The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Story of Our Country, Edited by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut

Title: The Story of Our Country

Every Child Can Read

Editor: Jesse Lyman Hurlbut

Release Date: May 16, 2010 [eBook #32402]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY***

E-text prepared by Emmy, Tor Martin Kristiansen,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)
from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive
(http://www.archive.org)

THE STORY
OF
OUR COUNTRY

EVERY CHILD CAN READ

EDITED BY

REV. JESSE LYMAN HURLBUT, D.D.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A TALK WITH THE YOUNG READER
ABOUT THE HISTORY OF OUR
COUNTRY

If our young traveler knew nothing of history he might fancy that it had been always this way, or that it had taken thousands of years for all those cities to be built and these great fields to be cleared and cultivated. Yet if he had been here only three hundred years ago he would have seen a very different sight. He could not then have gone over the country by railroad, for such a thing had never been thought of. He could not have gone by highroad, for there was not a road of any kind in the whole length and breadth of the land. Nowhere in this vast country would he have seen a city or town; nowhere a ploughed field, a farmhouse, or a barn; nowhere a horse, cow, or sheep; nowhere a man with a white or a black face. Instead of great cities he would have seen only clusters of rude huts; instead of fertile farms, only vast reaches of forest; instead of tame cattle, only wild and dangerous beasts; instead of white and black men, only red-skinned savages.

Just think of it! All that we see around us is the work of less than three hundred years! No doubt many of you have read in fairy tales of wonderful things done by the Genii of the East, of palaces built in a night, of cities moved miles away from their sites. But here is a thing as wonderful and at the same time true, a marvel wrought by men instead of magical beings. These great forests have fallen, these great fields have been cleared and planted, these great cities have risen, these myriads of white men have taken the place of the red men of the wild woods, and all within a period not longer than three times the life of the oldest men now living. Is not this as wonderful as the most marvelous fairy tale? And is it not better to read the true tale of how this was done than stories of the work of fairies and magicians? Let us forget the Genii of the East; men are the Genii of the West, and the magic of their work is as great as that we read of in the fables of the "Arabian Nights."

The story of this great work is called the "History of the United States." This story you have before you in the book you now hold. You do not need to sit and dream how the wonderful work of building our noble nation was done, for you can read it all here in language simple enough for the youngest of you to understand. Here you are told how white men came over the seas and found beyond the waves a land none of them had ever seen

Read on and you will learn of more wonderful things still. The history of the past hundred years is a story of magic for our land. In it you will learn of how the steamboat was first made and in time came to be seen on all our rivers and lakes; of how the locomotive was invented and railroads were built, until they are now long enough in our country to go eight times round the earth; of the marvels of the telegraph and telephone—the talking wire; of the machines that rumble and roar in a thousand factories and work away like living things, and of a multitude of marvels which I cannot begin to speak of here.

And you will learn how men kept on coming, and wars were fought, and new land was gained, and bridges were built, and canals were dug, and our people increased and spread until we came to be one of the greatest nations on the earth, and our cities grew until one of them was the largest in the world except the vast city of London. All this and more you may learn from the pages of this book. It is written for the boys and girls of our land, but many of their fathers and mothers may find it pleasant and useful to read.

There are hundreds who do not have time to read large histories, which try to tell all that has taken place. For those this little history will be of great service, in showing them how, from a few half-starved settlers on a wild coast, this great nation has grown up. How men and women have come to it over the seas as to a new Promised Land. How they have ploughed its fields, and gathered its harvests, and mined its iron and gold, and built thousands of workshops, and fed the nations with the food they did not need for themselves. Year by year it has grown in wealth, until now it is the richest country in the world. Great it is, and greater it will be. But I need say no more. The book has its own story to tell. I only lay this beginning before you as a handy stepping-stone into the history itself. By its aid you may cross the brook and wander on through the broad land which lies before you.

THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY

CHAPTER I

COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR

Do you know what this meant? It was what is called a World's Fair, and was in honor of a wonderful event that took place four hundred years before.

Some of you may think that white men have always lived in this country. I hope you do not all think so, for this is not the case. A little more than four hundred years ago no white man had ever seen this country, and none knew that there was such a country on the face of the earth.

It was in the year 1492, that a daring sailor, named Christopher Columbus, crossed a wide ocean and came to this new and wonderful land. Since then men have come here by the millions, and the mighty nation of the United States has grown up with its hundreds of towns and cities. In one of these, which bears the name of Chicago, the grand Columbian World's Fair was held, in honor of the finding of America by the great navigator four hundred years before.

This is what I have set out to tell you about. I am sure you will all be glad to know how this broad and noble land, once the home of the wild red men, was found and made a home for the white people of Europe.

Some of you may have been told that America was really discovered more than four hundred years before Columbus was born. So it was. At that time some of the bold sailors of the northern countries of Europe, who made the stormy ocean their home, and loved the roll of the waves, had come to the frozen island of Iceland. And a ship from Iceland had been driven by the winds to a land in the far west which no man had ever seen before. Was this not America?

Soon after, in the year 1000, one of these Northmen, named Leif Ericson, also known as Leif the Lucky, set sail for this new land. There he found wild grapes growing, and from them he named it Vinland. This in our language would be called Wineland.

After him came others, and there was fighting with the red men, whom they called Skrellings. In the end the Northmen left the country, and before many years all was forgotten about it. Only lately the story has been found again in some old writings. And so time went on for nearly five hundred years more, and nothing was known in Europe about the land beyond the seas.

Now let us go from the north to the south of Europe. Here there is a kingdom called Italy, which runs down into the Mediterranean Sea almost in the shape of a boot. On the western shore of this kingdom is a famous old city named Genoa, in which many daring sailors have dwelt; and here, long ago, lived a man named Columbus, a poor man, who made his living by carding wool.

This poor wool-carder had four children, one of whom (born about 1436) he named Christopher. Almost everybody who has been at school in the world knows the name of this little Italian boy, for he became one of the most famous of men.

Many a boy in our times has to help his father in his shop. The great Benjamin Franklin began work by pouring melted tallow into moulds to make candles. In the same way little Columbus had to comb wool for his father, and very likely he got as tired of wool as Franklin did of candles.

The city he lived in was full of sailors, and no doubt he talked to many of them about life on the wild waters, and heard so many stories of danger and adventure that he took the fancy to go to sea himself.

At any rate we are told that he became a sailor when only fourteen years old, and made long and daring voyages while he was still young. Some of those were in Portuguese ships down the coast of Africa, of which continent very little was known at that time. He went north, too; some think as far as Iceland. Who knows but that he was told there of what the Northmen had done?

Columbus spent some time in the island of Madeira, far out in the Atlantic ocean, and there the people told him of strange things they had seen. These had come over the seas before the west winds and floated on their island shores. Among them were pieces of carved wood, and canes so long that they would hold four quarts of wine between their joints. And the dead bodies of two men had also come ashore, whose skins were the color of bronze or copper.

These stories set Columbus thinking. He was now a man, and had read many books of travel, and had studied all that was then known of geography. For a time he lived by making maps and charts for ship captains. This was in the city of Lisbon, in Portugal, where he married and settled down and had little boys of his own.

At that time some of the most learned people had odd notions about the earth. You may have seen globes as round as an orange, with the countries laid out on them. But the people then had never seen such a globe, and the most of

This seems very absurd, does it not? But you must remember that people then knew very little about the earth they lived on, and could not understand how people could keep on a round globe like flies on a ball of glass.

But there were some who thought the earth to be round, and Columbus was one of these.

At that time silk and spices and other rich goods were brought from China and India, thousands of miles to the east, by caravans that traveled overland. Columbus thought that by sailing west, over the broad Atlantic, he would come to these far countries, just as a fly may walk around the surface of an orange, and come to the place it started from.

The more Columbus thought about this, the more certain he became that he was right. He was so sure of it that he set out to try and make other people think the same way. He wanted ships with which to sail across the unknown seas to the west, but he had no money of his own to buy them with.

Ah! what a task poor Columbus now had. For years and years he wandered about among the kings and princes of Europe, but no one would believe his story, and many laughed at him and mocked him.

First he tried Genoa, the city where he was born, but the people there told him he was a fool or had lost his senses.

Then he went to the king of Portugal. This king was a rascal, and tried to cheat him. He got his plans from him, and sent out a vessel in secret, hoping to get the honor of the discovery for himself. But the captain he sent was a coward and was scared by the rolling waves. He soon came back, and told the king that there was nothing to be found but water and storm. King John, of Portugal, was very sorry afterward that he had tried to rob Columbus of his honor.

Columbus was very angry when he heard what the king had done. He left Portugal for Spain, and tried to get the king and queen of that country to let him have ships and sailors. But they were at war with a people called the Moors, and had no money to spare for anything but fighting and killing.

Columbus stayed there for seven long years. He talked to the wise men, but they made sport of him. "If the earth is round," they said, "and you sail west, your ships will go down hill, and they will have to sail up hill to come back. No ship that was ever made can do that. And you may come to places where the waters boil with the great heat of the sun; and frightful monsters may rise out of the sea and swallow your ships and your men." Even the boys in the street got to laughing at him and mocking him as a man who had lost his wits.

After these many years Columbus got tired of trying in Spain. He now set out for France, to see what the king of that country would do. He sent one of his brothers to England to see its king and ask him for aid.

He was now so poor that he had to travel along the dusty roads on foot, his little son going with him. One day he stopped at a convent called La Rabida, to beg some bread for his son, who was very hungry.

The good monks gave bread to the boy, and while he was eating it the prior of the convent came out and talked with Columbus, asking him his business. Columbus told him his story. He told it so well that the prior believed in it. He asked him to stay there with his son, and said he would write to Isabella, the queen of Spain, whom he knew very well.

So Columbus stayed, and the prior wrote a letter to the queen, and in the end the wandering sailor was sent for to come back to the king's court.

Queen Isabella deserves much of the honor of the discovery of America. The king would not listen to the wandering sailor, but the queen offered to pledge her jewels to raise the money which he needed for ships and sailors.

Columbus had won. After years and years of toil and hunger and disappointment, he was to have ships and sailors and supplies, and to be given a chance to prove whether it was he or the wise men who were the fools.

But such ships as they gave him! Why, you can see far better ones every day, sailing down your rivers. Two of them did not even have decks, but were like open boats. With this small fleet Columbus set sail from Palos, a little port in Spain, on the 3d of August, 1492, on one of the most wonderful voyages that has ever been known.

Away they went far out into the "Sea of Darkness," as the Atlantic ocean was then called. Mile after mile, day after day, on and on they went, seeing nothing but the endless waves, while the wind drove them steadily into the unknown west.

The sailors never expected to see their wives and children again. They were frightened when they started, and every day they grew more scared. They looked with staring eyes for the bleak fogs or the frightful monsters of which they had been told. At one place they came upon great tracts of seaweed, and thought they were in shallow water and would be wrecked on banks of mud. Then the compass, to which they trusted, ceased to point due north and they were more frightened than ever. Soon there was hardly a stout heart in the fleet except that of Columbus.

The time came when the sailors grew half mad with fear. Some of them made a plot to throw Columbus overboard and sail home again. They would tell the people there that he had fallen into the sea and been drowned.

It was a terrible thing to do, was it not? But desperate men will do dreadful things. They thought one man had better die than all of them. Only good fortune saved the life of the great navigator.

One day a glad sailor called his comrades and pointed over the side. A branch of a green bush was floating by with fresh berries on it. It looked as if it had just been broken off a bush. Another day one of them picked from the water a stick which had been carved with a knife. Land birds were seen flying over the ships. Hope came back to their hearts. They were sure now that land must be near.

October 11th came. When night fell dozens of men were on the lookout. Each wanted to be the first to see land. About 10 o'clock that night, Columbus, who was looking out over the waves, saw a light far off. It moved up and down like a lantern carried in a man's hand.

Hope now grew strong. Every eye looked out into the darkness. About two o'clock in the morning came the glad cry of "Land! Land!" A gun was fired from the leading vessel. One of its sailors had seen what looked like land in the moonlight. You may be sure no one slept any more that night.

When daylight came the joyful sailors saw before them a low, green shore, on which the sunlight lay in beauty; men and women stood on it, looking in wonder at the ships, which they thought must be great white-winged birds. They had never seen such things before. We can hardly think what we would have done if we had been in their place.

When the boats from the ships came to the shore, and Columbus landed, clad in shining armor, and bearing the great banner of Spain, the simple natives fell to the ground on their faces. They thought the gods had come from heaven to visit them.

Some of the red-skinned natives wore ornaments of gold. They were asked by signs where they had got this gold, and pointed south. Soon all were on board again, the ships once more spread their sails, and swiftly they flew southward before the wind.

Day by day, as they went on, new islands arose, some small, some large, all green and beautiful. Columbus thought this must be India, which he had set out to find, and he called the people Indians. He never knew that it was a new continent he had discovered.

The month of March of the next year came before the little fleet sailed again into the port of Palos. The people hailed it with shouts of joy, for they had mourned their friends as dead.

Fast spread the news. When Columbus entered Barcelona, where the king and queen were, bringing with him new plants, birds and animals, strange weapons, golden ornaments, and some of the red-skinned natives, he was received as if he had been a king. He was seated beside the king; he rode by his side in the street; he was made a grandee of Spain; all the honors of the kingdom were showered on him.

We here recall the incident of Columbus and the egg. A dinner was given in his honor and many great men were there. The attention Columbus received made some people jealous. One of them with a sneer asked Columbus if he did not think any one else could have discovered the Indies. In answer Columbus took an egg from a dish on the table and handing it to the questioner asked him to make it stand on end.

After trying several times the man gave it up. Columbus, taking the egg in his hand, tapping it gently on one end against the top of the table so as to break the shell slightly, made it balance.

"Any one could do that," said the man. "So any one can discover the Indies after I have shown him the way," said Columbus.

It was his day of pride and triumph. Poor Columbus was soon to find out how Spain treated those who had given to it the highest honor and the greatest riches. Three times again he sailed to the New World, and once a base Spanish governor sent him back to Spain with chains upon his limbs. Those chains he kept hanging in his room till he died, and asked that they should be buried with him.

They who had once given him every honor, now treated him with shameful neglect. He who had ridden beside the king and dined with the highest nobles of Spain, became poor, sad and lonely.

He died in 1506, fourteen years after his great discovery.

Then Spain, which had treated him so badly, began to honor his memory. But it came too late for poor Columbus, who had been allowed to die almost like a pauper, after he had made Spain the richest country in Europe.

CHAPTER II

THREE GREAT DISCOVERERS

They might have kept on owning these islands and raising these fruits for many years to come, if they had not been so cruel to the people that they rose against them, and with the help of the United States Government the islands were taken from Spain.

When Columbus told the nobles and people of Spain of his wonderful discovery, and showed them the plants and animals, the gold and other things, he had found on these far-off islands, it made a great excitement in that country.

You know how the finding of gold in Alaska has sent thousands of our own people to that cold country after the shining yellow metal. In the same way the gold which Columbus brought back sent thousands of Spaniards across the wide seas to the warm and beautiful islands of which the great sailor told them, where they hoped to find gold like stones in our streets.

Dozens of ships soon set sail from Spain, carrying thousands of people to the fair lands of the west, from which they expected to come back laden with riches. At the same time two daring sailors from England, John Cabot and his son Sebastian, crossed the ocean farther north, and found land where the Northmen had found it five hundred years before. In the seas into which the Cabots sailed, great fish were so plentiful that the ships could hardly sail through them, and bears swam out in the water and caught the fish in their mouths. That was certainly a queer way of fishing.

When the Cabots came back and told what they had seen, you may be sure the daring fishermen of Europe did not stay long at home. Soon numbers of their stout little vessels were crossing the ocean, and most of them came back so full of great codfish that the water almost ran over their decks.

Do you not think these fishermen were wiser than the Spaniards, who went everywhere seeking for gold, and finding very little of it? Gold is only good to buy food and other things; but if these can be had without buying they are better still. At any rate, the hardy fishermen thought so, and they were more lucky in finding fish than the Spaniards were in finding gold.

Thus the years passed on, and more and more Spaniards came to the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola (which is now known as Hayti or San Domingo). And some of them soon began to sail farther west in search of new lands. Columbus, in his last voyage, reached the coasts of South America and Central America and other Spanish ships followed to those new shores.

I might tell you many wonderful things about these daring men. One of them was named Balboa, whose story you will be glad to hear, for it is full of strange events. This man had gone to the island of Hispaniola to make his fortune, but he found there only bad fortune. He had to work on a farm, and in time he became so poor and owed so much money that it seemed as if he could never get out of debt. In fact he was in sad straits.

No doubt the people who had lent him money often asked him to pay it back again, and Balboa, who got into a worse state every day, at length took an odd way to rid himself of his troubles. A ship was about to set sail for the west, and the poor debtor managed to get carried aboard it in a barrel. This barrel came from his farm and was supposed to contain provisions, and it was not till they were far away from land that it was opened and a living man was found in it instead of salt beef or pork.

When the captain saw him he was much astonished. He had paid for a barrel of provisions, and he found something which he could not well eat. He grew so angry at being cheated that he threatened to leave Balboa on a desert island, but the poor fellow got on his knees and begged so hard for his life that the captain at length forgave him. But he made him work to pay his way, and very likely used the rope's end to stir him up.

Of course you have learned from your geographies where the Isthmus of Darien (now called Panama) is, that narrow strip of land that is like a string tying together the great continents of North and South America. It was to the town of Darien, on this isthmus, that the ship made its way, and here Balboa made a surprising discovery. Some of the Indian chiefs told him of a mighty ocean which lay on the other side of the isthmus, and that beyond that ocean was the wonderful land of gold which the

What would you have done if you had been in Balboa's place, and wanted gold to pay your debts? Some of you, I think, would have done what he did. You would have made your way into the thick forest and climbed the rugged mountains of the isthmus, until, like Balboa, you got to the top of the highest peak. And, like him, you would have been filled with joy when you saw in the far distance the vast Pacific ocean, its waves glittering in the summer sun.

Here was glory; here was fortune. The poor debtor had become a great discoverer. Before his eyes spread a mighty ocean, its waves beating on the shore. He hurried with his men down the mountain sides to this shining sea, and raised on its shores the great banner of Spain. And soon after he set sail on its waters for Peru, the land of gold. But he did not get very far, for the stormy weather drove him back.

Poor Balboa! he was to win fame, but not fortune, and his debts were never to be paid. A jealous Spanish governor seized him, condemned him as a traitor, and had his head cut off in the market place. And so ended Balboa's dream of gold and glory. I could tell you of other wonderful adventures in these new lands. There is the story of Cortez, who found the great kingdom of Mexico, and conquered it with a few hundred Spaniards in armor of steel. And there is the story of Pizarro, who sailed to Peru, Balboa's land of gold, and won it for Spain, and sent home tons of silver and gold. But these stories have nothing to do with the history of the United States, so we must pass them by and go back to the early days of the country in which we dwell.

The first Spaniard to set foot on what is now the United States was an old man named Ponce de Leon, who was governor of Porto Rico. If he had lived until now he would have been on our soil while on that island, for it now belongs to the United States. But no one had dreamed of our great republic four hundred years ago.

At that time there was a fable which many believed, which said that somewhere in Asia was a wonderful Fountain of Youth. It was thought that everybody who bathed in its waters would grow young again. An old man in a moment would become as fresh and strong as a boy. De Leon wanted youth more than he did gold, and like all men at that time he thought the land he was in was part of Asia, and might contain the Fountain of Youth. He asked the Indians if they knew of such a magic spring. The red men, who wanted to get rid of the Spaniards, by whom they had been cruelly treated, pointed to the northwest.

So, in the year 1513, old Ponce de Leon took ship and sailed away in search of the magic spring. And not many days passed before, on Easter Sunday, he saw before him a land so bright with flowers that he named it "Flowery Easter." It is still called Florida, the Spanish word for "flowery."

I am sure none of my young readers believe in such a Fountain of Youth, and that none of you would have hunted for it as old De Leon did. Up and down that flowery land he wandered, seeking its wonderful waters. He found many sparkling springs, and eagerly drank of and bathed in their cool, liquid waves, but out of them all he came with white hair and wrinkled face. In the end he gave up the search, and sailed away, a sad old man. Some years afterwards he came back again. But this time the Indians fought with the white men, and De Leon was struck with an arrow, and hurt so badly that he soon died. So he found death instead of youth. Many people go to Florida in our own days in search of health, but Ponce de Leon is the only man who ever went there to find the magical Fountain of Youth.

About twenty-five years afterwards another Spaniard came to Florida. It was gold and glory he was after, not youth. This man, Fernando de Soto, had been in Peru with Pizarro, and helped him to conquer that land of gold. He now hoped to find a rich empire for himself in the north.

So with nine ships and six hundred brave young men he sailed away from his native land. They were a gay and hopeful band, while their bright banners floated proudly from the mastheads, and waved in the western winds. Little did they dream of what a terrible fate lay before them.

I think you will say that De Soto deserved a bad fate when I tell you that he brought bloodhounds to hunt the poor Indians, and chains to fasten on their hands and feet. That was the way the Spaniards often treated the poor red men. He brought also two hundred horses for his armed men to ride, and a drove of hogs to serve them for fresh meat. And in the ships were great iron chests, which he hoped to take back full of gold and other precious things.

For two long years De Soto and his band traveled through the country, fighting Indians, burning their houses and robbing them of their food. But the Indians were brave warriors, and in one terrible battle the Spaniards lost eighty of their horses and many of their men.

In vain De Soto sought for gold and glory. Not an ounce of the yellow metal was found; no mighty empire was reached. He did make one great discovery, that of the vast Mississippi River. But he never got home to tell of it, for he died on its banks, worn out with his battles and marches, and was buried under its waters. His men built boats and floated down the great river to the Gulf of Mexico. Here, at length, they found Spanish settlements. But of that brave and gallant band half were dead, and the rest were so nearly starved that they were like living skeletons.

We must not forget that humble Italian traveler and explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who in 1499, saw the part of South America where lies the island of Trinidad. He afterwards reached the coast of Brazil. Some years later, when maps were made of the country he had visited, some one called it America. In later years this name was used for the whole continent. So what should have been called Columbia came to be called America.

CHAPTER III

THREE EARLY HEROES