Hero Tales From History - free ebook by Smith Burnham

HERO TALES FROM HISTORY

BY SMITH BURNHAM, A.M . HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, WESTERN STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, KALAMAZOO, MICHIGAN ILLUSTRATED colophon Copyright, 1922, by The John C. Winston Co. —— All Rights Reserved PRINTED IN U. S. A....

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PREFACE

A N interest in history and a love of historical reading will be most readily acquired by those children who approach this rich field of literature through the medium of stories of the great figures of the past. Such stories, if properly selected and told, give children those vivid concrete pictures of men and of events which are vitally essential to any real understanding of bygone days. At the same time such history stories may be so selected as to hold up right ideals of conduct and of charac

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MOSES, THE GREATEST LAW-GIVER, AND THE MEEKEST MAN

L ONG ago in the land of Egypt there lived as slaves to the Egyptians a race of white people called the Hebrews. There were so many of them that the Egyptians began to be afraid that they would over-run the land. So the cruel king, or the Pharaoh, as he was called, commanded that all the baby boys of the slave race should be thrown into the River Nile. But one little child escaped this fate, for his poor slave mother disobeyed the king and hid her baby in her hut. When he was three months old, h

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DAVID, THE GIANT-KILLER KING

N EARLY three thousand years ago a bright, handsome Hebrew lad was playing a harp while watching his father’s sheep on the hills of Bethlehem. One dark night there was a great stir among the sheep, and David saw a bear making off with one of the lambs. There were no guns in those days, but David had a sling, and he could fling a pebble almost as swift and straight as a boy can shoot a bullet to-day. So David ran and killed the bear by driving a stone through the big brute’s eye into its brain. W

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HOMER, THE HERO POET OF ANCIENT GREECE

L ONG, long ago, when the world was young, and before men began to write books, a kind of men called “bards” used to wander about the land of Greece, from town to town and from court to court, playing the harp and singing of the deeds of the heroes of Greece. As years went on there came to be very many such tales sung by the bards, and handed down from father to son. At last, there came a day when men learned to write. Then the person whom we call Homer, the earliest and greatest poet in the his

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SOCRATES, THE “GRAND OLD MAN” OF GREECE

S OCRATES was the son of a sculptor of Athens in the days of Pericles, a ruler who encouraged art and culture and made his city famous for its learning and beauty. As a boy, Socrates was taught by his father to carve statues. Nearly a thousand years afterward, a traveler in Greece described a group of figures, called “The Graces,” carved by the youthful Socrates. But the young man was not satisfied with being a sculptor. While he was working at his carving, his active mind kept trying to find ou

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ALEXANDER, THE BOY WHO CONQUERED THE WORLD

A LEXANDER was the son of Philip, king of Macedon, a country to the north of Greece. His father was a great general as well as a king. Young Alexander was a strong, active, handsome lad. A story is told of his “breaking” a wild horse which had been presented to Philip by a neighboring king. This horse was named Bucephalus—the Greek word for “Bullheaded.” He reared, bit, snorted, and pawed the air, if any one tried to mount him. King Philip was indignant at being given such a present, and was abo

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FOUR FAMILIAR SAYINGS OF JULIUS CÆSAR

J ULIUS CÆSAR was born at Rome more than two thousand years ago, about one hundred years before Christ. His family belonged to a noble clan of the patricians. The people of Rome were divided into three classes. Of these the patricians were highest in rank and fewest in number. There were many more in the middle class, which at that time was largely made up of free men who could vote and hold office. The lowest class and by far the largest number were the slaves. More than half of the Roman slave

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THE CHRISTMAS CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE

A BOUT twelve hundred years ago, thousands of Saracens, who were among the followers of Mohammed, crossed the narrow strait from Africa into Spain. The world was then coming out of those centuries of ignorance and fear which are known as the Dark Ages. The dark-skinned people—Arabs and Africans—who followed Mohammed, went about converting people by making them prostrate themselves with their faces turned toward the East and repeat the Mohammedan creed. Those who refused to bow down and repeat th

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ALFRED, THE GREATEST OF THE SAXON KINGS

O VER one thousand years ago, the king of the West Saxons on the island of Britain, now England, had four sons. Alfred, the youngest of these, was his father’s favorite. When this boy was only five, his royal father sent him to Rome to be confirmed by the Pope. After Alfred came back his queen-mother died, and the father made a pilgrimage, or religious journey, to Rome, taking young Prince Alfred, with many court gentlemen, soldiers, and servants. On their way the king and his train were given a

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HOW WILLIAM OF NORMANDY CONQUERED A KINGDOM

W HEN the first son was born to Robert, Duke of Normandy, and Arlette, the daughter of a tanner, the nurse laid the day-old baby on the straw carpet of the castle. In those days most of the floors of the houses, whether huts or castles, were of earth or stone, covered with straw which could be cleared out, as from a modern stable, to allow fresh straw to be laid down. When placed on the floor in his little blanket, Baby William reached out and clutched some of the straws so tightly in his small

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LION-HEARTED RICHARD AND WOLF-HEARTED JOHN

T HE great-grandson of William the Conqueror was Henry the Second of England, a great and powerful king. At his death, in 1189, he left two sons, Richard and John. As Richard was the older he was at once proclaimed king and duly crowned in Westminster Abbey. He was also Duke of Normandy, and thought this a greater honor than to be king of England. About a hundred years before the time of Richard, great armies had begun to sail from several of the countries of western Europe to the Holy Land in S

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JOAN OF ARC AND THE LILIES OF FRANCE

F IVE hundred years ago a little French peasant girl was working outside the stone hut where her father’s large family lived, when she heard, or thought she heard, a voice saying to her, “Joan, be a good child; go often to church.” This Joan of Arc was so kind-hearted and so thoughtful for others that her friends made fun of her and said she was not like other girls; and her parents feared that she was growing too good to live. But Joan only wondered and smiled, said her prayers, and went often

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SHAKESPEARE, THE GREATEST MAKER OF PLAYS

P ERHAPS there is no one who has done so much for the world, yet about whose life so little is known, as William Shakespeare. His father was a farmer and market man, and his mother was Mary Arden, a prosperous farmer’s daughter. The father was so highly respected that he was made high bailiff, or mayor, of Stratford-upon-Avon, where the Shakespeare family lived. It was one of the father’s duties to give out licenses to players or actors who went from town to town performing their plays. Sometime

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HOW CROMWELL CHANGED PLACES WITH THE KING

I N Shakespeare’s day Queen Elizabeth came first in the thoughts of all the people of England. She was almost worshiped by the men of wealth and genius whom she gathered at her court, and by the people at large. By her cleverness and wisdom she kept England peaceful and prosperous almost all through her reign. But she never married; so, when she died, her cousin, James Stuart, king of Scotland, became king of England. James had been brought up to think that because he was king, everybody must bo

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NAPOLEON, THE CORSICAN BOY WHO RULED EUROPE

T HOUGH Napoleon Bonaparte was the greatest soldier of his time, he was small in body. His fullest height was a little above five feet. The story of his strange career shows how a poor, puny little lad made himself emperor of France and master of Europe, so that kings, generals, and prime ministers bowed, like so many servants, to his imperial will. He began, while he wore petticoats, to wish to be a soldier. He threw away his baby rattle for a brass cannon, and his first playthings were little

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NELSON, THE HERO OF TRAFALGAR

A SMALL English boy strayed away from his grandmother’s house after she had warned him that gypsies encamped near by might carry him off. When the old lady found the little fellow sitting beside a stream too wide for him to cross, she exclaimed: “Why did you run away, Horatio? I was half dead with fear—” “Fear!” demanded the little lad, still in petticoats. “What is that? I never saw a fear.” The boy’s father’s name was Nelson. He was a clergyman of the Church of England. His wife had died when

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COLUMBUS, THE MAP-MAKER WHO FOUND A NEW WORLD

I N a tall narrow house in the midst of a block on a narrow street in Genoa, Italy, lived a poor woolworker named Columbus. This slender house was only two windows wide and seven stories high. In the lowest story, in which there were a wide door and a grated window, Signor Columbus stored the bales of wool which he washed and carded, using a tool somewhat like the curry-comb for cleaning horses. He thus prepared the wool to be spun into yarn, which would later be woven and made up into clothing

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MAGELLAN, THE MAN OF THE STRAITS

A MONG the lads in many lands who were thrilled by the stories of Columbus and his discoveries was twelve-year-old Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese boy. Like thousands of youths all over Europe, he then made up his mind to sail the seas and seek his fortune. Portugal, though a small country, was the home of many men of great energy and daring. A Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, had sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern point of Africa, and discovered that way to India and the M

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CORTES, THE CONQUEROR

A MONG the millions of people who wondered at the strange stories of the new lands discovered by Columbus was Hernando, a seven-year-old son of a Spanish noble family named Cortes. His young mind was filled with longing for adventure. As soon as he was old enough Hernando left home to seek his fortune on the island of Santo Domingo in the new world. The governor of this island was pleased with the manner, pluck, and energy of Cortes, and offered to sell him a large estate on easy terms. But the

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DE SOTO, A GOLD HUNTER IN SOUTHERN SWAMPS

H ERNANDO DE SOTO was the Spanish grandee, or noble, appointed governor of Cuba and “the Floridas” about twenty-five years after Florida was discovered. It was Ponce de Leon who landed near the southern point of North America, on Easter Day, 1513, and named that lovely country Florida—Land of Flowers. De Leon had heard a beautiful story that far inland in the heart of the wilderness there was a magic spring that would make young forever all who drank of its sparkling waters. Though he searched l

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SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, ENGLAND’S FIRST GREAT SAILOR

A MONG little Francis Drake’s earliest memories was his home in the hulk of an old ship near a navy yard in the south of England. His father was a sort of chaplain to the fleets which kept coming and going there. Francis heard the wild tales of seafaring men about pirates and Spaniards, and seafights, and the wonderful wealth in distant lands. Young Drake’s soul was fired with a fervent longing for life and adventure on the high seas or the Spanish Main, as the region along the northern coast of

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SIR WALTER RALEIGH, THE FAVORITE OF GOOD QUEEN BESS

A GAY company was waiting before the old palace at Greenwich, beside the River Thames below the City of London, on a summer afternoon in the days of Elizabeth. They were watching for the queen and her intimates to come down the broad steps in front of the palace. There had been a shower, and the trees, grass, and bright flowers glistened in the sunshine. “Here comes Her Majesty!” exclaimed some in the waiting throng as a woman in middle life descended the steps, attended by the Earl of Leicester

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HENRY HUDSON, THE MAN WHO PUT HIMSELF ON THE MAP

J UST as Magellan set out to discover a way through America from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, so Henry Hudson determined to find a northwest passage from ocean to ocean. The reason for wishing to cross in the north from one ocean to the other was to save going “round the Horn,” as sailors call the long voyage around Cape Horn, the southern point of South America. We now know that there is no northwest passage; at least, if there is such a waterway it is so near the North Pole that it is al

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LA SALLE AND THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI

L ITTLE is known now of the early life of Robert Cavelier de la Salle, until, at twenty-five or a little less, he came from Rouen, France, to Montreal. But of his life in America, in those days when the land was still a howling wilderness, there is much to tell. He was born a century and a half after Columbus thought he had found the coast of China; yet this young Frenchman still believed that China was only a little farther west than the land Columbus found, for he had but a narrow idea of the

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LIVINGSTONE, THE WHITE MAN OF THE DARK CONTINENT

L ITTLE Davie Livingstone was a queer, quiet Scotch laddie. His father was a high-minded man, but he was so poor that he had to take Davie out of the village school when he was ten. In those days, the early part of the nineteenth century, children began to work when they were very young. So Mr. Livingstone sent the lad to work, with other boys of his own age, as a piecer in a cotton mill. David worked from six in the morning till eight at night, stopping only for lunch. With his first week’s wag

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PEARY, A HERO OF THE GREAT WHITE NORTH

F OR hundreds of years after Columbus, explorers sought the Northwest Passage through the frozen seas of North America. It was not until 1853 that such a channel was actually traced. Even then it was so filled with ice that no sailor, however brave and skilful, could make his way through. Long ago the search for the Northwest Passage gave place to the great desire and purpose to reach the North Pole. Of course, there is no pole standing out of the northern half of the world. The axis, or axle, o

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JOHN SMITH, THE CAPTAIN OF MANY ADVENTURES

S TORIES of the strange adventures of Columbus, John Cabot, and other explorers made a restless lad of little motherless John Smith, of Willoughby, England. When he was fourteen he had made ready to run away from home; but then his father died and left him the owner of an estate, in the charge of guardians. Those mean men cared more for the property than for the boy who was to have it when he was old enough. So they gave him only a little pocket-money and hired him out by law as apprentice to a

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CHAMPLAIN, THE FATHER OF NEW FRANCE

I N Samuel de Champlain’s earlier life he was both a soldier and a sailor of France. He was a great adventurer, who came to visit the new country in America claimed for France by Jacques Cartier about seventy-five years before. He was a personal friend of Henry of Navarre, who became Henry the Fourth, king of France. Champlain was a great lover of king and country. He said to the high officials at court: “Spain has her ‘New Spain,’ and England her ‘New England’; why should not we have our ‘New F

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MYLES STANDISH, THE BRAVE LITTLE CAPTAIN OF PLYMOUTH

L ITTLE is known of the life of Myles Standish before he sailed from Holland among the hundred and two passengers of the Mayflower on its way across the stormy ocean to the wilderness of America. The brave men and women who had been driven out of England, on account of their religion, by foolish King James, had made their escape to Holland. Although the Dutch who lived in that country were very kind to them, the English people decided to go to America where they could live and worship as they wi

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JOHN WINTHROP, A PURITAN MAKER OF MASSACHUSETTS

John Winthrop can not be called a boy’s hero; yet he was a hero, and his life was strange and interesting. He was a son of a good Puritan family in England. When a young man he met Oliver Cromwell, who became Lord Protector of England. He was acquainted with John Milton, the blind Puritan poet who wrote “Paradise Lost,” one of the greatest poems in the English language. John Winthrop had also to transact certain business with Cromwell’s cousin, John Hampden, the great English patriot who opposed

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ROGER WILLIAMS, A MINISTER WHO LIVED THE GOLDEN RULE

W HEN the Pilgrim Fathers left Europe in the clumsy little ship, the Mayflower , they came to America to have freedom to think and act as they believed right in matters of religion. Many men in England who wished to have their own religious beliefs were called Puritans because they wished to purify the Church of England from things which they thought were wrong. King James of England had announced that they must all worship in the ways of the Church of England or he would “harry them out of the

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LORD BALTIMORE, CALVERT AND CLAIBORNE, THE THREE FATHERS OF MARYLAND

G EORGE CALVERT, of Kipling, England, was such a fine man that he was beloved by king and people alike. King James gave him the title of “Sir” George Calvert, and made him Secretary of State. As the king and the church in England were Protestant, Sir George felt it his duty to give up his royal honors when he became a Catholic. But King James’ son, Charles the First, instead of taking Calvert’s rank away from him, made him “Baron” Baltimore. A baron is higher in position than a knight, who is ca

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WILLIAM PENN, THE FOUNDER OF PENNSYLVANIA

W HEN William Penn was born, his father, Admiral Sir William Penn, was sailing out to sea on an English battleship. Little William’s mother was a lovely woman from Holland, and as good as she was beautiful. While in college at Oxford, young Penn attended Quaker meetings, which had been started by followers of George Fox, the founder of a religious sect, the Society of Friends, or Quakers, as they were commonly called. The professors in charge of Oxford University did not believe in such meetings

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PATRICK HENRY, THE “FIREBRAND OF THE REVOLUTION”

“P AT HENRY’S a good-for-nothing fellow. Just lounges about his father-in-law’s tavern telling stories and fiddling.” This was the verdict of the people of Hanover Court House, Virginia, when Patrick Henry was a young man. When he was but a youth he had married the tavern-keeper’s daughter. He had tried farming and failed, people said, because he was “too lazy to do anything but go a-fishing.” But he was a great reader and had studied law in a random, listless way. The door of opportunity opened

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NATHAN HALE, WHO SPOKE THE BRAVEST WORDS IN HISTORY

N ATHAN HALE was a country boy, the sixth of ten children. When he was twelve his mother died. It had been her wish that Nathan should study to be a minister. So the lad entered Yale College when he was only fourteen. Young as he was, Nathan became president of the debating society. He was a big, strong, handsome fellow, full of fun and fond of sports. He was best at what was known as the broad jump. For many years “the Hale jump” made the record for the college. He was a strong swimmer and exce

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LAFAYETTE, THE BOY HERO OF TWO WORLDS

I N a great stone building among the tree-covered hills in the south of France there lived a little boy who at birth received fourteen names and titles. He belonged to the noble French family of the Lafayettes, who had been knights for at least seven hundred years. The boy never saw his father, for shortly before the child was born, his brave young soldier father was killed in a battle with the English. The home in which this fatherless boy lived was a castle, but it looked like a great prison o

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THE IMMORTAL REPLY OF JOHN PAUL JONES

O F the millions of boys who have had “sea fever,” perhaps none suffered with it more than John Paul, a bright, sandy-haired Scotch lad. His father was a gardener on the estate of a noble lord. John went to school but little, yet he studied hard while he was there. He had learned to sail a boat quite well when he had a chance, at twelve years old, to go to America as a cabin boy. When the owner of the ship soon after failed in business, John Paul entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman. He learne

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GENERAL MARION, THE CAROLINA “SWAMP FOX”

A HUNDRED years ago, when boys had but few books of any kind, “The Life of General Marion” was their favorite book of adventure, because of its short stories of rare bravery and hairbreadth escapes. General Francis Marion, of whom the book tells, was a southern man, born the same year as General Washington, and a commander of some of the American troops in the War for Independence. During that war, when the British found that they could accomplish little in the northern states, they decided to c

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WOLFE AND MONTCALM, THE RIVAL HEROES OF QUEBEC

M ORE than one hundred years after Champlain returned from France to his beloved Quebec, France and Great Britain were at war. In America this struggle was called the French and Indian War, because the English colonists had to fight against the French and their Indian allies, who came down from Canada to keep the English out of the country along the Ohio River. In Europe this strife, in which several other nations took part, was known as the Seven Years’ War. During this war young George Washing

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DANIEL BOONE, THE GREAT INDIAN FIGHTER OF KENTUCKY

O F all the great American hunters, trappers, and Indian fighters, Daniel Boone was the leader. He was born in Pennsylvania, but while still a boy he moved with his parents to North Carolina. Besides learning to do farm work and help his father at the loom and the forge, the Boone boy found time for trapping, hunting, and learning the arts of a woodsman. Father Boone, though of Quaker descent, encouraged this son to go hunting and to learn the woodcraft of the Indians. When the lad was twelve

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GEORGE ROGERS CLARK, THE YOUNG HERO WITH A GREAT IDEA

S OON after the beginning of the War for Independence, George Rogers Clark, a tall, broad-shouldered, red-haired, blue-eyed young man of twenty-four, left his home in Virginia and went over the mountains to join the settlers in Kentucky. He had already had some adventures in the wilderness along the Ohio River, hunting wild game and fighting wilder Indians. Not long after Clark’s arrival, the pioneers joined together and sent him and another man back to Virginia to see if they could have Kentuck

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LEWIS AND CLARK, TWO ADVENTURERS IN THE FAR WEST

W ILLIAM LEWIS, a nephew of General Washington’s sister Betty, lived near Thomas Jefferson’s beautiful estate in Albemarle County, Virginia. Two years before Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, a boy was born into the Lewis family. This baby was given his mother’s maiden name, Meriwether. Twenty-five years after writing the Declaration Jefferson became President of the United States and went to live in the still unfurnished White House in the new city of Washington. Then he chose fo

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DAVY CROCKETT, THE HERO OF THE ALAMO

M OST of the great men in the new West a hundred years ago were born poor; but few were ever as poor as little Davy Crockett. His father seemed to be unable to get along well and was always in debt. When Davy was still a lad he was hired out for twenty-five cents a day, but he did not receive the pay himself; it was given to his father. Once a drover to whom Davy’s father owed money hired Davy to help drive cattle from the Crocketts’ log cabin in East Tennessee over the mountains to a place in V

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HOW ELI WHITNEY MADE COTTON KING

E LI WHITNEY began to make things when he was a small boy. He was called a genius because he was so ingenious. But he was not satisfied with doing things with his hands. He had a strong desire to make the most of his mind. So he went to Yale College and studied philosophy. One day the professor said he could not show a certain method to the class because the machine he kept for the purpose was broken. He could not teach that lesson until a new apparatus could be brought from England or France. B

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“FULTON’S FOLLY”

R OBERT FULTON was a Pennsylvania boy. His father, a Quaker, died when Robert was a baby. His mother was a beautiful Irish lady, whose mind was as lovely as her face. She taught little Robert, and he knew much that was worth while before he began to go to school at the age of eight years. In those days school teachers were often strict and harsh with young children. Parents seemed to think their children would not learn fast unless they were whipped or beaten with a ruler. Though little Robert w

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HOW MORSE SENT LETTERS BY LIGHTNING

I NTO the family of Doctor Morse, a much respected minister living on the side of the hill on which the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, there came a little baby boy. They named him Samuel Finley for his great-grandfather, a president of Princeton College. To this was added Breese, the maiden name of the boy’s mother. When this baby grew up, he was known all over the world as S. F. B. Morse. This Morse boy had the best kind of schooling at home. His father was a teacher as well as a preacher, a

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CYRUS H. M’CORMICK AND THE STORY OF THE REAPER

W HEN little Abraham Lincoln was three days old in Kentucky, Cyrus H. McCormick was born in Virginia. When the McCormick boy was seven he used to go out to a shed and watch his father working at a machine to take the place of the scythe which was then used in cutting grain. Father McCormick was never satisfied, the neighbors said. He was “always fussing and trying to invent and improve something.” After working for years to make a machine to harvest grain, Farmer McCormick gave it up, saying tha

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ELIAS HOWE AND HIS SEWING MACHINE

E LIAS HOWE was the son of a poor miller. He had to go to work when he was six years old. He was a lame, sickly boy and could never do heavy work. When he was old enough he went away to work in the mills. But as he grew up, his health was still so poor that he had to go back and live with his father. Elias married when he was twenty-one and, within a few years, he had a wife and three children to support. Once when he was ill, his wife took in sewing to support their little family. As the young

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EDISON, THE WIZARD OF MANY INVENTIONS

T HOMAS ALVA EDISON was born in the little village of Milan, Ohio. His father was a mechanic, who could turn his hand to anything. While Alva, as they called him at home, was a small boy, the family moved to Port Huron. Here the lad was sent to school, but he asked so many questions that the teacher sent him home. Then Alva’s mother, who had been a school teacher, tried to educate him. She had great patience with his questions, but there were so many that neither she nor his father could answer

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, THE BOY WHO WAS DILIGENT IN BUSINESS

W HEN Benjamin Franklin was a little boy he lived in Boston, where his father was a maker of soap and candles. Little Ben was only ten years old when his father took him out of school and set him at work in his shop. Dipping candles all day long is hard, disagreeable work and Ben, who loved books, often wished that he was back in school. His uncle Benjamin sometimes tried to cheer the lad at his tiresome toil by telling him: “It is not so much what you do in life as how you do it.” One day Ben’s

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GEORGE WASHINGTON AND HIS MOTHER

W HEN George Washington was a little boy there was no such country as the United States. The part of America where he was born was called Virginia, but it was not a state then. It was a colony, or new country, settled by people from England. These colonists lived along the eastern shore. Back from the sea coast were beautiful valleys and high hills covered with woods. That region was called a “howling wilderness,” because there were tribes of Indians roaming through its forests, hunting bears an

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ALEXANDER HAMILTON, THE ORPHAN BOY FROM THE WEST INDIES

O N the little island of Nevis, in the West Indies, lived a small boy who had lost his mother, a bright young woman from France. His father, James Hamilton, who was a Scotch planter, soon left the island, and the boy, Alexander, heard little of him after that. No one knows to-day what became of the father of Alexander Hamilton, but his grandfather was a Scottish laird, or lord. The next that is known of Alexander is that he was a clerk in the store of a merchant on Santa Cruz, a smaller island,

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THOMAS JEFFERSON, THE FATHER OF DEMOCRACY

T HOMAS JEFFERSON was born on his father’s many-thousand-acre farm near Charlottesville, Virginia, on the banks of River Anna, whose name was shortened to “Rivanna.” Thomas’s father, Colonel Peter Jefferson, had come over the sea from Wales, and his mother was Jane Randolph, a daughter of one of the “F. F. V.’s,” or First Families of Virginia. The Jefferson boy grew up tall, thin, awkward, freckled and red-haired. His father, like George Washington’s, was a wealthy planter, who died while Thomas

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ANDREW JACKSON, AMERICA’S MOST POPULAR HERO

A BOUT ten years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, two Irish linen weavers, Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson, came across the Atlantic to a backwoods settlement in North Carolina. There the young settlers built a cabin, but before they had lived long in their rude little home, Andrew Jackson died, leaving his wife with two small sons, Hugh and Robert. The young widow went to live with a sick sister a few miles away, and when the third baby boy was born to her here, she named him

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WEBSTER, CLAY, CALHOUN, THREE GREAT CHAMPIONS IN CONGRESS

“T HERE were giants in those days,” a hundred years ago in the United States of America; not giants in body, but in mind and heart. Besides the Presidents and the generals in the War of 1812 and the Indian wars, the greatest men in America were Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, who were in Congress together. Daniel Webster was the man of New England, Henry Clay of the west, and John C. Calhoun of the south. Daniel Webster was born among the hills of New Hampshire, the ninth of the ten children of his

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THE KIND HEART OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN

L ITTLE Abe Lincoln lived in a log cabin in Kentucky. When he was seven, his family moved across the Ohio River into Indiana, and lived all winter in an open shed called a “half-faced camp,” before his father built a better cabin, with bare earth for its floor. Tom Lincoln, Abe’s father, was “a mighty hunter.” He liked to shoot game better than the hard work of clearing land and farming. He thought Abe was timid because he did not like to kill harmless animals or see them suffer. During the four

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ULYSSES S. GRANT, THE GENERAL WHO HATED WAR

“T HIS poor little boy has no name!” exclaimed Miss Simpson, the aunt who was visiting the Grant family at Point Pleasant, overlooking the Ohio River, about twenty miles east of Cincinnati. The rest of the family agreed that it would be a shame to let the baby go a day longer without a name. “Let’s name him now,” said the aunt; “let’s vote on it.” The others consented, and each wrote a preferred name on a bit of paper. Then a hat was passed and all put their slips in it. The aunt took out a ball

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THE NOBLE SOUL OF ROBERT E. LEE

R OBERT E. LEE’S father, Colonel Henry Lee, was a hero of the Revolutionary War. He was commander of the famous company known as “Lee’s Legion.” He was called “Light-Horse Harry” because he was so ready and alert with his cavalry regiment. He was such a friend of the commander-in-chief that it was said: “General Washington loves Harry Lee as if he were his own son.” Therefore, when the Father of his Country died, Robert E. Lee’s father was chosen by Congress to deliver the great oration in his m

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DAVY FARRAGUT, THE HERO OF MOBILE BAY

A FTER the War of Independence, there lived in a cabin among the mountains of Tennessee a Spaniard named Farragut, who had come to America to help the people in their fight for liberty. He had married a brave little Scotch woman. While her husband was away one day several skulking Indians hung around and watched for a chance to get into the cabin. The mother had seen them and sent her two little boys up under the roof, while she stood inside the door for hours, with an ax in her small hands, to

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THE STRENUOUS LIFE OF ROOSEVELT

T HEODORE ROOSEVELT’S father was a well-to-do business man in New York City. His forefathers were Dutchmen from Holland, who had come over when the country was new. The Roosevelts had been wealthy and well known for two hundred years. Though Theodore ’s father was able to give his family everything they needed or desired, he could not give this little son health and strength, for the baby was born frail and weakly. He suffered so with asthma that his anxious parents feared he could not live long

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CLARA BARTON, “THE ANGEL OF THE BATTLEFIELD”

M ISS CLARA BARTON, a quiet little old lady, used to tell stories of her childhood among the hills of central Massachusetts. She remembered how she was taken to the village school for the first time, and how the teacher, a tall, kind-looking man, put her in the spelling class with the smallest children, to study such words as dog and cat . “I don’t spell there,” said little Clara; “I spell in Artichoke .” And the small three-year-old showed her contempt for words of three letters by turning the

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HENRY W. LONGFELLOW, THE AMERICAN CHILDREN’S POET

L IVING in Portland, Maine, a town of rare beauty, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow could hardly have helped being a poet, even if he had tried. He was born in a big, square, three-story house, close to the edge of Casco Bay, one of the largest and loveliest harbors in the world. Portland stands on several wooded hills, overlooking the bay, which is said to contain three hundred and sixty-five small islands—one for every day in the year. On the blue water the green islands sparkle like emeralds on a s

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