to think of the boy Patroon, standing 
that bright autumn afternoon, in his sky-blue silk 
coat and white satin knickerbockers, his silk stock- 
ings and peak-toed shoes, his lace frills and 
ruffles and ribbons, as the stern Uncle Ten Broeck 
gave away, for him, a large portion of his estate 
to the loyal Dutch tenants who had given of their 
stores to the American soldiers and so helped to 
fight the fierce Saratoga campaign. The picture is 



194 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

a beautiful one I A picture to thrill boyish hearts 
all the world over, for the boy Patroon was that day 
a boy hero, for it is a braver deed to give up wealth 
and power for the sake of a noble and just cause than 
to take a dozen cities ! 



MARIA MITCHELD 

In the summer of 1818, when the Nantucket 
Islanders were just beginning to recover from the 
disastrous effects of the war of 181 2, which had 
very nearly destroyed the whaling industry of 
the Island, there was born in the little Quaker 
island village a girl baby, who was one day to make 
the name of Nantucket known over the world as 
the birthplace of the first and most famous woman 
of science in America. 

The parents of the small bundle of helpless 
humanity that arrived in the Mitchell household on 
the first day of August in that year (1818) would 
have been very much surprised if they had been 
told that morning that the baby asleep in her basket- 
cradle upstairs was to be a learned professor, a dis- 
coverer, and the pioneer of women in the field of 
science in her own country. William and Lydia 
(Coleman) Mitchell would have laughed at such a 
prophecy, no doubt, for they were quiet Quaker 
folk> who would have thought dreams of ambition 
and worldly distinction unbecoming the humble 

195 



196 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

followers of " the discipline," as the religious rules 
of the Quakers, or Friends, were called. 

Mr. Mitchell was during a part of his life a school 
teacher and a bank officer, but he was always an 
ardent student of astronomy, so it was not strange 
that little Maria learned something about the stars 
almost before she learned anything else. For years 
William Mitchell made observations for the United 
States Coast Survey, and when the whale ships came 
in from their voyages the chronometers were 
always brought to him to be " rated," as it was 
called. To do this " rating," an instrument called 
a sextant was used and the observations were made 
in the little back yard of the Vestal Street house 
where the Mitchells lived. As the little Mitchells 
came along, each one in turn had to learn to count 
the seconds by the chronometer, while their father 
made the observations and computed the " ratings." 
This was rather stupid work for most of the chil- 
dren, but for Maria it possessed a great fascination, 
and, to her, the clumsy reflecting telescope in the 
back yard was the most interesting object in the 
whole world. 

Afterwards Mr. Mitchell bought a small Dolland 
telescope, and later on the Coast Survey loaned him 
a larger and finer one, but the little Dolland was the 
one Maria used as long as she lived. 



MARIA MITCHELL 197 

As the years went by Mr. Mitchell's sky-studying 
was made easier by the loan of an " altitude and 
azimuth circle " from West Point Academy, so, 
although there were no girls' colleges in those times, 
Maria Mitchell really had the best of opportunities 
for thorough scientific study and the most enthusi- 
astic teacher in her father. When Mr. Mitchell 
gave up his school, in which his daughter had been 
a pupil, to accept the position of cashier of the 
Pacific Bank, he still clung to his favorite study, and 
a little observatory was put up on the top of the 
bank building and two small, rough buildings were 
erected in the yard for the transits. This fact 
would lead us to infer that Mr. Mitchell's ability as 
a mathematician was regarded as fully worth the 
trouble of putting up observatories and " transit '* 
houses for his use, or that Nantucket Islanders had 
a peculiar reverence and admiration for the pursuit 
of knowledge. 

Although rather a slow child at school, both her 
father and Mr. Pierce, in whose school she was a 
student, perceived that the quiet little girl had a very 
decided talent for mathematics. With great good 
sense Mr. Mitchell determined that she should fol- 
low the natural bent of her mind, so he began to 
teach her navigation and mathematics. Now, navi- 
gation was a queer thing to teach a little girl, but 



198 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

this little girl took a real pleasure in learning all the 
curious things one must know to be able to steer 
vessels across the great oceans. Then lessons in 
astronomy followed, with star-gazing on the house 
top, learning to make astronomical tables, and much 
computing and calculating of planetary distances 
and other wonderful things that would, very likely, 
give ordinary people headache and vexation. 

At the time of the annular eclipse of the sun in 
1 83 1, the totality was central at Nantucket. The 
occasion was important, so out came the window of 
the Vestal Street parlor, and the telescope — the little 
Dolland — was mounted in front of it. Not a very 
comfortable situation had the eclipse chanced to 
come in winter instead of summer, for Mr. Mitchell 
had very little regard for degrees of temperature, or 
prejudice against heat or cold, when there was an 
eclipse or a comet on hand. 

On this particular occasion Maria, who was twelve 
years old, sat soberly beside her father and counted 
the seconds as he "observed." 

After leaving Mr. Pierce's school (Mr. Pierce 
was the principal, some years later, of the first 
Normal school established in the United States) 
Maria Mitchell became an assistant teacher in the 
institution where she had been a favorite pupil. 
Professor Pierce had not then published his " Ex- 



MARIA MITCHELL 199 

planation o.f the Navigator and the Almanac/' so 
the seventeen-year-old girl astronomer had to con- 
sult a great many scientific books and reports before 
she could construct her astronomical tables, which 
meant a vast amount of work. 

After teaching a short time in the Pierce school, 
she opened a private school of her own in Traders* 
Lane, but gave it up to take the position of Librarian 
of the Nantucket Atheneum, where for nearly 
twenty years she helped to form the taste of young 
Nantucketers for good, wholesome reading. She 
took the trouble to read the juvenile books herself, 
and if any particular one did not seem to her to be 
fit for her little friends the book was tucked away 
in some out-of-the-way corner and did not turn 
up again until the day of the trustees' meeting, 
when it was always found. The next day, how- 
ever, the book would again disappear. 

The Atheneum librarian received sixty dollars for 
her services, which were only required in the fore- 
noons and on Saturday evenings, and this sum, 
which no schoolgirl of to-day would consider worth 
working for, sufficed to provide Maria Mitchell 
with clothing and a snug little nest tgg beside. One 
can imagine the earnest-faced, bright-eyed girl 
sitting in the library during the quiet Nantucket 
winters chatting with the villagers as they dropped in 



200 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

to get a book or if, as was often the case, there were 
no visitors, how she would sit knitting the yard-long 
stockings that used to keep the rheumatism out of 
her father's legs, while her eyes traveled over the 
pages of some favorite book, for Maria Mitchell 
knew how to make eyes and fingers work on different 
lines at the same time. Nantucket life in winter 
must have been very dull for young folks in the old 
days of strict Quakerism. When the snowstorms 
came the island would sometimes be as much cut 
off from the busy world as if it lay in the Indian 
Ocean instead of close to the Massachusetts coast in 
the Atlantic. For weeks, during some prolonged 
cold " snap," as the New Englanders say, there 
would be no word of communication from the main- 
land; no incoming craft, no outgoing messenger, 
for the shoals were dangerous even in fair weather, 
and not to be dared by the hardiest sailors in the 
teeth of wintry gales. 

Musical instruments were not allowed in Quaker 
households, but the young Mitchells took advantage 
of their parents' absence one evening and had a 
piano brought in and deposited in the "sewing" 
room upstairs. There was some protest from the 
elders when they returned home and discovered this 
unexpected bit of house furnishing, but things were 
finally settled by Mr. Mitchell's request for "a 



MARIA MITCHELL 20I 

lively tune/' which was considered, no doubt, an 
unconditional surrender. The truth was, Mr. 
Mitchell loved music and color. If the little 
Mitchells wore the sober garb of the Quakers, there 
was a bright setting of parti-colored flowers in 
the garden ; roses bloomed on the sitting room walls 
and the wooden part of the big telescope was painted 
a bright scarlet. 

There was company, too, at the Vestal Street 
house in the summer season when the island was 
accessible. Scientific men visited at the Mitchell 
home — such men as the Bonds of the Cambridge 
observatory, and Mr. Bowditch and Mr. Bache were 
frequent guests there — and this association with 
men of science, no doubt, was a great help to the 
girl student. 

Knitting and studying, helping about the house- 
work, telling the smaller children stories in the 
evenings, " sweeping the sky " on clear nights and 
doing it much more thoroughly than the old woman 
of Mother Goose's melodies who was so particular 
about carrying her broom along — Maria Mitchell 
passed the early part of her life doing whatever 
her hand found to do, cheerfully and happily. The 
practical study of astronomy is not always a com- 
fortable occupation. Many a night when a cold 
wind blew in from the sea and the rest of the 



202 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Mitchell family would be sitting around a blazing 
fire in the living room or snugly tucked in their 
beds, Maria would be up on the house top looking 
through the telescope at the great shining stars in 
the far-off sky world that held such interest for her. 
One autumn night — it was the first day of Octo- 
ber, 1847 — there was a little party at Mr. Mitchell's 
house. The evening was so clear and bright that 
Maria could not resist the temptation to climb up 
on the roof and do a little "sky sweeping," as she 
called her observation. So putting on extra stock- 
ings and clothing and arming herself with a lantern, 
she slipped away from the guests and made her way 
up to her beloved telescope. She had been gazing 
up into the heavens for a little while when suddenly 
she became aware that there was something very 
like a comet in the sky. Scarcely daring to trust 
her senses she watched it breathlessly until she was 
sure that she was right. Then she hurried down 
to the parlor and whispered the exciting news to her 
father, who immediately followed up to the roof. 
Mr. Mitchell looked through the telescope for 
several minutes before he spoke. At last he said: 
" Maria, that is a comet, and the discovery is thine ! " 
One may easily imagine the feelings of both father 
and daughter as they stood alone there, with the 
quiet little town below them, the great ocean 



MARIA MITCHELL 203 

Stretching all around them as far as eye could 
reach, and the vast sky above them. Both of 
them were astronomers, and both knew that this 
discovery meant, if no one else had yet seen this 
comet, that Maria Mitchell would now take rank 
among the distinguished astronomers of Europe and 
America. With a modesty that was a part of the 
girl's nature, the daughter begged her father to say 
nothing about what she had seen until she could find 
out whether she was really the first to observe it. 
Mr. Mitchell, however, insisted upon writing to Mr. 
Bond of the Cambridge observatory, and posted his 
letter by the first mail from Nantucket. This letter 
was dated October 3d, and mentions that " Maria 
discovered a telescopic comet at half-past ten on the 
evening of the ist instant, at that hour nearly 
above Polaris five degrees; this evening nearing the 
pole. It does not bear illumination. Maria has 
obtained its right ascension and declination and 
will not suffer me to announce it. Pray tell me, 
whether it is Georgi's and whether it has been seen 
by anybody." Mr. Bond at once recognized the im- 
portance of the matter, for Frederick VI of Den- 
mark had some years before offered a gold medal 
for the discovery of a telescopic comet, and now it 
seemed probable that a girl living in remote little 
Nantucket was going to get the Danish medal. 



204 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

The conditions imposed by the Danish king were 
that the discoverer should at once make public the 
discovery and that an application for the medal 
should be made immediately to the king's business 
representatives in the matter. Now, neither of 
these conditions had been fulfilled by Maria Mitchell, 
who knew nothing about them, as they had not been 
published in the United States ; so, although she was 
really the first astronomer who had seen this comet, 
there were several other people who had sent in their 
claims. Mr. Edward Everett undertook to press 
the claim of the American girl, however, and finally 
convinced Frederick VII (Frederick VI had died 
in the meantime) that Maria Mitchell was the 
rightful claimant to the medal. Father da Vico, in 
Rome, had seen the same comet; Mr. Dawes, an 
English astronomer, had seen it, and Madam 
Riimker in Germany; but they were just enough and 
generous enough to admit that Maria ought to have 
the medal, so it was sent over to her with due pomp 
and ceremony, and from that day the comet she 
had discovered was called '* Miss Mitchell's comet." 
Of course Maria was now a celebrated person. 
A year later, in 1848, she was elected to member- 
ship by the '' American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences," the first and only woman ever admitted 
to that august body. The secretary of the society 



MARIA MITCHELL 205 

seemed to have some doubts about the propriety of 
the proceeding, however, for he rubbed out the 
printed word " Fellow " on the diploma and put in 
its place the words " Honorary Member." Some 
years afterwards her name was printed among the 
list of " Fellows " of this Academy, and also was 
enrolled in the list of the " American Institute " 
and the *' American Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science." 

Maria Mitchell made two visits to Europe, 
where she was entertained by the most famous 
astronomers of England, France, Germany, Russia, 
and Italy. 

After her return from the second European trip 
she found her mother's health very poor, so she 
devoted herself to the care of the invalid until 
earthly care was no longer needed. She then re- 
moved from Nantucket to Lynn, Massachusetts, 
where she and her father took their observatory and 
telescopes and worked and studied together as of 
old, Maria still knitting the old gentleman's long 
stockings as she pored over the book on the table 
before her. 

About this time Matthew Vassar, the son of an 
English wool grower and beer brewer, who had 
early in the century come to New York, was making 
ready to establish the first women's college in 



20b AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

America. This Matthew Vassar had been, as a little 
boy, so opposed to the idea of being a brewer that he 
had run away from home to keep from going into 
that business. His mother, who used to drive a 
wagon about the neighborhood, helped the twelve- 
year-old boy off, for she did not want him to be a 
brewer either. 

Well, years afterwards Matthew came home to 
find the brewery burned and his father's affairs in a 
very bad state, indeed. He opened a little oyster shop 
and worked from morning till night to make a liv- 
ing. Finally, an Englishman who had some money 
offered to lend him enough to establish a brewery. 
Whether he had changed his mind about brewing or 
not, cannot be known now, of course, but at any rate 
he accepted the Englishman's aid and made a very 
large fortune out of his brewery. Then he decided 
that he would like to do something for the good of 
humanity. He looked about him to see what was 
most needed and what would do the most good in 
the world. At that time there was not a women's 
college in existence, and he said to himself : " Why 
not establish a college where girls who have the 
talent and the inclination may enjoy the advantages 
of a scientific and classical education? " 

But the idea was not popular. People said girls 
were not strong enough to learn the classics and the 



MARIA MITCHELL 207 

sciences. Matthew Vassar was sure that he was 
right about it, however, so he made his arrange- 
ments and endowed Vassar College for young 
American women, giving a half million of dollars 
for that purpose. The result proved his wisdom. 
The new college was thronged with earnest workers 
from the beginning, and Vassar has sent out from 
its walls some of the best equipped teachers in the 
world. As soon as the observatory of the college 
was completed the question arose: "Who shall 
receive the chair of Astronomy? '* And to this 
there was one answer only — " Maria Mitchell." 
So the position was offered to and accepted by Miss 
Mitchell, whose old father accompanied her to her 
new home, and Maria Mitchell became a great power 
in the institution, wielding an influence that is still 
felt by those who studied with her. Strong of pur- 
pose, requiring the best work, yet of ready sympathy 
and of quick wit, she commanded both the respect 
and affection of her pupils, who to this day remember 
the " Dome Parties " at Vassar as the happiest 
recollections of their college life. For nineteen 
years Miss Mitchell made computations for the 
American Nautical Almanac, and was sent to Den- 
ver, Colorado, to observe the eclipse there in 1878. 
When making preparations for this journey, she 
asked a Denver friend who was visiting her if she 



208 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

had a bit of land behind her house in Denver where 
she could put up her telescope. " Six hundred 
acres," was the reply, so with this ample provision 
of space she set out with her pupils for the long 
journey across the continent. Besides her regular 
work, Miss Mitchell found time to write several 
articles on scientific subjects for the leading maga- 
zines. Of herself she said : " I possess only ordi- 
nary capacity, but extraordinary persistency," but 
the record of her remarkable life shows that she 
possessed genius of a very unusual kind. Among 
her friends were Mrs. Somerville, Humboldt, 
Struve, Leverrier, and Sir George Airy of the Royal 
Observatory, Greenwich, England. In Rome she 
received a permit from Cardinal Antonelli to visit 
the famous Roman Observatory, an honor denied 
Mrs. Somerville, Sir John Herschel and his daugh- 
ter. Maria Mitchell cared very little for dress. 
She used to tell her pupils that all the clothing she 
had on cost but seventeen dollars, and that four suits 
would last a year. The Vassar girls smiled, but none 
of them ever followed their teacher's example. 

Mrs. Kendall, Miss Mitchell's sister and biog- 
rapher, tells a bright little story showing that the 
woman astronomer was witty as well as wise. One 
day she was driving out with the famous actress, 
Charlotte Cushman, and a Miss Stebbins. They 




'-mstm 




Maria Mitchell. 



MARIA MITCHELL 20g 

passed a large building which Miss Mitchell ex- 
plained had been a boys' school, but was now a hotel 
where they charged boarders five dollars a day. 

" Jupiter Ammon ! " exclaimed the great trage- 
dienne. " No/' said Miss Stebbins, '' Jupiter Mam- 
mon!" 

" Not at all," remarked Maria Mitchell, " Jupiter 
Gammon." 

Miss Mitchell's diary and letters show that she 
had considerable literary ability ; she tells interesting 
stories about the people and places she saw in her 
travels, and gives delightful glimpses of the home 
life of the great people she had met. Of one im- 
portant personage she remarks: "The first thing 
he said to me was : ' How many stockings do you 
wear when you are observing. Miss Mitchell? Caro- 
line Herschel puts on twelve pairs.' " 

After seventy-one years of hard work and re- 
markable achievement, Maria Mitchell, who may be 
called the heroine of industry, passed out of the 
world where she had left the impress of genius 
and, what is better still, the impress of a noble and 
unselfish life. She died on the 28th of June, 1889, 
and was buried in the island village where she was 
born and where most of her quiet life was passed. 

The roll of the surf against the shores of Nan- 
tucket beats a low refrain as the sea-gulls hover and 



2IO AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

circle under the cold, gray skies; the white-winged 
fishing smacks come and go as of old, and the 
golden stars that she used to watch now keep vigil 
over the grave of one whose soul found peace in 
the study and companionship of "the spacious 
firmament above." 



DOCTOR KANE 

To young people the life of an explorer is of 
more interest, perhaps, than the life of any other 
man, for youth is the time of energy, action, curi- 
osity, and hero worship. Deeds of daring, feats of 
physical strength, endurance of hardships, and en- 
counters with unknown perils are the themes that 
have inspired admiration in the hearts of boys of all 
nations and all times since the world began. 

When the hero of daring exploits undertakes his 
joumeyings into strange lands and mysterious dan- 
gers with a higher object than the mere gratification 
of a natural love of adventure, then indeed some- 
thing much better than admiration must be given 
him — respect; and when his object is the relief 
of suffering and the adding of knowledge to the 
world, to admiration and respect gratitude must be 
added. 

The boy reader who has pored over the thrilling 
tale of Elisha Kent Kane's voyages into the regions 
of the North Pole, the strange land of ice and snow, 
solitude and darkness, in search of Sir John Frank- 

211 



212 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

lin, may be surprised to learn that the man who 
dared to go on that dangerous errand was small of 
stature, slight of build, and, from boyhood, the vic- 
tim of a painful and fatal disease — enlargement of 
the heart. 

Elisha Kent Kane was born in the city of Phila- 
delphia on the 3d of February, 1820. His father, 
the Honorable John Kane, was descended from 
John Kane, an Irish gentleman, who came to 
America in 1756 and who married a Miss Kent, the 
daughter of the Reverend Elisha Kent, a Puritan 
from Massachusetts. One of his great-grand- 
mothers was Martha Grey, a staunch patriot during 
the Revolution, who did so much to aid and comfort 
the American prisoners who were confined in the 
Walnut Street prison in Philadelphia, that she was 
accused of being a spy and ordered to leave the city. 
She appealed to Lx)rd Howe, however, and the 
order was withdrawn and Mistress Grey continued 
to feed the half-starved prisoners until Lord Howe 
beat his hasty retreat out of the city of " Brotherly 
Love." 

The grandfather of the arctic explorer married 
a Van Rensselaer of New York, and the father, 
Hon. John Kane, married a Miss Leiper. This 
lady was of Scotch blood and a descendant of 
Martha Grey, the patriotic Philadelphia matron. 



DOCTOR KANE 21 3 

So, there flowed in Elisha Kane's veins the blood 
of Ireland, Holland, England, and Scotland, but for 
a hundred years before his birth all these strains 
had merged into good, strong American blood. 

From Ireland came the gift of a tender and gen- 
erous heart and the impulsiveness of his restless 
nature; Holland donated sturdy endurance; Eng- 
land and Scotland joined in the legacy of cool judg- 
ment and steady executive ability. 

As a boy Elisha Kane disliked study and the 
restraint of control. He was what people nowa- 
days call a " difficult child," and it must be con- 
fessed that his youthful ventures gave his mother 
many and frequent alarms. The tallest trees, the 
house tops, the church belfry, were the points upon 
which he literally achieved eminence, and the neigh- 
bors all agreed that if ever Elisha should dis- 
tinguish himself it would be in the circus ring. 

When he was about ten years old his heart's 
desire was to climb to the top of the kitchen 
chimney, the smokestack of which had been carried 
up like a shaft for sixteen feet above the roof in 
order to protect the draught from the eddy of the 
higher buildings that flanked it. " Where a cat or 
a squirrel can go, / can go," said Elisha to himself, 
so he secretly set to work to make the attempt. 
Providing himself with a clothes line, to which he 



214 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

had fastened a stone, and accompanied by a younger 
brother whom he was educating on the same Hne, 
the youthful adventurer made his somewhat danger- 
ous trial one night while all of the rest of the family 
were snugly tucked in bed. One can imagine the 
triumphant note of exultation when he exclaimed 
from his pinnacle : " Oh, Tom, what a nice place 
this is ! I'll get down into the flue to my waist, and 
pull you up, too. Don't be afraid — it's so grand up 
here!" 

But "Tom" wisely preferred a sure footing to 
the " grand " view, so his chance was lost. 

Up to the age of fourteen Elisha was decidedly 
an unpromising schoolboy. Judge Kane at this 
time despaired of his future, and told him very ear- 
nestly that if he would not take advantage of the 
opportunities for an education that were now given 
him, he would have to learn a trade by which he 
could make an honest living for himself. And this, 
indeed, was the right way to put the case, for every 
man should be able, either with his head or his 
hands, to earn a livelihood, if circumstances make 
self-support necessary. 

Perhaps this serious talk had a good effect on the 
lad, who was really not indolent, but whose mental 
energy had not yet found the right vent. At this 
time, too, the first symptoms of heart trouble began 



DOCTOR KANE 215 

to manifest themselves. It was on account of young 
Kane's delicate health that the University of Vir- 
ginia was chosen as the most suitable place for him, 
and because, too, that there the courses of study 
v^ere elective — that is, the student could choose 
what branches of study he preferred to pursue. It 
was under Professor Rodgers of this University, 
who was making a study of the geology of the Blue 
Ridge Mountains, that Elisha Kane discovered that 
his natural bent was the natural sciences. He had 
found out what he wanted to study, and now he put 
forth his best efforts to learn the secrets of science. 
Distinguishing himself in chemistry, mineralogy 
and other branches of an engineer's education, he 
decided to become an engineer, but his studies were 
interrupted by an acute attack of rheumatism. He 
had to be taken home swathed in blankets, and was 
dangerously ill for a long and weary time. When 
he recovered he entered the office of Doctor Harris, 
a well-known physician of Philadelphia, and began 
to read medicine. He was now in his nineteenth 
year, and one may realize how earnestly he must 
have worked when one learns that he was elected 
Resident Physician in Blockley, the Pennsylvania 
Hospital, while he was an undergraduate and before 
he was twenty-one years old. The unpromising 
boy was now a young medical student whose thesis 



2l6 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

on the "keystein" had won the admiration of the 
entire medical and scientific world, and " Papa " 
Kane was no longer afraid of the future. 

The young physician's health still continued so 
delicate, however, that his father applied to the 
Secretary of the Navy for a warrant of examination 
for the post of surgeon in the Naval service, believ- 
ing that a sea voyage and the change of travel would 
be beneficial as well as agreeable. 

There was no vacancy on the roll at this time, but 
when Mr. Caleb Gushing sailed upon his diplomatic 
mission to China in 1843, Doctor Kane was ap- 
pointed one of the physicians of the Embassy and 
was attached to the Brandyunne, commanded by 
Commodore Parker. During the two years that this 
tour lasted the young Philadelphia physician made 
a complete circuit of the globe and acquired that 
taste for travel and adventure that afterward led 
him to dare the mysteries of the Arctic Pole. 

While the American Embassy was detained at 
Bombay Elisha Kane made some interesting jour- 
neys into the interior of India. He explored the 
cavernous Temples of Elephanta, traveled by palan- 
quin to Karli, went across to Ceylon, joined in 
elephant hunts and the various wild sports with the 
natives of the island, and risked life and limb a 
thousand times over to see something of the real 



DOCTOR KANE 21 7 

life of the strange people of the East. But it was in 
Luzon, one of the PhiHppine Islands, that his first 
really famous feat of adventure was performed. 
On the Pacific coast of this island, in a region 
inhabited by savages only, lies the terrible volcano 
of Tael. This spot the bold young American made 
up his mind to visit, in spite of the warnings that 
came from every quarter. A letter to the Arch- 
bishop of Manila secured from that prelate a band 
of native guides, and accompanied by his friend. 
Baron Loe, the little party set forth and made their 
way to the asphaltic lake in which the volcano is 
located. Both Kane and the baron went down until 
they reached a precipice overhanging the crater. 
Here Baron Loe positively refused to go any 
farther. Kane determined to go as near to the 
bottom as was possible and, deaf to the violent 
remonstrances of the guides and the baron, had him- 
self lowered by means of a bamboo rope held in the 
hands of the natives under his friend's direction. 
Down, down, down, he swung himself, until he 
touched the bottom. Then, loosening himself from 
the rope, he forced his way through the hot, sul- 
phurous vapors, and over the hot ashes, stooped 
over the green and boiling lake and filled his speci- 
men bottle with its waters. He had been where no 
other human foot had trod, and now with a sense of 



2l8 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

triumph he tried to regain the rope, but the fumes 
stifled hm; he stumbled, almost fell, but groped on 
blindly, and with one last supreme effort clutched 
the rope, managed to fasten it about his body, and 
gave the signal for the ascent. When he was 
hauled up he was almost unconscious, and his boots 
were nothing but bits of charred leather. But this 
was not the end of the affair, for no sooner was one 
danger over but a fresh one arose. The natives, 
who were very angry because they believed the 
mysteries of Tael to be sacred and that this descent 
into its depths would certainly bring terrible con- 
sequences upon them, together with an infuriated 
band of pygmy savages, now gathered around the 
Americans and their guides with the most alarming 
threats of violent punishment for the sacrilege and 
insult offered the fire god of the lake. These terri- 
ble little creatures had to be dispersed by repeated 
pistol shots at last, and even then only the sudden 
appearance of the "padres," or priests, saved the 
foreigners from a horrible fate, for there was not 
much ammunition on hand. This was paying 
rather a big price for a few drops of " specimen " 
water, and we may well believe that Baron Loe was 
not in the most amiable of humors for the next few 
days. Shortly after his return from the East 
Doctor Kane was ordered to the African coast, 



DOCTOR KANE 2ig 

where he was stricken with African fever and had 
to be sent home. 

Recovering from this illness, he offered his serv- 
ices to the government, which had declared war 
with Mexico, and was sent with dispatches to 
General Scott, who was in the Mexican capital. It 
was during this service that an incident occurred 
that reads more like a page from an old romance of 
chivalry than like the record of a nineteenth century 
American army officer. When Kane arrived at 
Vera Cruz with his dispatches he found that he 
could not get an American escort to Mexico, so he 
put himself under the convoy of a Mexican spy- 
company under Colonel Domingues. The little 
party met on the way a band of " contra-guerrillas," 
which was escorting General Gaona and General 
Torrejon and some other officers. Immediately a 
fight followed, in which the Mexicans were captured. 
During the skirmish Doctor Kane's Kentucky 
charger had taken him between young Colonel 
Gaona and his orderly, both of whom fell upon him, 
inflicting wounds. He managed, however, to parry 
the saber cut of the orderly and to unhorse the 
colonel. At this very moment the young Gaona 
called upon him to save his father. Kane turned, 
to find Domingues about to kill the old man in cold 
blood. With the generosity and courage that were 



220 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

his chief characteristics, he instantly attacked the 
renegades and rescued General Gaona's life at the 
cost of his beautiful Kentucky horse and a bad 
wound in his abdomen. Then, as he brought the 
aged father to his son, he perceived that the younger 
man was bleeding to death from the wound he him- 
self had given a few moments before. Catching a 
tablefork and a piece of pack thread, he succeeded 
in tying up the artery, and saved the lives of both 
father and son. It is a pretty story how the grate- 
ful Mexicans took their wounded deliverer to their 
own home and how the dark-eyed ladies of the 
family nursed the young " Americano '* back to 
health. 

Not very long after this romantic episode Elisha 
Kane was called to that which was to be his great 
life work. 

The repeated petitions of Lady Franklin for an 
expedition to be sent out to search for her missing 
husband at last found a response in England and 
America. The result of the widespread interest 
and sympathy aroused was an organized rescue 
party, under the authority of Congress and the pri- 
vate patronage of Mr. Henry Grinnell, who gener- 
ously donated two vessels for the expedition, the 
Advance and the Rescue. The purpose of this ex- 
pedition, which was called the " Grinnell Arctic Ex- 



DOCTOR KANE 221 

pedition in Search of Sir John Frankhn," was to 
find traces of the lost explorer and his crew, living 
or dead. The English government had offered a 
reward of twenty thousand pounds for any such 
traces, but to the lasting honor of American sea- 
men, every man of the Advance and the Rescue 
voluntarily signed a bond to the effect that if they 
should discover any evidences of the lost Sir John 
or his men they would not accept a penny of the 
reward. That was a gallant bit of Yankee chivalry 
that every American boy should be proud to 
remember. 

Of course Elisha Kane was wild to join this 
expedition, and offered his services at once. His 
offer was accepted, and he was appointed past as- 
sistant surgeon of the Advance ^ which was com- 
manded by Captain De Haven. 

As the two little vessels glided out upon the calm 
breast of the beautiful bay that 22d of May, 1850, 
cheers from a thousand throats went up from the 
mass of people that darkened the New York wharf, 
for this expedition meant more than a venture of 
science, and the brave men who were going out into 
the great unknown of the Northern world were 
going ** without money and without price " upon 
an errand of mercy. 

When Captain De Haven saw the battered little 



222 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

figure of his surgeon he was aghast, for he did not 
believe so frail a body could stand the hardships of 
an Arctic voyage. To make matters worse, Doctor 
Kane was seasick for the first fortnight of the 
journey, and the Captain was at his wits' end. At 
last he frankly told Kane that he had better go back 
in an English transport which they had met, offer- 
ing to make matters right from a pecuniary point of 
view. Doctor Kane was indignant and distressed 
at the proposition. " I won't do it," he replied, and 
De Haven could do no more than feel very much 
discouraged. How little did he guess that that 
little battered body really held the soul of the expedi- 
tion, and that the seasick surgeon would be his stay 
and comfort through the perils that were to follow ! 

The story of the sufferings borne by the crews, 
of the loneliness of the frozen sea, of the gloom of 
the long Arctic night, of the starvation, the long 
marches over the ice fields and the. journeys in 
sleds drawn by Esquimau dogs, and finally of 
their escape from the ice-prison, is told by Kane in 
his history of the two Polar expeditions. 

The first Grinnell Expedition covered a period 
of sixteen months, during nine of which the vessels 
were held fast in walls of solid ice ! Traces indeed of 
Sir John had been discovered by the American and 
English fleets together — a piece of canvas marked 



DOCTOR KANE 223 

with the word "Terror" (the name of Sir John's 
ship) and three graves, one of which bore the 
name of one of his crew. These scanty evidences 
were found on Beechy Island, and Kane was con- 
vinced that out of the crew of one hundred and 
thirty, some must yet be aHve, hidden away with 
the Esquimau tribes and waiting for rescue to 
come! De Haven concluded that their supplies 
would not last through another Arctic winter, so 
when he found it practicable he set his weather- 
beaten sails homeward and arrived in New York 
September 30th, 1851. 

So impressed was Kane with the idea that 
Franklin or some of his men were still alive some- 
where in the region of Baffin's Bay, where the 
graves, the tub, the tin canisters and the bits of 
clothing had been found, that he immediately 
began to make preparations for a second arctic 
journey on the same quest. He lectured and wrote 
upon the one absorbing subject with so much of 
eloquence and convincing argument that the Secre- 
tary of the Navy again wrote him to start north- 
ward, this time to command the second expedition 
in search of Franklin. Again Mr. Grinnell prof- 
fered the Advance and Mr. George Peabody, an 
American philanthropist in London, gave £10,000 
to the enterprise. The Geological Society of New 



224 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

York, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Ameri- 
can Philosophical Society, all contributed funds to 
the expedition, and Kane gave his salary to help buy 
provisions. 

With stores of potatoes, hard bread, salt pork 
and salt beef, fur sleeping-bags, woolens, fur cloth- 
ing, all the necessary instruments for making 
astronomical and mineralogical observations, and 
eighteen brave fellows to man her, the little 
Advance for the second time sailed from New 
York harbor on the 30th day of May, 1853. 

At Fiskernaes, a little settlement on the Green- 
land coast where seal and shark oils are the staples, 
and where they eat codfish three times a day, and 
very little else. Doctor Kane stopped long enough 
to engage the services of Hans Christian, a boy 
hunter who was a famous hand with the " kayak " 
and javelin, and who during the two dreary 
winters of Polar darkness kept the crew of the 
Advance from starvation very often by his skill as 
an Arctic huntsman. 

At Litchenfels, the quaint little Moravian set- 
tlement and the ancient seat of the Greenland 
Congregations, the Americans were received with 
that grave and sedate hospitality that marks the 
manners of people who live remote from their 
fellow beings. Pressing on to Sukkertoppen, 



DOCTOR KANE 225 

which means the " Sugar Loaf," Doctor Kane 
bought there a supply of rein-deer skins for upper 
garments, the walrus skins serving for pantaloons i 
and the seal skins being used for waterproof dresses 
and boots. 

At Upernavik, the farthest Danish settlement, 
the explorers bade farewell to all that held them 
in touch with the civilized world and steered out 
for the unknown. 

It seems probable, in the light of what we know 
now, that much of the awful suffering of those 
thirty months of cold and darkness might have 
been avoided by a sufficient amount of the right 
sort of food and a larger supply of fuel, but it 
must be remembered it was the very mistakes of 
those pioneers that taught succeeding explorers 
wisdom. 

And there was one element in Elisha Kane's 
adventurous daring that the readers of his story of 
the Arctic expeditions cannot fail to note — the rev- 
erent faith in God. There is a lesson in the simple 
records of his dairy : " Had prayers before break- 
fast was served," or, " God make us thankful and 
give us to our homes again ! " And this faith 
never wavered. When the long night that lasted 
one hundred and forty-four days closed in upon the 
ice-bound voyagers, they tried to enliven the drear- 



226 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

iness by issuing a little paper, appropriately called 
the " Ice Blink/' to which all hands contributed, 
and there is something infinitely pathetic in this 
record of brave cheerfulness through such suffer- 
ing, for the situation was becoming desperate. The 
salted meats were unfit for the extreme cold of the 
climate, and unless walrus meat could be got from 
the Esquimaux at Etah starvation would be their 
fate. Hans, the honest, faithful hunter, ventured 
out across the ice fields in quest of walrus, fox, or 
bear, only to return empty-handed many times 
over, and at last the dogs had to be killed to sustain 
life, for scurvy, that terrible scourge of the far 
North, can only be held at bay by fresh animal food, 
and when one is frozen up in Baffin's Bay with the 
thermometer registering 60 degrees below zero 
there is not much chance of getting it. Still the 
brave men of the Advance kept up their discipline, 
exercised the dogs, sewed, read, made the astro- 
nomical observations, and when it was practicable 
made journeys over the ice fields in sleds drawn by 
the Esquimau and Newfoundland dogs. Some- 
times a party would go out in this way and have to 
be rescued by some of those left on the brig, and 
if there was peculiar difficulty or danger in these 
excursions Doctor Kane was always sure to be one 
of the party. Then the poor Newfoundland dogs 



DOCTOR KANE 2.2J 

grew melancholy, lost their senses, and at last went 
utterly '* mad " in that long, long night, and some 
of the men, perhaps, had hard work not to do like- 
wise; but men who dare such dangers have steel 
nerves, fortunately. On one occasion, just as they 
had almost abandoned hope, a party of Esquimaux 
brought them walrus meat. 

After the second winter had passed it became 
evident that unless they could escape to the south- 
ern ice they must perish. Only seventy pounds of 
fuel remained, and there were just thirteen potatoes 
in the barrel! Two of the men had deserted and 
the Esquimaux could not always be depended 
upon, for although they were friendly, they were 
improvident and sometimes suffered famine them- 
selves. Doctor Kane called the men together, a 
pathetically small crew now, for some had laid 
down the struggle forever, and asked them to 
make an estimate of the fuel and food on hand. It 
did not take long to do this. There was enough 
bread-dust and pemmican to eke out an existence 
for thirty-six days, and not enough fuel to last half 
that time. Then Doctor Kane told them that they 
must abandon the brig, and make for the southern 
ice. Escape might be possible, but to stay longer 
was certain death. Several of the men were sick, 
so they fitted up a deserted Esquimau hut at 



228 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Anaotok, " the wind-loved spot," as a sort of hos- 
pital, and here the invalids were placed while 
the rest of the crew moved the sledges, boats and 
other necessaries from the vessel. Then journeys 
back and forth to the sick men had to be made 
until they should be able to begin the perilous 
journey southward. The little wooden figure- 
head of the Advance, "the Augusta," was taken 
down for firewood, two of the boats were bound 
to the sledges, and on the 20th day of May in the 
year 1855 the Advance was left to her fate. 
Doctor Kane made a drawing of her lying like a 
ship of ice among the glaciers of the frozen sea, 
and wrote beneath the little picture when it was to 
be used as an illustration in his book: " The same 
ice is around her still ! " 

It was with sad hearts that the members of that 
little band of heroes left their refuge-hut at Anaotok 
at last, for some of the brave comrades were scarcely 
able to stand the long, dangerous journey that lay 
before them, and for all of them it meant great suf- 
fering. 

On the 20th of May the brig was abandoned in 
Rensselaer Bay, and not long after they started for 
the south with one chance in a hundred that the 
Danish settlements would ever be reached! The 
record of that perilous journey reads like a fascinat- 



DOCTOR KANE 229 

ing romance. In the history of exploration nothing 
more wonderful was ever accomplished. For eighty- 
four days they traveled by sleds and forced marches 
over the ice, and then, taking to their open boats, the 
Faith and the Hope, made the rest of the way by 
water. Thirteen hundred miles were covered by this 
handful of half-starved, scurvy-stricken, mutilated 
men — thirteen hundred miles in the open air of the 
arctic regions ! Once they came upon a great quan- 
tity of little birds that saved them from starvation 
and the auks' eggs furnished nourishing food. When 
at last they reached Lievely, where the natives met 
them with demonstrations of delight. Doctor Kane 
rested for a little while, for although hope gave them 
new strength, both he and his men were almost worn 
out. 

At Upemavik they received the greatest kindness 
from the Danish authorities, and were feasted and 
toasted by all of the most prominent citizens of the 
post. Here they learned that the United States Gov- 
ernment was to send, or had already sent, a rescue 
party for them, and here they took passage on the 
Danish Brig Marienne, the Captain promising to 
drop them at the Shetland Islands on his return trip 
to Copenhagen. 

While Kane and his men were leaving Upernavik 
the American bark Release and the steamer Arctic 



230 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

under Captain Hartsten were entering these same 
regions in search of the exploring party. Kane's 
younger brother was one of the rescue crew, and his 
account of their efforts to communicate with the 
natives is an interesting bit of reading. A coin with 
the letter " K " scratched on it was the only trace of 
the missing crew of the Advance, but the natives 
repeated the words " Kay no," " Kayno/' so often 
that the rescuers felt sure that the Doctor had been 
there recently. After much difficulty and gesticulat- 
ing and making of signs, it was at last gleaned that 
the " Kaynos " had a few days earlier passed on- 
ward. This was a clew, so the Americans pushed 
onward in the direction indicated by the walrus- 
eating, walrus-clothed, dirty, but kindly natives. 
Shortly after, the Marienne sighted a vessel ap- 
proaching. With eager eyes they watched and a 
great cry went up when presently they recognized 
the Stars and Stripes of America! As the Re- 
lease drew alongside, a little man in a ragged, red 
flannel shirt advanced on the deck of the Danish 
vessel. " Is that Doctor Kane? " called a voice from 
the Release, " Yes," was the answer, and then a 
lusty cheer went up from both crews. The explorers 
were immediately taken aboard the rescue ships and 
now Kane and his men were really homeward bound. 
On the nth of October, 1855, the rescued men 




Dk. Elisha Kane. 



DOCTOR KANE 23 1 

landed in New York, and from that hour the civi- 
lized world recognized the young Philadelphia naval 
surgeon as one of its heroes. 

His charts and maps were accepted by the 
geographers of England, for he had gone farther 
than any of his predecessors. Later explorers have 
found mistakes in his measurements and computa- 
tions, and the great Polar sea that he thought he had 
seen still remains to this day undiscovered. But the 
route for the whale-fisher was found and, indirectly, 
the whale oil industry of America established and 
made practicable. 

There is no longer a question about the old riddle 
of the Northwest Passage, but the ice has sealed 
that passage so securely that no fleet nor ship will 
ever cut its way through. 

Doctor Kane did a great deal in several depart- 
ments of science : Astronomy, Geology, Mineralogy, 
and Geography, and the price he paid was his life. 
Two years after his last arctic voyage he died in the 
city of Havana, Cuba, on the i6th of February, 

1857. 

Those of his nearest blood and kindred were with 
him when he died, and the last words that fell upon 
his earthly ears were the words of the Christ in 
whom he believed with the simple, childlike faith 
that so often marks great minds and hearts. 



232 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

It is pleasant to think that he died beHeving that 
he had really seen the wonderful Polar sea ; that he 
had not sacrificed so much vainly. 

Perhaps in those last hours he saw again the long 
stretches of ice and snow, the sledges starting out 
for some of the crew who had gone in quest of game, 
or heard the crack of the long dog-whips, or the 
ominous sound of the grating icebergs that were 
closing in around the little brig. But the gentle voice 
of his mother reading the words of the New Testa- 
ment would break the spell and bring him back to 
the present. 

When his body was brought back to Philadelphia, 
at every station where there was a stop crowds 
gathered to show their respect and reverent affection 
for the memory of the man who had given his life 
in the cause of humanity. He was buried in Phila- 
delphia beside " Little Willy," the brother in whose 
memory he had named the sledge he had fashioned 
in the land of eternal ice. In his brave life he had 
lived up to the motto of the " Ice Blink," which had 
been a sort of comfort to the lonely men who were 
imprisoned through that arctic night — " In tenebris 
servare fidem." 

Elisha Kent Kane had his faults and made his 
mistakes, as most men do, but he was brave, gen- 
erous, unselfish, strong in suffering, and deeply 



DOCTOR KANE 233 

religious. In his pain-racked body dwelt a mighty 
spirit, and his faith in the goodness of God through 
all seeming disaster made him rely upon that prayer 
that the Breton sailors make when they put out to 
sea: "Lord, have mercy upon us, for our barks 
are so frail and thy ocean so wide ! " And when he 
embarked upon the last voyage, bound for a port 
far, far beyond the Arctic Pole, Elisha Kane, the 
gentleman, the hero, and the Christian, was not 
afraid ! 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 

There are heroes who have never seen a battle- 
field, martyrs whose sufferings have been borne so 
silently that the world could give neither sympathy 
nor praise, saints whose deeds of unselfish love and 
charity are known only to the poor and afflicted. 

Sometimes these heroes and heroines of everyday 
life are closer to us than we dream, and the heroism 
that does not proclaim itself, does not ask recogni- 
tion, and, better still, does not recognize itself, is 
after all the truest and best heroism of all. 

Down in the old half-French city of New Orleans, 
Louisiana — where the scent of magnolias and jessa- 
mines and roses fills the air durmg three-fourths 
of the year, where the golden fruit and snowy 
blossoms and green foliage of the orange groves 
make a gorgeous setting of color about the quaint, 
foreign-looking old town, and where the lilt of the 
nightingale, the wash of the Mississippi's waves, the 
chatter of French tongues, and the curious half- 
French, half-negro jargon of dark-eyed " octo- 
roons" mingle strangely — there lived not many 
years ago a humble heroine whose name is to-day 

234 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 235 

perhaps more widely honored than any other in that 
city. 

Somewhat more than a half century ago there 
came to the city of Baltimore two Irish immigrants, 
Margaret and William Gaffrey, who were full of 
hope for the future they were to make for them- 
selves in this country across the seas. They were 
very poor, these young people, but they were in- 
dustrious, and soon won a reputation for honest 
dealing and uprightness of character. In the course 
of time a little daughter came to the humble home 
of the Gaffreys, and this child was christened Mar- 
garet, after the mother. Soon after the birth of this 
child the yellow fever swept over Baltimore, leaving 
in its fatal track a great many bereaved parents and 
orphaned children. Among the latter was little Mar- 
garet Gaffrey, almost a baby, who was left entirely 
helpless and alone in a foreign country. 

On the steamer which had brought the Gaffreys 
to America a few years before there had been among 
the passengers a lady from Wales, a Mrs. Richards, 
who had in some way become acquainted with the 
emigrant couple. In the changing and shifting 
scenes of her new life, Mrs. Richards had kept the 
Gaffreys in sight, and when the yellow scourge 
swept by, leaving her a widow and baby Margaret 
an orphan, she took the desolate child into her home 



2.:i^^ AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

and brought her up under her special care and guid- 
ance. In the shelter of this home Httle Margaret 
grew to womanhood, and the naturally loving nature 
was developed into a character of high purpose and 
gentle strength, under the guiding hand of the good 
woman who had shared with her home and heart. 
While yet a young girl Margaret Gaffrey was mar- 
ried to a man by the name of Haughery, and these 
two, like her parents, began life with " full hearts and 
empty purses"; not a safe thing to do, certainly, 
unless there is health and strength and bravery 
enough to fill the purse, and for a time the young 
husband and wife prospered. Then the shadows 
began to darken Margaret's path. Charles Haugh- 
ery's health began to fail, and then there came a 
baby daughter to love and to work for. In search 
of health the Haugherys moved from Baltimore to 
New Orleans, but the hoped-for change for the good 
did not come. Sea air was advised by the doctors, 
so the young husband said good-by to his wife and 
child and sailed for Ireland. That good-by was a 
final one, for Charles Haughery died soon after 
reaching the home of his birth, and Margaret was 
left to battle for herself and child alone. Then 
another loss — the hardest a woman is called upon to 
bear — came to the youthful widow — her child died. 
With this grief there came into her heart a resolu- 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 237 

tion. From that day she would devote her life to the 
service of orphaned children. The brave, loving 
heart did not quail under her sorrow, did not for a 
moment lose its tenderness for those about her, nor 
did it lose its faith in God or the human creatures of 
His who were suffering and sinning around her. 

But it was for the helpless little children she would 
toil and struggle — the little children who reminded 
her of that little child who had once lain in her arms. 
How was she to support herself and do this ? That 
was the question. In New Orleans there was an in- 
stitution for girls known as the Poydras Orphan 
Asylum, and Margaret entered the domestic service 
of this institution. 

Early and late, at all sorts of work, from scrub- 
bing to dairy-managing, she toiled, always cheerful 
in the thought that she was helping the children. 

Sometimes she was sent out to collect food and 
money, and her plain, rough features, illumined by 
that inner light of unselfish love that never fails to 
lend a certain sort of beauty to homeliness, became 
before long familiar in the markets, the fruit stalls, 
the great stores and small shops all over the city — 
and she never came away empty-handed. One day 
she went to a large grocery establishment to ask aid 
for her beloved orphans. The merchant said, laugh- 
ing, "Fll tell you what; we'll give you all you can 



238 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

pile on a wheelbarrow if you will wheel it yourself to 
the asylum." 

" I'll do it," said Margaret ; and soon afterward 
the merchant, who had not expected to have his con- 
dition fulfilled, was surprised to see the faithful Mar- 
garet at the door with a wheelbarrow. A spark of 
true charity touched the young man's heart, and lift- 
ing his hat to the shabbily-dressed woman, he insisted 
on wheeling the barrow for her, a courtesy which she 
declined, saying she would trundle a wheelbarrow- 
load of edibles every day in the week if she could get 
that much for the children. Among the Sisters of 
Charity there was one who was specially beloved. 
Sister Regis, and it was she who became Margaret's 
best friend and adviser. When the new orphan 
asylum became necessary, it was the efforts of these 
two women that actually accomplished the building 
of it. For ten years they worked together, and at 
last freed the building from debt — a great under- 
taking for two women in those days. 

For seventeen years Margaret Haughery lived in 
the asylum, managing the large dairy and doing any 
and every kind of work that she could to help the 
institution and the children. In 1852 she came to the 
conclusion that she had enough ability to open an 
independent dairy in the upper part of the city. In 
this undertaking she very soon showed financial 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 239 

ability of an extraordinary kind. She drove her own 
milk cart from door to door, and everybody wanted 
to buy " Margaret's" milk. There was always a 
smile and a penny awaiting her wherever she went 
on her rounds. All her profits were devoted to her 
beloved work. It seemed indeed as if she had no 
personal wants, for as her business enlarged and her 
money-pile increased in size, she still wore the same 
shabby clothes, still denied herself the comforts she 
was now able to indulge in freely if she wished. 

Eight years later, in i860, she added a bakery to 
her business. Old Monsieur d'Aquin, the former 
proprietor, had become financially embarrassed. He 
had borrowed largely from Margaret, and at last she 
had to take the bakery into her own hands, to save 
herself and her debtor. Her economy, her integrity 
and the respect she commanded soon enabled her to 
make money out of this new branch of her business. 
As the milk cart or the bread cart, driven by a pleas- 
ant-faced woman, passed along the street, fashion- 
ably-gowned women, bankers, tradesmen, merchants, 
all smiled. 

" There is Margaret," they would say. 

"Margaret? Margaret who?'' strangers would 
ask. 

" Why, Margaret, the orphans' friend," was the 
invariable reply. People had forgotten any other 



240 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

name but that of the " Orphans' friend." Every 
day her bank account was growing. Every day she 
was becoming a rich woman, and every day and every 
hour she was giving, giving, giving to the orphan 
boy or girl, Irish, CathoHc, Protestant — all. She 
gave her work, her money, her love, lavishly, asking 
for nothing in return but to see the destitute and un- 
happy helped and comforted. As she grew rich, 
people would wonder that she did not change her 
manner of life, " smarten up," wear something bet- 
ter than the plain skirt and loose sacque which had 
become a familiar costume from one end of New 
Orleans to the other. One day a lady said to her, 
"Why don't you buy a fine dress, Margaret, and 
look like other people?" 

" Ah, madam," said Margaret, " there's too much 
suffering in the world." And so she plodded on in 
the old way, happy in blessing rather than being 
blessed. When, from all sections of the country 
around, appeals were made to her for destitute chil- 
dren or the aged and infirm, she never asked what 
their race or creed. Her motto was : " God has been 
so good to me that I must be good to all." And she 
lived up to it. 

When the war came on her business was some- 
what diminished, but not her charities. It was dur- 
ing this period that a characteristic and somewhat 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 24 1 

amusing incident occurred. The Fourth Louisiana 
Regiment had been captured at Shiloh, and had been 
brought to New Orleans and imprisoned at the police 
station, Algiers, which was across the river. The 
women of the city sent presents of food, clothing 
and dainties to the prisoners, and Margaret loaded 
a wagon with bread and crackers and sallied forth to 
the prison. Two stalwart negro men accompanied 
her, bearing enormous baskets filled with snowy 
loaves on their heads. Surprised at this apparition, 
the sentry at the gateway lowered his musket. 

" Halt ! " he commanded, but Margaret went for- 
ward placidly. 

"What for?" she asked. 

Again the sentry called, " Halt! " 

Again she replied, " What for? " 

Vexed and astonished, the sentry for the third 
time called " Halt! " and this time Margaret jumped 
to one side of the dangerous weapon, and, seizing the 
boy in blue by both shoulders, lifted him out of her 
way and quietly marched in, followed by the negroes, 
who were no doubt greatly delighted at their mis- 
tress' firmness. This was not a remarkable per- 
formance, as at that time she weighed about a hun- 
dred and eighty pounds. . 

When the overflow of the Mississippi caused in- f 
undations in the city, a frequent occurrence in. former | 



242 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

times, then Margaret would go through the river 
flats in a boat, paddled by a negro, and from it dis- 
pense bread to the half-starving families in the sub- 
merged districts. No wonder that the poor called 
her " Saint Margaret." 

A soldier, who lost his leg In one of the civil war 
fights, afterward owed his ability to support himself 
and family to this woman, for she gave him $150 to 
buy a leg, then set him up in business as a newspaper 
dealer, and as long as she lived supplied his family 
with bread. This was one of the practical ways of 
living her motto. 

The three largest homes for children in New 
Orleans resulted from Margaret Haughery's efforts 
almost entirely, while the Home for the Aged and 
Infirm is one of her benefactions. For forty-six 
years this woman toiled for others, and accumulated 
a fortune of $600,000, all of which was expended 
upon the poor. Without education — scarcely able to 
write even — and with no capital except common- 
sense, integrity and an overwhelming desire to help 
her fellow beings, this ignorant Irish woman accom- 
plished a great work, and her life is really a great 
lesson — the lesson that not only the rich can do good, 
but that the poor may, too, by loving and unselfish 
effort, help those who are poorer than themselves — 
the lesson that all can give love. 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 243 

When sickness came to Margaret, who had none 
of her blood to smooth her pillow, the wealthiest and 
most fashionable ladies of aristocratic New Orleans 
were eager to minister to her wants and needs. 
When she had passed out from the world that she 
had made better, purer and happier because of her 
one humble life in it, on the 9th of February, 1882, 
the City Government, the New Orleans Merchants' 
Association, bankers, officers of the Cotton Ex- 
change, the Produce Exchange and the Chamber of 
Commerce, gathered at the funeral, the services of 
which were conducted by the Archbishop of the 
diocese. 

Thousands of people stood bareheaded in the 
streets as the pall-bearers passed, followed by the 
children of eleven orphan asylums, white and black, 
Protestant and Catholic. Fire companies, of one of 
which, '* Mississippi No. 2," she was an honorary 
member, filed along in the immensely long proces- 
sion that followed her to her last resting place. Ser- 
mons from the pulpits of almost all the churches 
were preached the next Sunday with Margaret's life 
as the text ; and not long afterward the city erected 
a statue to her memory — the first statue in honor of 
a woman ever erected in the United States. This 
monument stands on Camp Street, in front of the 
asylum she and Sister Regis worked for so long. It 



244 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

represents Margaret sitting in a rustic chair, clothed 
in the famiHar skirt and sacque, a little shawl about 
her shoulders, and with a little child within the 
shelter of her generous, loving arms. The word 
'* Margaret " is carved on the pedestal. The design 
is simple but effective. The strong, kindly, homely 
face looks down with the serenity of a well-spent life 
upon the children who crowd around the statue to 
spell the name cut in the white shaft, and to hear 
the story of the childless mother who gave her life 
to little motherless children. 

Boys and girls. South, North, East and West, will 
do well to remember that it is just as heroic to live 
nobly for the good of others, in the quiet walks of 
life, as it is to die on the field of battle with the 
sound of drum and cry of victory in the dying ears, 
and that sometimes it may be a harder, braver thing 
to do. 

It is a pleasant thought that in this great demo- 
cratic country of ours the first statue to a woman 
was raised in honor of one who gave her work, her 
wealth, her life to the poor and helpless. 

If our rich girls would sometimes remember the 
work of this woman who earned more than half 
a million, and who, though she had built asylums 
and showered benefactions all around her, had never 
worn a kid glove nor a silk gown, and remember her 



MARGARET HAUGHERY 245 

words : " I cannot wear them ; there is too much suf- 
fering in this world," perhaps the inspiration of a 
noble purpose in life might come with the memory. 

Such a life makes all life higher, and therefore 
both honor and reverence are due to the name and 
memory of Margaret Haughery, the heroine of un- 
selfishness. 



DANIEL" BOONE 

The summer sunshine was sending long shafts of 
yellow light across the heart of the Yadkin River and 
far into the depths of the forests that bordered its 
banks, as a little band of travelers halted in an open 
space along the northern shore one day toward the 
middle of the eighteenth century. The line of 
wagons and pack horses with their burdens of house- 
hold goods proclaimed them at once a band of set- 
.tlers, who had journeyed thither to make for them- 
selves a new home in the Yadkin Valley of North 
Carolina. The travelers were weary, for they had 
come from Berks County, Pennsylvania, over many 
hundreds of miles. 

But Squire Boone and his wife and children were 
sturdy folk who were used to confronting danger 
and discomfort, and before long smoke-wreaths from 
the hearth place of a new forest home were curling 
upward to the sky, while spade, ax, and such rude 
implements of toil as the settlers possessed were 
busily employed in " clearing a farm." 

The forests around them were full of deer and 
wild turkeys, while deeper in the heart of the green 

246 



DANIEL BOONE 247 

solitude panthers, bears and wolves still roamed at 
large. 

" Daniel likes hunting better than work," said 
Farmer Boone one day, " so he can provide the table 
with meat," and so it fell out that young Daniel 
Boone, at that time a lad of about nineteen, began 
the life of a hunter — a life he was peculiarly fitted 
for by inborn capacity as well as inclination. 

His skill as a marksman became a matter of won- 
dering admiration among the settlers, among whom 
the use of a gun in those days was as much of a 
necessity as to know how to read and write is 
nowadays. 

One morning he slung his powder horn over his 
shoulder, armed himself with his rifle and his knife, 
and started off. This was so customary a thing that 
the family took no thought about him until the 
shadows of night began to close in upon them. The 
stars came out and made sparkling dots of light on 
the dimpled breast of the silvered water ; the hooting 
of the owls and the croaking of innumerable frogs 
in the marshes mingled dismally with the long-drawn 
sighs of wind that swept through the pines and hem- 
locks, as the Boone family gathered about the door 
to watch for the familiar figure of the young hunter. 
All night they watched vainly, and the next day the 
alarmed father set forth, with some of the neighbors. 



248 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

in search of the lad. Towards evening, just as the 
searching party was growing discouraged, a light 
was observed. Following this faint glimmer and 
" halloaing " loudly as they advanced, they shortly 
afterwards came upon a rudely-fashioned hut made 
of mud, stones and pine boughs. In the center of the 
primitive abode a fire sent forth a cheerful blaze 
that lighted up the glowing avenues of the far- 
stretching forest, and before it sat Daniel Boone, 
calmly roasting a haunch of venison. Several skins 
of the victims of his trusty rifle lay spread out upon 
the ground, and the young hunter seemed happy and 
contented in the abode of bird and beast and that 
more dangerous two-footed enemy — the Indian. 

This exploit was talked about at the schoolhouse, 
where Daniel was already a hero among the boys, 
who were eager to go '' hunting with Dan " in season 
or out. It was during a hunting expedition 
known among hunters as a " fire hunt '* that the 
young hunter was himself wounded, not by a gun- 
shot, but by a little shaft from Cupid's dart. It hap- 
pened in this way: Daniel and his comrade, as is 
the custom in a " fire hunt," started out one night to 
do what is called among frontier men " shining the 
eye." To do this one man goes ahead with an up- 
lifted torch while his companion follows with a rifle 
cocked and primed. The glare of the pine torch 



DANIEL BOONE 249 

reveals the bright eyes of the deer that may be lurk- 
ing in the undergrowth. Fascinated by the unusual 
light, the bewildered, dazed animals remain fixed as 
statues, and of course are an easy prey for the 
marksman. On this particular night Daniel was 
stealthily walking behind the torch bearer when he 
suddenly perceived two brilliant eyes watching from 
a clump of bushes. Raising his gun, he was about 
to fire, when something peculiar in the deer's eyes 
struck him. The eyes were blue! He lowered his 
fowling piece, and the startled creature disappeared 
in the darkness. " I'll follow that deer," said he, and 
he immediately gave chase. On, on went the deer, 
not toward the forest, but in the direction of a farm- 
house! As he gained upon the deer the fence of 
farmer Bryan's " plantation " suddenly came into 
view. In a moment he realized that it was not a 
deer, but a girl, he had so nearly shot ! Following 
the maiden, he knocked at the cabin door, to find Re- 
becca Bryan, flushed and breathless, and telling her 
story of escape to the family. 

"Rebecca," said Mr. Bryan composedly, after 
Daniel explained matters, " this is our neighbor's 
son, Daniel Boone." And so they met — these two 
who were afterwards to join their lives and fates in a 
great and perilous undertaking, for bright-eyed Re- 
becca Bryan became the wife of the future pioneer 



250 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

It was not long after his marriage that young 
Boone met Finley, the noted hunter, who had pierced 
the wilds of Tennessee and Kentucky, and who had 
brought back thrilling stories of the buffalo herds, 
the wonderful subterranean caverns, the plains of 
verdant grass, the rich soil, the tall sycamores tower- 
ing up a hundred feet skyward, and the game, great 
and small, that awaited the coming of the hunter. 
Finley told his tales of adventure sitting around the 
fireside of Daniel Boone's cabin, and the younger 
man's heart was filled with one mighty desire — the 
desire to go forth into the mysterious wilds of 
the western world beyond the mountains, beyond the 
reach of the new settlers who were pouring into 
North Carolina now from the more populous cen- 
ters of civilization. It was the spirit of the silent 
forest that was calling him, and he must obey. He 
must shoulder his rifle and hunt the big game among 
grassy plains, the jungle-like cane brakes of " Kain- 
tuc-kee — The Bloody Ground." Unfolding his plans 
to Finley, the two men agreed to start westward as 
soon as the spring came ; so, bidding good-by to Re- 
becca and the children, Daniel Boone and Finley set 
out upon their journey in the April of 1769. 

This was the turning point in Boone's life, and 
with that journey began Kentucky's history. It 
must have been a hard thing for his wife to see her 



DANIEL BOONE . 25 1 

husband start off for an unknown and distant des- 
tination with Finley and a few adventurous men, but 
she knew his courage and felt sure that he would do 
as he said, if God spared him — come back to her; 
so she kept back the tears and wore a brave face. 

As Finley's party crossed the Cumberland Moun- 
tains and advanced into the country beyond, Daniel 
Boone was quick-witted enough to understand that 
while these great tracts of land belonged to none of 
the savage tribes exclusively, they must be the battle- 
grounds of the various clans of the different Indian 
natives who might wish to possess them. This 
thought made him fear danger of a surprise at every 
step, though there were no signs of Indians for some 
time. They had been traveling for some weeks, 
when one day Boone and a man by the name of 
Stewart started off together on an expedition, in- 
tending to go but a short distance from the rest of 
the party. The laurel trees were in bloom' — 

"Lines of river and hill 
Made the heart of a wondrous picture, 
Tinted at Spring's sweet will." 

As the hardy hunters stood drinking in the beauty 
about them, suddenly an arrow whizzed through the 
air, there was a war whoop in their ears, and they 
were the prisoners of a large band of Indians, who 



252 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

marched them off in a direction opposite to that 
from which they had lately come. Knowing that 
any sort of resistance was probable death, Boone and 
Stewart resigned themselves with apparent cheer- 
fulness. Any sort of sign of fear would have 
brought upon them the sentence of death by the tor- 
ture at once, for the American Indians have an ab- 
solute contempt for cowardice. Boone knew this, 
and he was, besides, born with a calm, indomitable 
courage that soon made itself felt. For seven days 
the captives were marched onward, they knew not 
where. At last one night the captors, having as they 
supposed made their prisoners secure, fell asleep. 
Boone and Stewart who had pretended to sleep, 
waited until the deep breathing of the savages as- 
sured them that they were in a deep slumber, and 
then they signaled to each other that now they must 
make an effort to escape. Boone crept softly to 
Stewart's side and pointed to the fire-arms. Then 
each man grasped his gun and knife and stole out in 
the darkness. They knew they would be pursued as 
soon as their escape was discovered, so Boone 
and Stewart, who knew that recapture meant 
death by fire, made a great part of their escape 
through the water so as to leave no scent of trail 
behind them. When they at last reached the camp 
from which they had started the day of the capture^ 



DANIEL BOONE ., 253 

they found it deserted; their companions had been 
killed or had gone away. Soon after this Squire 
Boone, Daniel's brother, followed Finley's party and, 
together with a companion, found his way to his 
brother's encampment. Stewart had meantime been 
shot in a skirmish with the Indians, and Daniel, as a 
matter of protection, slept each night in a different 
spot. 

The two brothers were overjoyed to meet once 
more, but it was plain that horses and other necessa- 
ries were needed to make a permanent settlement 
here. They talked the matter over and Daniel 
agreed to stay while Squire and his companion went 
back to fetch what was most needed. 

No boy who has read the story of Robinson 
Crusoe can fail to appreciate what this was. As 
some biographer has remarked: Robinson Crusoe 
was stranded on a desert island by accident, but 
Daniel Boone remained by choice alone in the 
wilds of a region where no white man's foot had 
trod before, surrounded by savage beasts and more 
savage men — alone without salt, sugar or food ex- 
cept what he could provide with his gun — and seven 
hundred miles from the nearest white inhabitant! 
Even the dog followed Squire back. He was alone. 
That was the courage of a hunter, a hero, above all 
a pioneer! 



254 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Daniel Boone, the unlettered son of the forest, 
was opening the way to the civilization and settle- 
ment of the mighty West. The solitary hunter was 
unconsciously fulfilling a great mission. When 
Squire Boone came back he found his brother cheer- 
ful, contented, happy and unconscious that he was 
a hero. 

After exploring the region, the brothers "blazed 
a route " — that is, they marked the trees, and then 
started to North Carolina for their families. 

In the fall of 1773 the Boones, with their families 
and a band of eighty adventurous souls, set out, all 
bound for distant " Kain-tuc-kee." Hardships and 
perils beset the party. On the loth of October they 
were attacked by Indians and six of the white men 
were killed, among whom was Daniel Boone's eldest 
son. Most of the party lost heart and returned to 
North Carolina. The Boones remained at Clinch 
River until June, 1774, when Lord Dunmore, gover- 
nor of Virginia, appointed Daniel Boone to act as a 
guide to a band of surveyors who were going to the 
falls of the Ohio. This journey was accomplished 
successfully, and in sixty-two days Boone marched 
eight hundred miles on foot. 

Disturbances were now continually breaking out 
between the frontier men and the Northwest In- 
dians, and Lord Dunmore, who appreciated Boone's 



DANIEL BOONE 255 

judgment, appointed him the commander of three 
frontier garrisons, giving him the commission of 
Captain. 

When Boonesbo rough was attacked it was Daniel 
Boone who saved the garrison, and it was he who 
was the real hero at Vincennes when Governor 
Hamilton, the English general, surrendered there. 
Honored by all who knew him. Colonel Boone, as he 
was now called, had taken up a large tract of land 
which he had purchased from the Transylvania 
Company, but when Kentucky was made a State, in 
1792, then trouble began about land titles. The 
result was that Virginia declared the old titles worth- 
less, speculators came in, and Daniel Boone, the Pio- 
neer of Kentucky, was made a beggar ! He was an 
old man now, and disgusted with the injustice of 
the law he decided to go into the Spanish possessions 
of Louisiana. Here the Spanish officials treated the 
great hunter with ceremonious respect. He was 
made Commander of the St. Charles district in 1800 
(July nth), but when the United States government 
went into effect there in 18 10 the eight thousand 
acres of land given him by Spain were revoked, and 
now this man who had given himself in the service 
of the country was made a pauper. Congress, after 
some bickering, agreed to let him have 850 acres 
of the original gift of the Spaniards, but Daniel 



256 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

Boone felt that he had been treated with cruel in- 
justice. His wife died in 1813 and the old man was 
very lonely. 

About this time the newspapers told a story that 
was widely copied, the story of the famous Daniel 
Boone's body having been found dead with his rifle 
in his hand aiming at a deer. " I would not have 
believed that story if I had told it myself," remarked 
the old man. "My eyesight is too poor to hunt 
now." 

Daniel Boone died of fever at the home of his son- 
in-law, Mr. Calloway, in Charrette, Missouri, Sep- 
tember 26th, 1820, aged eighty-five years. It is said 
the last words he uttered were : " Too crowded, too 
crowded, more elbow room ! " 

Whether these were his last words cannot now 
be vouched for, but some such may have been in the 
mind of this child of the forest, this son of the soil, 
as he passed into the limitless Beyond. He was 
buried beside the faithful wife of his youth and 
sharer of his toils in Missouri, but in 1845 the people 
of Kentucky petitioned to have the bones of her 
pioneer brought back to rest in the soil his patience 
and courage had given them. The family consented, 
and with great pomp and ceremony Daniel Boone 
and Rebecca his wife were laid to rest in the ceme- 
tery at Frankfort, September 15 th, 1845. 



DANIEL BOONE 257 

Daniel Boone was simple, direct, bold, truthful, 
loyal — a friend to be loved, a foe to be feared. He 
was, in a childlike way, deeply religious in his nature^ 
though he was never attached to any religious sect. 
Standing five feet ten inches in his stockings, his 
erect figure was supple and strong from constant use 
of his muscles and the physical development of an 
out-door life. 

He hated the quibbles of the law, and could not 
bear the restraints of conventional life, but he was 
no misanthrope, and the injustice of our National 
Congress did not make him bitter or morose. He 
simply moved farther away from the haunts of men. 
In his homespun garments, with his knife, gun and 
powder horn, Daniel Boone stands out one of the 
most picturesque figures of our early times. Byron 
wrote a poem about him, Fenimore Cooper made 
him immortal in " Leather Stocking " and ** The 
Pathfinder," and he is the hero hunter and Indian 
fighter to all succeeding generations of American 
boys, but his first claim to fame lies in the might of 
the great West whose gateway was opened by Dan- 
iel Boone, America's greatest pioneer ! 



KIT CARSON 

It was Christmas Eve, in the year 1809, that a 
lonely log cabin in Madison County, Kentucky, was 
the scene of unusual stir and excitement. 

The doctor's horse stood at the door, and a 
motherly-looking neighbor from some settler's cabin 
was presiding over the cradle where a new-born baby 
lay, red and wrinkled and crying after the fashion 
of all babies of all time. 

The children were hanging their stockings, maybe, 
by the big-throated chimney where an enormous fire 
of oak and hickory logs sent a cheerful glow over 
the room, glinting upon rifle, hunting knives, powder 
flasks, and deer antlers that hung on the rough walls 
instead of pictures, and lighting up the eager, ex- 
pectant faces of the children, for it was Christmas 
Eve and Santa Claus had sent a present in advance — 
the new baby. And a very happy present every one 
considered it. 

For the time all thought of danger from the ever- 
lurking Indian was forgotten, for even in the wild 
pioneer days the Christmas season was observed 
along the southern frontier. 

258 



KIT CARSON 259 

As the night drew on the wailing of a wildcat or 
the cry of a wolf mingled with the wintry blast that 
swept through the great forest, but the children of 
settler Carson were used to such sounds, and, indeed, 
it seems natural and fitting that the little Christopher, 
who was to become, perhaps, the most famous trap- 
per and hunter of the West, should have been born 
in just such surroundings. A year later Mr. Car- 
son, who had heard a great deal about the abundant 
game farther west, undertook a journey thither, 
finally settling in Missouri, which was at that time 
called Upper Louisiana. 

A few white people were scattered about in this 
unexplored wilderness, and these Mr. Carson per- 
suaded to unite themselves into a settlement, in 
order that they might better protect themselves from 
the attacks of the Indians. Here little Kit Carson 
passed his early childhood. Here he learned to use 
his rifle so well that at the age of thirteen he was 
known for miles around as an unfailing marksman. 
Slight and fragile in physical make-up, the boy 
hunter possessed a great deal of endurance, courage 
and judgment. Although his voice was singularly 
soft and sweet, there was a note of indomitable 
strength in it that soon made itself felt by those who 
heard it. Mr. Carson wished Kit to be able under 
all vicissitudes to earn a living, so he apprenticed him 



260 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

to a saddler ; but making harness and saddles was not 
to the liking of this young man whom destiny had 
designed for a very different career. While Kit 
worked faithfully at his trade, his head was full of 
dreams of buffalo hunts and Indian fights and of 
wild adventures in the great country that lay toward 
the setting sun. Then one day a party of trappers 
came to the harnessmaker's home and the young 
apprentice offered his services to the leader, who 
agreed to take him with them. Santa Fe was the 
objective point of these fur traders, and the proposed 
journey lay over a thousand miles and would be long 
and full of peril, but Kit cared nothing for the 
danger. His long dream was to come true and he 
was happy. In the expedition he learned much that 
was of use to him afterwards. 

Crossing the plains which lie between the Missouri 
River and the Rocky Mountains was a very different 
thing a hundred years ago from what it is to-day. 
And these traders bound for Santa Fe had adven- 
tures enough to fill a good many story books, if one 
were to write them down. They were in rags when 
at last they reached their journey's end, and they 
had had some fighting with several hostile tribes. 
Sometimes they had to live upon roots and the under 
bark of trees. Some of the party became delirious 
from their sufferings, and one man, a Mr. Schenck, 



KIT CARSON 261 

from Ohio, who had been wounded, met a terrible 
fate. Unable to move along with the perishing 
party of men, it was at last decided that he should be 
left behind. His comrades could do nothing for him. 
They had not a scrap of food to give him, nor could 
they supply him with a drop of water. They were 
themselves actually perishing for food and drink in 
the great American desert! Without a word they 
tottered along, leaving their wounded comrade to die 
alone. Perhaps if they could push on and find water 
and game they might return and save him. At any 
rate they must all die if help did not come very 
shortly in the form of food. 

Such scenes must have made a strong impression 
on the almost womanly nature of young Kit Car- 
son, but nothing could quench his love for hunting 
and adventure, or his love for the wild woods. 

After reaching Santa Fe Kit decided not to return 
with the traders, but to push on farther still. It was 
during this solitary expedition that he met a moun- 
taineer, by the name of Kin Cade, with whom he 
lived for a while. Cade was a man rich in wood- 
lore, a splendid companion for young Carson to have 
had at this time of his life. 

The old man and the boy took a great liking to 
each other, and as Kit could go out every morning 
and bring in enough food for a feast, there was no 



262 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

talk of board between them. Kin Cade spoke Span- 
ish well, and Kit, who was naturally something of a 
scholar, learned to speak it also. When the snow 
fell and the wind whistled through the ravines, Kit 
and Kin would roast their game before a roaring 
fire and talk Spanish together, or when the long, 
rainy days came they would make their clothes. 
Deerskins were deftly tanned for clothing, with 
ornamental fringes for coats and leggings and moc- 
casins. While the tailors sat by the fire sewing, one 
of them was acquiring also a practical knowledge of 
the Spanish language and of geography, for Kin 
Cade had been a noted explorer and he used to draw 
maps and charts on the floor with his stick as he told 
stirring tales of the " great Rockies." 

It was this ability to learn from those about him 
that helped to make Kit Carson a great man, for in 
his line he was pre-eminent, undoubtedly. After 
leaving Kin Cade, young Carson made a number of 
expeditions, acquiring very soon a wide reputation, 
among both Indians and the settlers, as a trapper and 
guide. 

But in all of his exploits he was prudfent. For 
instance, he never would sleep where the camp fire 
would shine on him, and he always used his saddle 
as a shield as well as a pillow when he slept, and he 
was never without adequate means of defense. 



KIT CARSON 263 

It was when near the Spanish Mission of San 
Rafael that Kit Carson became a popular hero for 
the first time. Some Indians had committed fearful 
and terrible cruelties on the defenseless Mission and 
had then taken refuge in a distant Indian village. If 
they went unpunished the white people would be in 
danger all the time, so the priests and inhabitants of 
the Mission appealed to the body of trappers, with 
whom Kit Carson was employed, for help. Eleven 
volunteers were selected for this expedition and Kit 
was entrusted with the command. Fragile as a girl, 
with the low, sweet voice of a woman, this choice of 
a leader seemed strange, but the trappers were keen- 
witted and they knew there was not so daring a soul 
among them as this gentle-mannered boy. They 
knew, too, that he had judgment, and the power of 
deciding instantly upon a course of action. The little 
band actually charged upon the Indian village, killed 
a large number and brought back the culprits as 
prisoners to the Mission. From this time on Kit 
Carson became a power. If the Indians stole the 
trappers' horses it was Kit who was sent to get them 
back; if any travelers brought tales of wrong done 
them by the red men, the boy hunter was entrusted 
to punish the wrongdoers; if there was, in short, 
any particularly dangerous thing to be done, it was 
the gentle-voiced Carson who had to take the matter 



264 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

in hand. And it is a strange but beautiful fact to 
relate, that this young man, living this rude, adven- 
turous life, was never known to take an oath upon 
his lips. 

Might not what Tennyson said of one of his 
heroes of King Arthur's Round Table be applied to 
our boy hero of Kentucky : " He had the strength 
of ten men because his heart was pure." 

Many of the Indian tribes were friendly with the 
whites, so it fell out that Kit Carson married an 
Indian maiden, with whom he lived very happily. 
She died in a few years, leaving a daughter, who was 
tenderly loved by her father. He afterwards mar- 
ried a beautiful and accomplished Mexican girl, 
Senora Josepha Jarimilla. From this marriage sev- 
eral children were born. 

Carson had lived for sixteen years, as he said of 
himself, without looking upon the face of a white 
woman, and excepting on the rarest occasions eating 
only what his rifle provided in the way of food. A 
desire to see his old home came upon himi, so, dis- 
posing of his furs, he set his face homeward. The 
scenes of his childhood were changed. Those whom 
he had known and loved were dead or had wandered 
into distant regions. He stopped for ten days in St. 
Louis, but the sights and sounds of the city wearied 
him. He longed for the freedom of his mountain 



KIT CARSON 265 

life, and engaged passage on the first steamboat 
going up the Missouri River. On board the vessel 
was a very striking-looking gentleman whose face 
attracted Carson. By some chance the two travelers 
were drawn into conversation. The older man was 
Lieutenant John C. Fremont, of the United States 
Corps of Topographical Engineers. He had been 
sent by the Government to explore and report upon 
the " country between the frontiers of Missouri and 
the South Pass in the Rocky Mountains, on the line 
of the Kansas and Great Platte rivers." Kit Carson 
listened to what Lieutenant Fremont said, and then 
retired to a secluded spot on the steamer and thought 
for a while. Then he rose and approached his new 
acquaintance and said : *' Sir, I have been for some 
time in the mountains, and think I can guide you 
to any point there you may wish to reach." 

Fremont was a good deal surprised at this offer 
from a stranger, but there was something in the 
voice, the manner, the whole attitude of Carson that 
inspired confidence. The offer was accepted, and 
Kit Carson was at once engaged to guide the Gov- 
ernment party on its expedition to the Rocky Moun- 
tains. This was the beginning of our hero's services 
to the United States Government. The office of 
guide over thousands of miles of unbroken wilder- 
ness was a very grave responsibility, but no man in 



266 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

America was better fitted to fill it than the soft 
voiced Kit Carson. This famous expedition began 
its march on the loth of June, 1842. In September 
the party reached the Rocky Mountains, where astro- 
nomical and geological observations were made for 
the report for the Government. They had heard 
alarming rumors of the hostile intentions of the In- 
dians, who naturally enough did not wish them 
there, but Fremont had fearlessly pursued his course 
and he had accomplished his end. Kit Carson's serv- 
ices as hunter and guide were no longer needed, 
but he had been the instrument by which a great 
work had been done. Some time afterwards he was 
again called upon by Fremont, whom he again 
guided. The war with Mexico was now about to 
break out, and it was here that Kit Carson, who, 
when General Kearney's force was surrounded by 
the Mexicans, near San Diego, and in a starving 
condition, offered to creep through the enemy's lines 
and get help from Commodore Stockton. 

Ruin seemed inevitable. Carson broke the silence 
of the war council by offering his services. " I am 
willing to try," he said in his gentle voice, and then 
Kearney knew that there was a chance yet for the 
American soldiers, for Kit Carson had never failed 
to accomplish any daring enterprise, however dan- 
gerous, that he had undertaken. 



^PSI^n 




Kit Cak8on. 



KIT CARSON 267 

Young Beale of the Navy said : " I will go with 
him." And so those two heroes set out to work 
their way through the Mexican lines. Through the 
tall grass and the shade of the thickets they crawled 
by the lines of sentinels, and then, after a two days' 
march without food, they reached San Diego. 
Stockton sent a picked band of soldiers to Kearney's 
relief, and the American troops were not only saved, 
but enabled to defeat the Mexicans. Kit Carson was 
made a Lieutenant and afterwards received the com- 
mission of Brigadier General, the just reward of his 
important services to the Nation. He had carried 
despatches across the American Continent at the 
peril of his life at every step, and the administra- 
tion at Washington acknowledged this moccasined, 
leather-clad hunter as a hero. Small of stature, 
gentle of voice, modest in conversation. Kit Carson 
was bold and courageous, quick-witted and of sound 
judgment. 

A giant of a bully on one occasion tried to scare 
him by threatening him. He swaggered up to Car- 
son and remarked : " These Americans are all 
cowards. I am going out into the brush to get some 
rods and I'll switch them every one." 

Kit Carson looked up. "Captain Shuman," he 
said softly, " I am an American and one of the 
smallest and weakest of them all. We have no dis- 



268 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

position to quarrel with any one. But this conduct 
can no longer be endured. If it is continued, I shall 
be under the necessity of shooting you." 

It must be remembered that this was in a wild, 
savage country, half a century ago, which is the only 
excuse for such manners and customs. 

The Goliath went off for his rifle. The David went 
for his. The two men rode toward each other. *' Am 
I the person you are looking for? " asked Kit, as he 
approached the big fellow. " No," said the armed 
bully, who at the same instant aimed his gun. But 
Kit Carson was quick as a flash. With unerring 
aim he fired at Shuman's right wrist, which was 
shivered. 

The gun fell from his broken arm, discharging its 
load in the air. From that day Captain Shuman 
fired no more guns and made no more threats. 

But perhaps the greatest service of Kit Carson^s 
useful life was that given alike to the Indians and 
the white men while he acted as Indian Agent for 
the Government. The Indians feared, respected and 
loved " Father Kit," as they called him, and his 
wisdom averted many troubles and much blood- 
shed. 

This remarkable man died at Fort Lyon, Colorado, 
on the 23d of May, 1868. His death was the 
result of an injury from a fall while riding in the 



KIT CARSON 269 

mountains. His last words were to Assistant Sur- 
geon Tilton, of the Army: 

" Doctor, compadre, adios," he called out, and in 
a few moments had breathed his last. 

So died Kit Carson, *' the Napoleon of the Wilder- 
ness," one of Nature's gentlemen, one of the World's 
heroes. 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 

In the village of Timber Ridge Church, Rockbridge 
County, Virginia, and within a few miles of the 
aristocratic little town of Lexington, was born 
Samuel Houston, the future president of the Repub- 
lic of Texas, on the 2d of March, 1793. 

Born of Scotch-Irish stock, he possessed the 
shrewdness and strength of the Scotch, together with 
the enthusiasm, the fiery eloquence, the dramatic 
intensity of the Irish race; and his magnificent 
physique, his slow but sure command of language, 
combined to produce in him one of the most pic- 
turesque figures of American history. The Houston 
family had at different times in the Lowlands of 
Scotland held places of provincial importance 
and was of sufficient rank to have a coat-of- 
arms. 

John Houston, the founder of the family in 
America, emigrated to this country in 1689, the 
year of the siege of Londonderry, and among the 
signers of the loyal address to King William by 
the defenders of that city the name of James Hous- 
ton may be found. This James Houston was a man 

270 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 27I 

of considerable means in the city of Philadelphia, 
to which place he had led an emigrant colony from 
his native shores. 

His grandson, Robert Houston, moved from 
Philadelphia to Virginia, establishing himself on an 
extensive tract of land in Rockbridge County. Rob- 
ert Houston married a lady of Scottish parentage, 
and left his large Virginia estate to his son Samuel, 
who married a Miss Paxton, whose progenitors had, 
together with his own, emigrated from Ireland. 

The Houston family belonged to that class of 
wealthy farmers of interior Virginia who lived in a 
sort of rough abundance, chiefly by their own labor, 
and formed a substantial American yeomanry, quite 
distinct from the gentry of the seaboard and the 
Cavalier farmers of the Eastern river valleys, where 
living was more luxurious, more refined and more 
like that of their English ancestors. 

Samuel Houston served in General Daniel Mor- 
gan's brigade of riflemen during the Revolutionary 
War, receiving at its close the appointment of 
Major and Inspector General of the frontier troops. 
He died in 1806, while on a tour of duty in the 
Alleghany Mountains, leaving a widow and nine 
children. 

Little Sam Houston, the subject of this sketch, 
was now a boy of thirteen, sturdy and strong for 



2^2 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

his years, and giving promise of that tremendous 
physical and mental energy which he inherited 
from both parents and which were characteristic 
of him to the day of his death. After Major Hous- 
ton's death Mrs. Houston decided to move her 
family to the new settlements in Tennessee, where, 
perhaps, she thought there would be a better oppor- 
tunity to increase her worldly possessions. This was 
the pioneer age, it must be remembered, and the 
far-famed fertility of the Tennessee soil offered 
brilliant prospects to ambitious and energetic young 
farmers. Nothing daunted by the long journey 
before her, Elizabeth Paxton Houston, with her six 
sons and three daughters, set out for the distant 
bourne of Tennessee, which lay on the other side 
of the grim Alleghany Mountains. The band of 
Virginia emigrants settled in Blount County, about 
eight miles from the Tennessee River, which was at 
that time the boundary line between the Cherokee 
Indians and the white settlers. A cabin was built 
here and the Houston family lived the healthful but 
toilsome life of pioneers. 

In this region there were few opportunities for 
education. 

Little Sam Houston used to run from his work 
in the fields to take his place in the spelling class in 
the '' Old Field School," where only the very sim- 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 273 

plest rudiments of an education could be acquired. 
But he had an active mind and a very vivid imagi- 
nation. 

Crowded away in chest corners and pack saddles 
a few old books had made the long journey over the 
Alleghanies from Virginia along with pots and pans, 
and homespun clothes, and farming tools, and 
among them was a bethumbed copy of Pope's trans- 
lation of the Iliad. This was little Sam's treasure, 
and night after night he would sit by the pine-knot 
fire and in the bright, red glare of its flames read 
over and over again the story of Troy and Ulysses. 
It was all very real to him — the heroes, the fights, 
the camp fires, the walls of Troy — as real perhaps as 
the lowering mountains, the dense woods, the fields 
of waving grain that he saw every day before him, 
for imagination is the most powerful magician in 
the world. 

It may be that all these fancies helped to kindle 
in the boy the military ardor which was a distin- 
guishing trait of the man. 

He had not been long in Tennessee when his older 
brothers, who no doubt thought that regular disci- 
pline was better than so much reading of books, 
placed him as a clerk in a trader's store. The 
drudgery of this sort of life was not to be borne by 
the lad who had always lived a free, open-air exist- 



274 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

ence, and who had, moreover, a natural taste for 
freedom and adventure. One day he was found 
missing from his place among the boxes and bar- 
rels. He had gone across the river and taken up his 
abode among the friendly Cherokees. 

The Indians received him among them as a friend 
and brother. He adopted their dress, their man- 
ners and speech, and the repeated visits of his 
brothers could not prevail on him to return to the 
counter. 

The Cherokees, it is said, were among the most 
civilized of the North American Indians. They 
lived in cabins, cultivated the fields, and had a 
written language of their own. But in spite of the 
fact that life was not so far removed from that of 
their pioneer neighbors, they were, after all, in 
nature and heart savages. 

He found them congenial, however, and said that 
he would " rather measure deer tracks than measure 
tape," and that they might leave him in the woods, 
whenever any attempt was made to induce him to 
return to his home. He lived with the Indians until 
his eighteenth year, though he had from time to 
time visited the white settlements in order to 
get necessary supplies for himself and his forest 
friends. 

At last, however, he found he was in debt to the 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 275 

Cherokees for trinkets and ammunition which he 
had bought from them, so he decided to return to 
civihzation and earn some money. 

It seems a curious thing that the ignorant boy 
should have attempted to teach school, but that is 
just what he did, and he actually succeeded so well 
that he raised the price of tuition from six to eight 
dollars a year, " one-third payable in corn, one-third 
in cash, and one-third in variegated cotton goods." 
He paid his debts very soon, but how long he con- 
tinued to improve the minds of the Blount County 
children history does not tell us. His efforts in 
educating others had taught him his own deficiencies 
in that line, so after giving up his little school young 
Houston attended the Maryville Academy, which 
completed his educational outfit as far as schools 
were concerned. 

The war between the United States and Great Brit- 
ain had broken out, and in 1813 a recruiting party 
visited Maryville. Sam Houston, who inherited his 
father's passion for military life, enlisted at once, 
replying to his friends' remonstrances that he would 
'' rather honor the ranks than disgrace an appoint- 
ment," and, he added, with quite a dramatic flourish, 
" You shall hear of me ! " Mrs. Houston handed 
him his musket as he started off, saying : 

" Go ; and remember, too, that while the door of 



276 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

my cabin is open to brave men, it is eternally shut 
to cowards.'* 

Evidently Sam Houston had inherited his some- 
what sensational, though entirely sincere, manner 
of speech from his mother. 

Houston was made Sergeant on the same day that 
he put on a uniform and marched to join the Thirty- 
ninth Regiment, Tennessee Volunteers. While at 
Knoxville he received, through the application of his 
friends, the appointment of ensign from President 
Madison. 

The Creek War was now on. The tribe had 
been aroused by the eloquence of Tecumseh and his 
brother, the Prophet, and they had determined to 
make a desperate fight for their lands and homes. 
On the loth of August, 181 3, they attacked the 
whites at Fort Mims, Alabama, and a frightful mas- 
sacre followed. 

General Jackson and General Coffee defeated 
them at Talladega and Taluschatchee, but the spirit 
of revenge had not been broken and there were con- 
stant raids made upon outlying settlements, and all 
sorts of outrages were committed. 

General Jackson and General Coffee soon decided 
upon an exterminating campaign and the volunteers 
were called out. Sam Houston's regiment joined 
the army and marched to To-ho-pe-ka, or Horse- 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 277 

shoe Bend, where the Creeks had ralHed for a last 
stand. Here, on a bend in the Tallapoosa River in 
Alabama, seven hundred warriors had collected to 
fight for what was really their just cause. 

Jackson's army, numbering two thousand men, 
arrived here on the 27th of August, and one of the 
most desperate battles ever fought between a civil- 
ized and disciplined army and an untrained but 
dauntless savage race ensued. Desperation and bar- 
baric valor could not prevail against civilized war- 
fare. 

Sam' Houston, who was in the extreme right of 
his regiment, dashed forward in front of the line, 
as it charged upon the breastworks. With a leap 
and a scramble he gained the summit of the palisade, 
from which, just a moment before. Major Mont- 
gomery had fallen with a rifle ball in his brain. As 
he stood on the palisade a barbed point whizzed 
through the air and planted itself deep in his thigh. 
He sprang down and, at the head of the men who 
followed, drove the Indians back. Pausing for a 
moment, he called to the lieutenant to pull out the 
arrow. Twice the young officer tried to draw the 
weapon from the wound, but it was so deeply im- 
bedded in the flesh that he could not. In an agony 
of pain the wounded man held his sword over the 
head of the officer and cried out, "Pull it out, pull 



278 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

it out, or I'll kill you ! " The uplifted sword added 
strength to the lieutenant's arm, and the next pull 
withdrew the arrow. 

Houston made light of the wound, and, disobey- 
ing Jackson's command to retire to the rear, renewed 
the attack on the breastworks and began fighting 
again. 

Shortly after, Jackson called for volunteers to 
storm a certain ravine, and Sam Houston dashed for- 
ward calling to the men : ** Follow me, follow me," 
but without looking back to see if they were follow- 
ing. When within a few yards of the entrance to 
the ravine two bullets lodged in his shoulder, and 
the upper part of his right arm was shattered. He 
looked around as his musket fell to the ground. Not 
a man had followed him, and he was obliged to draw 
back out of the deadly range of the enemy's fire. 

He received little attention, as his wounds were 
supposed to be fatal, but his magnificent constitution 
saved him. Nearly two months after the battle he 
reached his mother's cabin in Tennessee, so emaci- 
ated that she did not recognize him. The news of 
his daring had gone ahead of him. He had kept his 
promise — "You shall hear of me." For his gal- 
lantry at To-ho-pe-ka he was promoted Lieutenant 
in the regular army and was, after the war, ordered 
to report at New Orleans. 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 279 

In 18 1 7 he was appointed sub-agent of the Chero- 
kees, at the request of General Jackson, who, from 
that day at To-ho-pe-ka was his hfelong friend, and 
Houston was instrumental in establishing a friendly 
feeling between his old comrades, the Cherokees, and 
the whites. His influence among them was power- 
ful and effective always. While serving the country 
in this capacity he made enemies of those outlaws in 
the Indian country who were smuggling stores from 
Spanish Florida. These desperadoes in turn brought 
charges against him, from which he cleared himself 
before the President and Mr. Calhoun (between 
whom and himself there was always enmity), but 
his proud and sensitive spirit was wounded and he 
resigned from the army May i8th, 1818, after five 
years' service. After leaving the army he studied 
law, and, when admitted to the bar, settled in Leba- 
non, Tennessee, where his shrewdness, his eloquence, 
and his popular manners gained for him an excel- 
lent practice. Removing from Lebanon to Nashville, 
he continued in practice, and in 1821 was elected 
Major General of the Tennessee Militia, a politi- 
cal and honorary office, but adding nothing to 
his income, except in the way of influence and 
prestige. 

In 1823, at thirty years of age, he was elected a 
representative to Congress from the Ninth district 



28o AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

of Tennessee, and served in Congress for four years, 
only occasionally taking part in the debates and 
always as a member of the Jackson ring of the 
Democratic party. These two men, Houston and 
Jackson, had a strong attachment for each other, 
Jackson's stern character dominating the enthusiastic 
temperament of the younger man, and both were on 
the Committee on Military Affairs. Henry Clay, 
then Speaker of the House, had offered a resolution 
for an inquiry into his political conduct, against 
which charges had been brought by George Kremer, 
a representative from Pennsylvania. Houston sent 
out an address to his constituents, the chief purpose 
of which was to strengthen the feeling among the 
people, which later on placed Jackson at the head of 
the nation at the next election by an overwhelming 
majority. 

Whatever may have been Sam Houston's eccen- 
tricities, and however bombastic and theatrical 
his manner and diction may have been, when dealing 
with serious questions of state he knew how to be 
powerful and dignified, and he carried weight when 
he appealed to the legislative bodies of the Govern- 
ment or to the popular feelings of the people. 

During his second term in Congress he fought 
with General White his first and only serious duel. 
This duel was fought on the 23d of September, 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 28 1 

1826, at a dueling ground in Simpson County called 
Linkumpinch, just across the Tennessee line. 

White was supposed to be mortally hurt (he after- 
ward entirely recovered from his wound), and an 
indictment was brought against Houston, the Gov- 
ernor of Kentucky making a requisition upon the 
Governor of Tennessee for his surrender. The 
terms were not complied with, and, strange as it 
seems to us now in these days of enlightenment, 
Houston's popularity was increased by this duel. It 
shows, too, what strength of character he possessed, 
when it is remembered that he was from that day 
to the end of his life opposed to dueling, and that 
even among those who believed it a point of honor 
to accept fight in this way, he firmly and repeatedly 
declined to accept challenges. To political inferiors 
he would always say : " I never fight downhill." 
On one occasion he was charged with having been 
very abusive by a man, to whom he replied, '' Why 
I thought you were my friend." " Why, so I was," 
said the aggrieved party, " but I don't propose to be 
abused by you or anybody else." With that peculiar 
humor he sometimes flashed out, Houston replied: 
" Well, I should like to know if a man can't abuse 
his friends, who the devil can he abuse ? " The whole 
affair ended in a laugh. 

In 1827 he was elected Governor of Tennessee by a 



282 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

majority of 12,000 votes over Cannon and " Willie " 
Blount, the old " War Governor " as he was called. 
This election was probably due to the fact that 
he was the representative of the Andrew Jackson 
party. 

There must have been an almost hypnotic influ- 
ence in this man's power over men, for anybody else 
who dressed as he did would have been grotesque, 
not to say ridiculous. On the day of his election, 
August 2d, 1827, he appeared at the polls unan- 
nounced, and mounted on a magnificent dapple-gray 
horse. He wore a tall, bell-crowned beaver hat, a 
shining, black, patent-leather stock, or military cra- 
vat, incasing a standing collar; a ruffled shirt, black 
satin vest, shining black silk trousers gathered at 
the waistband and very full about the ankles ; a gor- 
geous parti-colored Indian hunting shirt fastened in 
at the waist with a bead-embroidered, red silk sash, 
which was clasped by large silver buckles ; embroid- 
ered silk stockings, and pumps, as the long shoes 
were then called, ornamented with brilliant silver 
shoe buckles. 

In this very fantastic and absurd costume the new 
Governor made his theatrical entree upon the State 
political office, yet in spite of all the sensationalism 
that no other man could have carried off, he made 
his power felt, and from start to finish his adminis- 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 283 

tration was successful and satisfactory. Houston 
probably would have been reelected to a second term 
had not the misfortune of his life now occurred. 
On the 1 6th of January, 1829, he married Eliza 
Allen, the daughter of his political friend. Three 
months later Mrs. Houston left her husband and re- 
turned to her father's house. The affair was until 
the lady's death a mystery. Houston sent in his 
resignation, and shortly after he again buried him- 
self with his old friends, the Cherokees. With a 
chivalry that only a brave man ever shows he had 
simply said : " Eliza stands acquitted by me,'* and 
then like a wounded animal hid himself from the 
face of those who knew him. Oo-loo-tee-kah, or 
Jolly, the under chief of the Cherokees, who had 
received Houston as a boy into his tribe, now joy- 
fully reclaimed his old friend, though he wisely ad- 
vised him '* to go back to the white people." The 
counsel was not accepted, and the former Governor 
of Tennessee adopted the habits, manners and dress 
of the Indians, and was formally received under the 
name of Co-lon-neh, or the Raven, as the son of 
Oo-loo-tee-kah. 

On state occasions Houston, or Co-lon-neh, the 
Raven, appeared in the blanket, buckskin hunting 
shirt, leggings, moccasins and turkey feathers of the 
Indian brave and took part in the councils. 



284 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

During this voluntary exile he was not forgotten. 
Reports were circulated that he was about to invade 
a province of Mexico at the head of an Indian army, 
with the intention of becoming the Emperor of 
Texas. General Jackson was so disturbed by these 
rumors that he wrote to him : " Indeed, my dear sir, 
I cannot believe you have any such chimerical and 
visionary scheme in view. Your pledge of honor to 
the country is a sufficient guarantee that you will 
never engage in any enterprise injurious to your 
country, or that would tarnish your fame." 

In 1832 Houston was again in Washington, and 
it was at this time that he administered a caning to 
the Honorable William Stanberry, who had had 
him denounced in the papers. 

The affair caused a great stir in Washington cir- 
cles. Houston was arrested by the Sergeant-at- 
Arms and brought to the bar of the House. After 
a powerful defense made by Francis Scott Key and 
the prisoner himself, he was discharged from the cus- 
tody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, and although he was 
reprimanded, the fine of $500 was remitted by Presi- 
dent Jackson, who was ** moved thereto by divers 
good and sufficient reasons." Nothing could prove 
more conclusively how society felt in those days 
about such matters. Houston had really behaved 
badly, not to say brutally, yet Jackson had remarked 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 285 

that a few more such affairs would teach representa- 
tives "to keep civil tongues in their heads." One 
can easily imagine the dramatic way in which Hous- 
ton on the occasion of his defense quoted the lines : 

" I ask no sympathies, nor need ; 
The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree 
I planted. They have torn me and I bleed." 

The " sympathies " he did not "ask" or "need " 
were freely given by those who remembered his 
valor at Horseshoe Bend. 

It scarcely speaks well for the code of the day 
when one reads that his attack upon Stanberry really 
made him more popular than ever. 

Mrs. Houston having secured a divorce from her 
husband on the plea of abandonment, Houston con- 
tracted an Indian marriage with a half-breed woman 
by the name of Tyania Rodgers, the descendant of 
an English officer, and a woman of great physical 
beauty. 

At this time he had fallen into dissipated habits, 
and would go on terrible debauches. The Chero- 
kees contemptuously changed his name from Co- 
lon-neh, the Raven, to a word that meant "Big 
Drunk." But beneath this apparent weakness lay 
great strength, and from this low and degraded state 
he was soon to be called upon to play a noble part in 



286 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

a noble strife, and to redeem his name and achieve 
a lasting fame in the pages of American history. 

At this time Texas, which belonged to Mexico, 
was a vast area of unpopulated wilderness. In the 
268,684 square miles of this territory there were 
only a few small towns in the interior — San Anto- 
nio, Nacogdoches, Goliad, and others dating from 
the period of Spanish colonization — and a few vil- 
lages that had grown up around the missions of the 
Franciscan friars. There were also a few seaports 
like Galveston, Brazoria, Velasco and Copano. Colo- 
nies had been founded by grants from the Mexican 
government, given to contractors. Austin's, De 
Witt's, De Leon's and the Irish colony of McMullen 
and McGlorie were the most important of such set- 
tlements. Beyond the Sabine River and between the 
boundaries of the United States and Mexico was 
what was called the " Neutral Ground," which was 
really a refuge for criminals of both countries. 
Here, escaped murderers, thieves, and all sorts of 
outlaws found an asylum, and Williams in his " The 
War for Texas Independence " tells us that it was 
quite the custom for fraudulent debtors to chalk on 
the shutter the cabalistic letters " G. T. T." (Gone 
to Texas,) which was a defiant declaration that they 
were safe from the arm of the law. These " Neutral 
Grounds " were very injurious to the American col- 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 287 

onies, which under the legal grants were established 
in the Mexican Province of Texas. 

Stephen F. Austin, whom Houston called the 
" Father of Texas," was born in Austinville, Vir- 
ginia, in 1793, and was a remarkable man. In 1820 
his father, Moses Austin, set out for Texas and 
obtained ,from Governor Martinez of San Antonio 
authority to settle an American colony in Texas. 
He died, however, before his plan was carried out, 
but left the dying injunction to his son Stephen to 
consummate his project, which under great difficul- 
ties the son accomplished. In the meantime Mexico 
had revolted from Spain and the Emperor Iturbide 
sat upon the Mexican throne. This monarch re- 
newed the grant to Austin, but another revolution 
headed by Santa Anna deposed Iturbide, so Austin 
had again to appeal for a third renewal from the 
Mexican Cortes. In 1823 he was at last able to 
establish the colony which was destined to play so 
considerable a part in history. 

Austin's colonists were of a high type of man- 
kind, and, under their leader's control, order, disci- 
pline and an archaic sort of honesty were established. 
People left their doors unfastened without fear of 
robbers, and there was scarcely any disorderly con- 
duct. Major Hutter, the United States paymaster 
sent to settle the claims of Texas soldiers in 1840, 



288 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

traveled the country, unescorted, with a half million 
dollars in gold in his ambulance, and was never 
molested, though his rank as well as his business was 
known, and his halting places were twenty miles 
apart usually, so lonely were the roads. Men did not 
give or take notes, verbal promises of payment being 
deemed sufficient. Such was the state of things in 
Austin's Colony before the war for Texas Inde- 
pendence. 

Mexico finally grew jealous of the Americans 
within her provinces. By the Constitution of 1824 
Mexico was made a republic, and the two pro- 
vinces of Texas and Coahuila were united under 
the title of the " State of Coahuila and Texas." 

The United States had proposed to purchase the 
territory of Texas, which still farther aroused Mexi- 
co's jealousy. 

In 1830 there was another revolution in the Mexi- 
can Republic, and Bastamente, now in power, issued 
decrees forbidding farther immigration from the 
United States, the introduction of slaves, and estab- 
lishing custom houses for the collection of imports 
upon trade. He also began sending a thousand sol- 
diers, most of whom were criminals and convicts, to 
stations in the country, which was virtually making 
Texas a penal colony. All these things disturbed 
and angered the Americans greatly. 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 289 

From this time the Americans began to oppose 
the infringement of their rights given them in their 
grant, and gradually the hostilities grew into a war 
with Mexico. Santa Anna was now heading another 
revolutionary movement, and Texas promised to 
support him: in exchange for a restoration of the 
liberal Constitution of 1824, and it was hoped that 
Texas might enjoy the privilege of self-government 
as one of the States of the Mexican Republic. 

In 1832 Sam Houston went to Texas with a com- 
mission from President Jackson to arrange treaties 
with the Comanche and other Indian tribes for the 
protection of American settlers on the border, but 
it is most likely that it was understood between the 
President and his emissary that the latter was to look 
into the state of affairs, and report as to the power 
of the people in case they should try to throw off 
the Mexican yoke. 

Major Elias Rector,* a native of Virginia, but for 
many years a noted character in the Southwest, and 
known throughout that country as the " Fine Arkan- 
sas Gentleman," was a fellow traveler with Houston 
on his journey to Texas, and used to tell an interest- 
ing anecdote of his traveling companion. When 
they parted at a certain spot the Major handed Hous- 

1 Major Elias Rector was the cousin and friend of the 
author's father. 



290 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

ton a razor as a sort of farewell token of regard. 
Houston accepted the gift and, turning towards his 
friend, said impressively, " Major Rector, good-by! 
God bless you. When next you see this razor it 
shall be shaving the President of a Republic." 

How the prophecy was fulfilled may be found in 
the history of the War for Independence in Texas. 

The action that directly brought about the revolu- 
tion in Texas was the passage of the decree reducing 
the number of militia to one for every five hundred 
people, and ordering the rest of the inhabitants to 
give up their arms. Arms were necessary to the 
Texans at that time, not only as a means of exist- 
ence, for they depended to a great extent upon their 
guns for their food, but also as a protection to their 
lives and their property. 

Anarchy soon reigned in certain parts of the 
province. William B. Travis, who was to win 
deathless fame in his heroic death at the Alamo was, 
together with many other Virginians, South Caro- 
linians, Georgians and Alabamians, eager to resist 
this arbitrary edict, and before long fighting had be- 
gun between the two factions. 

Stephen Austin, who had been detained in Mexico 
by Santa Anna on one pretext and another for two 
years, finally returned to find affairs in a very bad 
condition. 




Samuel Houston. 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 29I 

At a meeting at San Augustine, October 5th, 1834, 
it was declared that Texas would no longer submit 
to the destruction of its rights and liberties by the 
Central Government of Mexico. A company of 
volunteers was raised and Sam Houston was elected 
Commander in Chief of the forces in Eastern Texas, 
and at once began to organize and forward volun- 
teers. Austin, who had been elected Commander in 
Chief of the Western forces, begged Houston to 
become the sole head of the army, but this he refused 
to do. 

It was decided, against Houston's advice, to make 
an attempt to capture San Antonio, the oldest as well 
as the most important Spanish settlement. San 
Antonio stood in the lovely valley of the head waters 
of the San Pedro Creek and the San Antonio River. 
Around it rolled the prairie, while groves of lofty 
pecan trees shaded the river that wound through the 
little city and the many springs that abounded in the 
neighborhood. Southward stretched for ten miles 
the stations of the stone churches of the Missions, 
each surrounded by a stone wall for a protection 
from the Indians. 

Across the river from San Antonio stood the mis- 
sion of the Alamo — which means the " Cottonwood 
tree," the very name of which has become the sym- 
bol of Spanish treachery and American heroism. 



292 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

General Austin intended attacking San Antonio at 
once, but before this was accomplished the contend- 
ing forces had met at Concepcion, which resulted in 
the defeat of the Mexicans, who withdrew to San 
Antonio. Austin now settled down into a sort of 
blockade of the town. Houston was sent to San 
Felipe to organize a civil government, and Austin, 
who had been elected as a commissioner to solicit 
aid in the United States, resigned from the army, 
his place being filled by General Edward Burleson. 

On the 3d of December Colonel Milam begged 
General Burleson to attack San Antonio. Stepping 
out in front of the General's tent he waved his hat 
and shouted to the disorganized men, " Who will go 
with old Ben Milam into San Antonio ? " 

An impetuous crowd echoed the cry, and at dawn 
the next morning the attacking force moved forward 
toward the Spanish town. The Mexicans finally re- 
treated into the Alamo, and the next day General 
Cos sent a flag of truce to General Burleson, propos- 
ing terms of capitulation. 

General Burleson went home December 15th, 
leaving Colonel Johnson to hold the Alamo. 

Meantime, while the Texas soldiers were winning 
victories the consultation at San Felipe was also 
doing good work, and Houston in his Indian blanket 
and buckskin clothes was preparing a decree of 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 293 

provincial independence under the Constitutional 
Government of Mexico. When somebody made a 
slighting remark about General Houston's style of 
costume, President Jackson replied : '' Thank God 
there is one man, at least, in Texas, whom the 
Almighty had the making of, and not the tailor." 

The United States failed to take any very deep in- 
terest in the troubles of her citizens in Mexico, and 
except in individual cases there was not much help 
given them'. Complications and internal dissensions 
arose, and finally Houston virtually gave up com- 
mand of the army, though he rendered the greatest 
services to the colonists by keeping the Indians in 
good order. 

Austin had negotiated loans for the Texas army, 
and enough supplies were purchased to keep the sol- 
diers together after a fashion. 

While things were in a weakened and confused 
state in Texas, Santa Anna had consolidated his 
power in Mexico. He determined to attack the 
Texas garrison in the Alamo. 

The Americans or Texans were taken by surprise 
February 22d, and now followed one of the most 
heroic deeds ever chronicled. The commander in 
the mission was Colonel William Barrett Travis, a 
young South Carolinian of twenty years of age. 
The second officer was Colonel James Bowie, the 



294 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

inventor of the terrible Bowie knife, and among the 
garrison was the famous David Crockett. 

Travis must have known that with his handful 
of men shut up in the Mission buildings of the Alamo 
he had almost no chance against Santa Anna's 1,400 
veterans, for the Texans did not number two 
hundred. 

There is an antique heroism, almost archaic in its 
simplicity, in the appeal the young commander sent 
out for help. It was addressed : " To the people of 
Texas and all Americans in the world." 

"Fellow Citizens and Compatriots: 

" I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans 
under Santa Anna. I have sustained a continued bombard- 
ment for twenty-four hours, and have not lost a man. The 
enemy have demanded a surrender at discretion; otherwise 
the garrison is to be put to the sword if the place is taken. 
I have answered the summons with a cannon shot and our 
flag still waves proudly from the walls. / shall never sur- 
render or retreat. Then I call on you in the name of liberty, 
of patriotism, of everything dear to the American character, 
to come to our aid with all despatch. . . . Though this 
call may be neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as 
long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forgets 
what is due to his own honor and that of his country. Victory 
or death I " W. Barrett Travis, 

" Lieutenant-Colonel, Commanding." 

Colonel Fannin started on the 28th to relieve the 
beleaguered garrison, but his ammunition wagon 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 295 

broke down and it was impossible to go on. March 
3d Travis sent his last message for the help that 
never came. 

On Sunday morning, March 6th, the Mexican 
bands struck up the air ** Deguelo," " Cut-Throat," 
which meant " no quarter," and the final assault was 
made. 

The Americans fought like heroes, but their 
little force was no match for the hordes who scaled 
the wall and carried the redoubt, forcing the Texans 
back into the convent and hospital. 

The adobe wall gave way beneath the cannon shot 
and the Mexicans stormed the breach. The Ameri- 
cans fought from room to room and the last struggle 
was made in the church. In that sanctuary of the 
Prince of Peace was perpetrated a horrible butchery 
of helpless men. Crockett with his long rifle 
"Betsy" in his hand and his coonskin cap on his 
head fell at the entrance. Bowie and Travis were 
among the first to fall. Bowie was killed while 
lying disabled on a cot, firing his pistols to the last. 
The Americans had agreed to blow up the magazine 
rather than be butchered by the Mexicans, for they 
knew Santa Anna's barbarity, but just as Major 
Evans started to fire it he was shot down. 

At nine o'clock the Alamo had fallen. Five per- 
sons who had hidden were brought out and shot. 



296 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

although the Mexican officers begged for their lives. 
After the slaughter was over — and not one of the 
brave defenders was left alive— Santa Anna had the 
bodies piled together and burned. 

The fall of the Alamo made a profound impres- 
sion in the United States, and the spirit of vengeance 
began now to animate the Texans. Years after the 
tragic event a lofty granite shaft was erected in the 
Capitol building in Austin in memory of the heroes 
of the Alamo. 

An eloquent line tells the story: 

" Thermopylae had its messenger of woe,— 
The Alamo had none." 

The execution of the prisoners of Goliad on Palm 
Sunday, March 26th, inflamed the feeling to a full 
climax of hatred and fury, and it was the cry " Re- 
member the Alamo ; remember La Bahia ! " that led 
the Americans to victory at the battle of San Jacinto 
which really established Texas as a Republic. 

Sam Houston, Commander in Chief, and the hero 
of San Jacinto, was immediately elected President 
of the new Republic and Major Rector was re- 
minded of the razor and prophecy. Santa Anna was 
now prisoner, and, notwithstanding the threats of the 
populace. President Houston was wise enough to 
treat him with consideration and finally release him, 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 297 

as he did not wish to prolong hostile feeling with 
Mexico. 

" Old San Jacinto," as he was now called, was not 
for some time in favor of annexation. Several times 
the new Republic sought to unite herself with the 
United States, and several times the Union declined 
with thanks. Finally, however, it became a party 
issue, and on the 29th of December, 1845, Texas 
ceased to be a Republic and became the " Lone Star " 
State in the Union. 

It was unselfish in Houston to oppose annexation, 
for personally it meant more honors for him. He 
had filled two terms as President, and by the Consti- 
tution could not hold that of^ce again. Texas as a 
State would give him the best gifts in her power to 
bestow. With him, Texas was first. He loved the 
land he had saved from ruin. His second marriage 
with Miss Margaret Mofifette Lea, of Alabama, had 
been the greatest blessing, for under the influence of 
his wife he gave up his dissipated habits, and in his 
old age a happy family of sons and daughters were 
gathered about him. When the Civil War broke out, 
Houston, who had been for several terms United 
State Senator and had been Governor of Texas, was 
entirely in favor of the Union being preserved. 

In consequence he was deposed as Governor and 
overwhelmed with abuse by the secessionists. When 



298 AMERICAN HEROES AND HEROINES 

the State of Texas seceded he refused to take oath to 
the Confederate Government. This was a brave 
thing for a Southern man to do. 

Houston, however, was strong to the last in his 
conviction that the Union should be preserved, 
although he, like all Southerners, felt it right to fight 
for the rights they believed to be theirs under the 
Constitution. 

His son. Lieutenant Sam Houston, was one of the 
Confederate soldiers wounded and taken prisoner 
at Vicksburg July 4th, 1863. About three weeks 
later, July 26th, 1863, Sam Houston died, aged 
seventy years. His last words, before uttering the 
name of his wife, were, " Texas ! Texas ! " 

A plain, white slab in Huntsville where he died 
marks the last resting place of one whose earthly 
life was full of turmoil and strife. 

He was full of strong prejudices, and aroused 
strong antagonism, but with all his faults he pos- 
sessed splendid virtues. His reverence for women 
was beautiful, and he always addressed them with 
the title " Lady " — which was no idle word on his 
lips. His first wife on her deathbed revealed the 
fact that she had told him soon after their marriage 
that her love was given to another man, and with 
his intense chivalry (and wounded pride perhaps) 
he had felt it his duty to leave her, unwilling to try 



SAMUEL HOUSTON 299 

to force affection or duty. She was the mystery of 
his early life, about which venomous tongues whis- 
pered so much evil report of a noble and chivalrous 
gentleman. He was hated as much as he was loved, 
but he was unquestionably a patriot and a hero, and 
typified a romantic period of the nation's history. 



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trations by H. G. Laskey. 12 mo. Pictorial 
cover in color. Price, $1.25. 

" On Special Assignment," by Samuel T. Clover, is a 
capital novel of journalistic life, in which Paul Travers, 
the hero of Mr. Clover's former clever story, has some 
striking experiences in different parts of the far West, in 
connection vv^ith his work as special correspondent. His 
adventures include an experience with the Moqui Snake 
Dancers in Arizona, the capture and killing of Sitting 
Bull, and a campaign of stock men against cattle rustlers 
in Wyoming. The book will make mighty good reading 
for young and old. 



Paul Travers' Adventures 

By SAMUEL TRAVERS CLOVER 

i2mo, cloth, illustrated by C. Chase Emerson. 
Postpaid, $1.25. 

This is an absorbing story of the mishaps, privations, 
and experiences of a wide-awake Western newspaper boy 
on a journey around the world, told by a well-known 
Chicago editor. It is at once thrilling, reliable, and 
amusing, and is a 'true story worked up into a " great" 
one for boys. 

The Cleveland World says : « It is a book that may 
be recommended to all boys and girls." 

LoTHROP Publishing Company, Boston 



%% ^ 



WHEN GRANDMAMMA 
WAS FOURTEEN 



By MARION HARLAND 



WITH FOUR FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS AND NUMEROUS PICTURES 
IN THE TEXT PRICE $1.25 



Later adventures of the heroine of 
''WHEN GRANDMAMMA WAS NEW^' 



THOSE who recall this noted author's delightful story, "When 
Grandmamma was New," will be glad to hear that in this 
book are the adventures of the heroine at a later period. 
Through the eyes of fourteen-year-old Molly Burwell, the reader 
sees much that is quaint, amusing and pathetic in ante-bellum Rich- 
mond, and the story has all the charm of manner and rich humanity 
which are characteristic of Marion Harland. All healthy-hearted 
children will delight in the story, and so will their parents. 



WHEN GRANDMAMMA WAS NEW 

The Story of a Virginia Girlhood in the Eorties 

By Marion Harland i2mo Illustrated Price ;^ 1.2 5 

The BOSTON JOURNAL says: 

•• If only one might read it first with the trained enjoyment of the 
♦ grown-up* mind that is 'at leisure from itself,' and then if one might with- 
draw into ten-year-old-dom once more and seek the shadow of the friendly 
apple-tree, ana revel in it all over again, taste it all just as the child tastes, 
and find it luscious! For this book has charm and piquancy. And it is in 
just this vivid remembrance of a child's mental workings, in just the avoid- 
ance of all • writing down ' to the supposed level of a childf's mind, that 
this story has its rare attractiveness. It is bright, winsome, and magnetic." 

The INTERIOR, Chicago, says: 

•' • Grandmamma ' may have charmed other folks, — has charmed them all, 
incontrovertibly, — but she has never tried harder to be vivid and dramatic 
and entertaining, and to leave a sweet kernal of application, withal, than in 
these memory-tales of a sunny childhood on a big Virginia plantation. It is 
a book which will delight, not children alone, but all such as have the child 
heart and a tender memory of when they were ' new.' " 

AT ALL BOOKSELLERS, OR SENT POSTPAID ON RECEIPT 
OF PRICE BY THE PUBLISHERS 

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.. BOSTON 




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