Author of "Historic Boyhoods," "Historic Girlhoods," "Historic Inventions," etc. PHILADELPHIA GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1916, by George W. Jacobs & Company Published, October, 1916 All rights reserved Printed in U. S. A....

( Rhode Island, 1630 ) The good ship Lyon had been sixty-seven days outward bound from the port of Bristol, in England, when she dropped anchor early in February, 1630, at Nantasket, near the entrance of Boston Harbor, in New England. The ship had met with many winter storms, and passengers and crew were glad to see the shores of Massachusetts. On the ninth of February the Lyon slipped through a field of drifting ice and came to anchor before the little settlement of Boston. On board the ship wa

( New York, 1661 ) I The island of Manhattan, which is now tightly packed with the office-buildings and houses of New York, was in 1661 the home of a small number of families who had come across the Atlantic Ocean from the Netherlands to settle this part of the new world for the Dutch West India Company. There was a fort at the southern end of the island, sometimes known as the Battery, and two roads led from it toward the north. One of these roads followed the line of the street now called Broa

( Connecticut, 1675 ) One of the most interesting stories in the history of the American colonies is that of the adventures of the judges who voted for the execution of King Charles I of England and who fled across the water when his son came to the throne as Charles II. They were known as the regicides, a name given to them because they were held to be responsible for the king's death. When Charles II came back to England as king, after the days when Oliver Cromwell was the Lord Protector, he p

( Virginia, 1676 ) I There was great excitement in that part of the American colony of Virginia where Edmund Porter lived. It was in the month of May, 1676, and the place was the country just below the settlement of Henricus, on the James River, as one went down-stream toward the capital city of Jamestown. The Porters had a plantation not very far from Curles, which was the name of the place where their friend Nathaniel Bacon lived; and Nathaniel Bacon seemed to be the centre of the exciting eve

( Maryland, 1684 ) I "I'm riding south to St. Mary's to-morrow, Michael," said George Talbot. He gave his horse a slap on the flank that sent it toward the stable. "Want to come with me, and see something of the Bay?" "Yes indeed," said Michael Rowan. "You know, Mr. George, I always like to ride with you." Talbot smiled at the red-cheeked boy, whose black hair and blue eyes gave proof of his Irish blood. "You're loyal to the chief of the clan, aren't you, Michael? Well, if I were warden of the S

( Massachusetts, 1692 ) I The schoolmaster closed his book with a snap. "That's all for to-day," he said. "Be sure you know your lessons well to-morrow, for I expect visitors any day now, and I want my classes to make a good appearance." He was a pale young man with pleasant blue eyes, and his shoulders stooped as though he were used to sitting much of the time bent over a table. Most boys and girls liked him, because of his kindness and patience with them, but a few, such as there are to be fou

( Pennsylvania, 1706 ) I Jack Felton, coming back to his home from the woods that lay north of the town of Philadelphia, on a day in May, 1706, stopped at his friend's, Gregory Diggs, the shoemaker, to ask for a bit of leather for a sling he was making. There was an amusing stranger there, a round, red-faced man, lolling back in his chair, one knee crossed over the other. Small, sharp-featured Gregory was driving pegs into the sole of a boot while he listened to the other's talk. The stranger no

( South Carolina, 1718 ) I Antony Evans was rowing slowly round the southern point of Charles Town, the bow of his boat pointing out across the broad expanse of water that lay to the east. It was early morning of a bright summer day, and the harbor looked very inviting, the breeze freshening it with little dancing waves of deep blue, tipped with silver, and bringing the salt fragrance of the ocean to the sunlit town. Deep woods ringed the bay; here and there tall, stately palmettos standing out

( Georgia, 1732 ) I There was a man in England in the first half of the eighteenth century who became so impressed by the misfortunes of men thrown into prison for debt that he resolved to do what he could to help them. The man was James Oglethorpe, and the result of his resolve was the founding of the colony of Georgia, which in time became one of the original thirteen colonies of the United States. To owe money was regarded as a most serious crime in England in those days, at least four thousa

( Vermont, 1774 ) I A young fellow, raccoon skin cap on his head, with heavy homespun jacket, with breeches made of buckskin and tucked into the tops of light, supple doeskin boots, was running along the shore of a lake in the Green Mountain country on a winter afternoon in 1774. He went at a comfortable dog-trot, and every now and then he would slow up or stop and look about him with keen eyes. Some people would only have seen the lake, with thin, broken layers of ice floating out from the shor